Over the last month, we’ve been actively working on a great new addition to our site, appropriately named My Account. The new section is split up into three parts.

Order History

Have you ever run into issues where you’ve downloaded music, but then had your hard drive crash or had iTunes (or another app) be unable to find your music? In the past, we’ve always been open to helping our customers with addressing these concerns, but the order history section makes it even better.

Within the new order history area, you can see all of details for every transaction you’ve made since our new site was introduced. You have the option of viewing and printing the receipt, as well as re-downloading your purchase. We allow one reactivation of your purchase within 90 days of the purchase date. If your purchase was made longer than 90 days ago or has already been reactivated, a convenient request button is available. Should the need arise, this allow you to submit a request for approval to have your download links reactivated again.

Update Account Info

If you’ve moved or have the need to update your e-mail address or billing information, instead of having to wait until your next purchase to change this info, it’s now simple and easy to do so. Just login, change the applicable info, and you’re set!

Update Password

If you need to reset or change your password, this option is now conveniently available within the new my account section.

We’re sure these three new features will make the shopping experience on our site a little easier. If you’ve got any other ideas on what we can do better, please drop us a line.

Earlier this week we had the opportunity to sit down with Steven Kapp Perry on his Cricket and Seagull Fireside Chat to discuss LDSMusicNow. It was a great chance to talk about our vision of the future of LDS music, new and upcoming features, how to stay up to date on the latest LDS music and news on our site, and more. We hope you’ll enjoy the interview as much as we did. Click here to listen.

We’ve had a lot of fun over the last several months of 2009, especially as we’ve launched our new site and close to a dozen new features (see previous blog posts for more info). We’re eager to see how 2010 pans out, as we continue to roll out more new features (a my account section is coming soon), accessory items (such as CD storage solutions and ear buds), as well as more music, songbooks, and albums.

Thanks for your continued support. We wish you the best in 2010!

We’ve rolled out a small little feature we felt worth mentioning. If you ever purchase a full MP3 album, you’ll now be given the option to download the album cover at the same time.

For those that prefer to download the songs individually, the album cover will simply be another link available for download. If you prefer to download all songs at once in a compressed zip file, the album cover will conveniently be included.

One of the things we chose to do when we launched our new website was to launch with the ability to only pay with a credit card. Our old site offered credit card, PayPal, Google Checkout, and TrialPay payment options. Since PayPal’s consumer confidence is next to none, and, considering how many of our customers chose to pay with PayPal, we knew it was important to continue to offer the payment choices our customers would like to see. As a result, adding PayPal became a major priority after our new site launch at the beginning of November.

Now, less than 2 months later, we’ve introduced a slightly revised checkout that offers both PayPal payments as well as the ability to checkout as a guest. Although we love the smart account management ability of our checkout (meaning it realizes if you’re a new user or not), we know some of you prefer to not mess with creating accounts. The guest checkout function is just for you.

While many of these changes may not affect you, making your shopping experience as positive as possible is our goal at LDSMusicNow. Thanks for your continued support.

For the past several weeks, we’ve carefully been planning the launch of one of the more exciting new features of our new website, the LDSMusicNow Radio. What’s so special about the radio? It’s a great way for you to be able to listen to the thousands of songs available on our site–for FREE! The best part is, if you like the song, a convenient Buy Now button is available to quickly and easily add the song to your shopping cart.

Unlike many other online radios available, we’ve decided to add the ability to be able to skip the currently playing song in order to hear the next song in the queue. Similarly, you can return to the previous song you heard if you should desire. It’s a great way to skip over any songs you may not particularly care for, or listen to the ones you love.

In the future, we’ll also be looking at some new stations/channels enabling you to be able to hear music centered around specific themes or artists. For instance, a Greg Hansen station or missionary themed station could potentially be launched.

We’d love to hear which ones you’d like to see. Just leave a comment for this article to let us know the themes or artist channels that most interest you. In the meantime, we hope you’ll love the new LDSMusicNow radio as much as we do. Visit http://radio.ldsmusicnow.com to give it a try.

Have you ever been on a website and searched for something you know they have, but aren’t able to locate it? We realize our search isn’t perfect, but we’ve been making slight revisions to try to ensure a better shopping experience.

One of the neat new features we’ve recently implemented is known as a search suggestion. It’s a simple thing, and is something you’re probably used to seeing on Google. Essentially, if you misspell an artist’s name our site will say, “Did you mean…?” in an effort to help you locate the music you’re searching for.

Another small thing is that we’ve opened our search to also search within album and songbook descriptions. This is helpful for products like Especially For Youth where you may have previously searched for EFY and not received any results. Now you do!

We also analyze the search terms you use to help us be able to provide you with the music you want as well as continue to refine our search further.

Social media has become a major part of many of our lives, with some sites, like Facebook, having over 300 million active users. Well, we’ve finally jumped on the bandwagon, and you can follow LDSMusicNow on Twitter, or become a fan of us on Facebook.

What’s the benefit to you? We’ve been giving sneak peaks on free downloads and specials (for instance our Black Friday Sale). More plans are in the works as well.

We’d love to have you join us. The links needed to become a fan or follow us are below.

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ldsmusicnow

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ldsmusicnow

We know how important it is to have great music in your life, especially during the holidays. Traditionally, we’ve never offered sale prices, although we have offered multiple copy discounts (sheet music only) for choirs and family functions.

That’s all going to change. With our new site, just launched on November 1, the technology we’re using for our shopping cart enables us to provide great new features and, even better for you, sale prices! As a result, look forward to great new promotions for the holiday season and future years to come.

For this year’s Black Friday through Cyber Monday, we’ve chosen to offer a Buy 1 Get 1/2 OFF Sale. Should you purchase one full MP3 album at our standard $9.99 price, your second MP3 album will be priced at $4.99! How do you take advantage of this sale? No need for any special coupon codes. We wanted to make this easy. Simply add two MP3 albums to your cart, and the discount will automatically be reflected between November 27-30. Enjoy!

At the first of November, we launched our new LDSMusicNow website. This new site and redesign has been over a year in the making. We’ve carefully taken feedback from our customers, looked at industry trends, churned some ideas ourselves, and really have worked to ensure the best shopping experience possible for an online LDS music download site. What are a few of the new things you’ll see?

Smart, One Page Checkout – We’re really excited about our new checkout system. Have you ever hated going through 5-10 steps to finally make a purchase online? Our new checkout is one page. That’s it! Enter your e-mail address, and it’ll automatically determine if you’re a new user or not. Everything takes place on one page, and information can be saved to help cut down on future transactions.

Automatic Multiple Copy Discounts (Sheet Music Only) - If you purchase 5 copies or more of individual sheet music or songbooks, you’ll automatically receive our multiple copy discount at checkout.

RSS Feed - RSS feeds are a great way to stay up to date on a site without having to visit it on a daily basis. Most modern web browsers have RSS functionality built-in. As a result, simply click the RSS you see in the address bar (or on the left side of our site), and click subscribe. Free downloads, top songs, new/features releases, and more are broadcast via the RSS feed.

Audio Reviews – Steven Kapp Perry’s famous Cricket & Seagull radio show is a great way for LDS music enthusiasts to find out about some of the latest music available in the market. We’ve worked with Steven to acquire his radio interviews and reviews for the applicable music we carry. Just look for the Hear Audio Review button on any album/songbook page, and listen away!

Help Desk – As our site has grown, we’ve always made customer service a major focus. In order to help us provide a superior customer service experience, we’ve implemented an initiative help desk system. This allows us to more easily track any issues or questions that arise, and ensure they’re addressed in a timely manner.

Weekly Free Downloads - In the past, we’ve always offered free monthly downloads, but are thrilled to now be able to offer free weekly downloads of both MP3 and sheet music.

In addition to those features above that you can take advantage of now, we’ve got lots of exciting new features planned (one of them being the introduction of this very own blog). Some of these include additional payment methods during checkout, radio functionality, guest checkout, and more. Keep watching for these and great new content to come!

One of the major changes that has also occurred is the combination of our two sites, ldsmusicnow.com and ldstunesnow.com. Previously the two were segregated due to one selling MP3 downloads while the other being dedicated to sheet music downloads. We worked with Barry Hansen at Hansen Creative on the new design to be able to provide a great new way to navigate and find both music types with ease.

As always, we welcome your feedback and comments, and look forward to continuing to serve our valuable customers.