Tags: magneticone, oscommerce, vtiger, vtiger crm integration for oscommerce, vtiger crm integration oscommerce, vtiger integration oscommerce

Sources from www.ecommerce-guide.com

Online store is one of the wonderful tools to drive more sales to your business. If you think this is another channel in marketing. One of the most cost effective way is use some of the commercial e-store software. That’s I found many offer in monthly subscription fees from $19.95 to $69.95 depend on the function or features of their shopping cart software. While you can pay a few extra dollars for shopping cart software when signing up for a hosting account or looking for a freelancer to design a layout for you. This is where Open Source software comes in to save thousand of your cost on setting up your own ecommerce business.

Open Source Software
Many like-minded programmers create software that costs nothing and can be edited just as freely. The result of this collaboration of professional programmers is software that is often as feature rich as its commercial competitors. Best of all, of course, it’s free. Open Source software is nothing new, but it was once considered to be lacking in features and incredibly difficult to install without the help of a trained professional. However, now many Open Source e-commerce packages are as intuitive as commercial solutions. And, with such a vibrant and active Open Source community, there are many options available and lots of support should you need it. To help you decide what’s a good fit for you, we’ve highlighted the features of five Open Source platforms we recommend.

osCommerce

osCommerce is one of the most widely used and highly respected shopping cart applications available. The software itself has been developed and improved over the past six years and new additions and add-ons are submitted on a daily basis. The result is a user-friendly, secure and stable e-commerce environment.

Zen Shopping Cart

The Zen shopping cart is another feature-packed, simple-to-use solution backed by a very strong community. As well as offering the same template design structure as osCommerce, Zen Cart offers an excellent range of advanced features that go beyond the general realms of shopping cart functionality. An e-mail and newsletter manager is a very beneficial tool and the flexibility in product and price options is also excellent.

Agora Shopping Cart

Agora Shopping Cart is actually only one Open Source product offered by Agora and it is a good one. The shopping cart and catalog can be completely customized to exactly match your requirements thanks to the use of CSS files. This also enables you to change the look and feel of your entire site in just a few minutes and with just one or two changes.

NoPCart

NopCart, created by NopDesign, is an extremely simple shopping cart application with the main difference when compared to others being that it is written entirely in JavaScript. This means you can use it on your Web site without having to have CGI access. One potential drawback is that NopCart is lacking in some of the more advanced features. It is only really possible to update basic product information, tax information and a minimum order level.

Commerce.Cgi

Commerce.Cgi is one of the oldest and best established of all e-commerce applications. Nearly 10 years have passed since it became the first Perl shopping basket, and being open source, that means a huge amount of development has ensued. As well as a mass of features, Commerce.Cgi provides a backend system that is simple to install and even simpler to manage.

VirtueMart

VirtueMart is an Open Source E-Commerce solution to be used together with a Content Management System (CMS) called Joomla! (and Mambo). Joomla! and VirtueMart are written in PHP and made easy for use in a PHP/MySQL environment.

FistCart

FishCart is an e-commerce system for products, services, online payment and online donation management. The unique of this software is they have a add-on module that gives you the tools to exporting FishCart orders into Quickbooks! This is a real boon for small businesses, saving mistakes and hours of tedium rekeying orders.

UberCart

Ubercart is an exciting open source e-commerce package that fully integrates your online store with Drupal, the leading open source content management system. This is a killer combination for anyone looking to build a community around a product, sell access to premium content, offer paid file downloads, and much much more!

Magento’s

Magento’s commercial open source business model yields a product that is superior for a fraction of the cost. They let you control every facet of your store, from merchandising to promotions and more. There are no limits to creativity with Magento.

PrestaShop

The PrestaShop e-Commerce Solution was built to take advantage of essential Web 2.0 innovations such as dynamic AJAX-powered features and next-generation ergonomy. PrestaShop guides users through your product catalog intelligently and effortlessly, turning intrigued visitors into paying customers.

Tags: e-commerce shopping cart, e-commerce shopping carts, ecommerce shopping cart, ecommerce shopping carts, oscommerce, shopping carts, shopping carts software, zen cart

Sources from www.ecommerce-guide.com

osCommerce is a powerful and open source e-commerce storefront system, that's not without a few shortcomings. We pointed out a few of them in our review here a little while back. We also pointed out that one of its great strengths was its extensibility, which is manifested in many user-contributed modules as well as spin-offs. Two such spin-offs of osCommerce are Zen Cart and CRE Loaded — both of which are based on osCommerce and both of which enhance it in a number of ways.

One of the most disturbing items that I found when originally evaluating osCommerce was its lack of a proper security setup for an administrator. I'm pleased to report that both Zen Cart and CRE Loaded have addressed this issue and both have some form of a proper administrator login. Both of these applications are based on osCommerce and as such have a similar core base of functionality and operations. Where they differ is in the new modules/features added and how close or how far they stray from their progenitor.

Zen Cart

Zen Cart carries the moniker, "the art of e-commerce" as its tagline and as a virtual mission statement for how the software should work. Installation of Zen Cart, much like osCommerce, is simple and easy to follow. The step-by-step installation goes a step beyond the ordinary by alerting you if something is not properly configured, for example file permissions. Though this may sound trivial at first, it can be a serious troubleshooting issue later on, as file permissions are not always what they should or need to be right off the bat. By identifying any potential 'gotchas' at the installation phase Zen-Cart facilitates a pleasant installation experience.

This setup screen in Zen Cart allows users to create electronic coupons.

Though Zen Cart is based on osCommerce and has a similar menu setup, the default setup does not look like a typical osCommerce installation. The main Zen Cart Admin screen starts with a "dashboard" type approach that lays out the core statistics of your e-commerce activities (hits, sales, customers, products, orders). This is different than the default osCommerce (and CRE Loaded) main screen, which is a list of admin options. From a business point of view, starting with the core statistics is probably a good thing and gives you an immediate first glance at what's going on. From an admin point of view though, you need to navigate through the lengthy pull down menus to get to the various administrative options. For a novice the pull-down menus may seem a bit overwhelming at first.

The default configuration of Zen Cart does not, for some reason, have an inline WYSIWYG HTML editor enabled (that makes editing certain content easier) by default. For that you'll have to select the option under the configuration menu and enable it.

Added Features

Beyond some aesthetic changes, the major differences between osCommerce and Zen Cart come from Zen Cart's long list of added features. Among the modules included are a Gift Certificate/Voucher module which allows you to create, send and manage the digital coupons. The Downloads Manager enables you to effectively manage downloadable sales (pdf or other media files). Attribute configuration options in the Download module allow you to configure how many days the download is available for and how many downloads per purchaser.

Zen Cart also has an option that allows for integrating phpBB bulletin board support, though you'll need to install that software on your own separately.

I found the documentation for Zen Cart to be very un-zen in that it is disparate, text heavy and not always easy to follow or understand. There is a 59-page Administrator Manual that is available as a separate download, but unfortunately it is not up to date and currently matches Zen Cart v1.1.2. This large tome is detailed and indexed properly but is likely overwhelming for the average user. There is a much simpler "First Steps To Setting Up A Cart, Newbie Guide" that a user contributed in the support forums that, though less detailed, is probably sufficient enough to get going with the application and to properly set up a reasonable storefront.

One of the Index page templates included in Zen Cart. 

CRE Loaded

CRE Loaded looks and feels much like osCommerce (as opposed to Zen Cart which has its own Zen Cart "look" by default) such that it even carries the osCommerce logo (by default before customization). The purpose of CRELoaded is to supercharge osCommerce - a purpose which is stamped on the footnote of every page with the statement, Powered by osCommerce Supercharged by CRE Loaded Team. 

Installation of CRE Loaded lacks the "gotchas" notification for file permissions that Zen Cart has. This can be a bit annoying once you get into the program and realize that you need to go back to your server to set the appropriate permission. The installation setup also does not allow you set up the original Admin user/password setup. Though, if you read the README.txt file (which I didn't) you'll discover what the default is admin@localhost/admin). The administrative capabilities of CRE Loaded are greater than those of Zen Cart, as it includes multi-admin capabilities, which allow more than one admin to be specified as well as permissions for different admins.

The Store Management and Setup page in CRE Loaded allows users control over all functions of an e-commerce Web site.

Added Features 

All told CRE Loaded currently boasts 39 additional modules over a default osCommerce installation. Some of these perform the same functionality as Zen Cart like the Download controller and Gift Voucher/Coupon features. Then there are others that are not, including a Newsdesk, FAQdesk, Wishlist, Banner Module that includes Google Adsense code examples and an Affiliate manager. 

I've always thought that affiliate marketing is a powerful addition to an e-commerce business as it helps to expand your marketing reach by easily allowing those who want to help you sell and promote your product to do so. The Affiliate Program module allows you to specify the per sale payment percentage rate as well as allowing for a tiered structure that is based on sales performance.

Like most affiliate programs, the program is banner advertising based and relies on a user cookie to determine if the sale came from a buyer that originally clicked on an affiliate advertisement. The Affiliate Program module user configuration menu sets the lifetime for the cookie and also the payment threshold at which point the affiliate is paid, which can be via PayPal, check or bank. Affiliate sign-up is user driven and done through an online setup. Affiliate administration by the site owner is easily handled via the Affiliate menu screen which lets you know exactly what's going on (hits, clickthroughs, affiliates) with your affiliate program.

In looking for CRE Loaded documentation I kept getting a link to a "for sale" manual that Chain Reaction Web (the people behind CRE Loaded) is trying to sell. (There's nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs to make a living, right?) The osCommerce manuals, as well as the osCommerce support forums, offer a wealth of expertise if you want to save the small expense. Then, of course, there is always the trial and error method of figuring things out yourself.

The categories/products setup page in CRE Loaded allows users to define product categories to be included in an online storefront.

Zen Cart vs. CRE Loaded

Where Zen Cart and CRE Loaded differ most is not necessarily in their included list of added features but rather in how they treat them. For example, both applications include admin menus for Layout boxes and catalog entries. They have the same essential functionality. They just look different and lay out the features in a different way (CRE Loaded image vs. Zen Cart images.)

I don't know that one approach is necessarily better than the other. They're just different.

At present, the affiliate module, as well as the robust admin management features, are real kickers for me — which is why, if forced to choose between the two disciples of osCommerce, I'd lean towards CRE Loaded. That said, they are both excellent e-commerce storefronts that dramatically improve the osCommerce experience to the point that I would recommend (for casual, non-hard core users that fancy themselves as development types) to stay away from the default stable osCommerce and instead choose from its spawn.

Whether supercharged by CRE Loaded or spiritualized by Zen Cart, you'll be hard pressed to find an osCommerce - or for that matter any Free Open Source e-commerce storefront application - that is as good as either of these robust applications.


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Store Managers for osCommerce, X-Cart, CRE Loaded, Zen Cart

Tags: cre loaded, oscommerce, x-cart, zen cart

Today, more and more consumers are heading to Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) as their first stop when purchasing goods online. These engines place the offerings of many online merchants side by side, allowing potential customers to make easy price and feature comparisons. Let’s name some of them: Google Base, Shopping.com, Shopzilla.com, Yahoo Shopping, MSN Shopping, Price Grabber, Amazon.com, Kelkoo, MySimon, and others.   

Price comparison service allows potential customers to see lists of prices for specific products. Usually, these services do not sell the goods themselves, but get and store prices of online stores which, actually, sell these products. These engines offer many options not offered by regular search engines, including the ability to sort products by price, see merchant ratings, and get updated merchant information.  
Comparison Shopping Engines help visitors to choose from a variety of products and to get wanted product for better price. Many merchants place their products in several shopping engines simultaneously. They know – the more people see their goods the profit they will get as a result.   

To start using such Comparison Shopping Engines you need to place there a list of your products with some details, called Product Feed. In order to start you have to register an account with engine, prepare a product feed with a list of products, prices, descriptions (options, unique features), following every engine’s requirements. Uploading and monitoring your data is quite time consuming, especially if you want to register at couple of such engines and place a list of thousands products.   

It means you will need some professional help. You may choose among free and commercial software. I advise you to try All-in-One Data Feed Modules Pack by MagneticOne.com. MagneticOne created such feeds pack for osCommerce, X-Cart, Zen Cart and CRE Loaded shopping carts. This is thoroughly developed software, which will help you to export your products to all of the most popular Comparison Shopping Engines.    

All-in-One Data Feeds Pack by MagneticOne has numerous benefits for your store:  
 … allows you to list products in the most popular Comparison Shopping Engines  
 … gives you the possibility to get statistics from Comparison Shopping Sites so you can keep track of the results  
 … set up once and runs steady  
 … keeps you updated (includes 6 months of software updates)  
 … no monthly payments  
 … greatly increases the number of sales     

The reason this software is better than similar free one is that free software usually supports only one Comparison Shopping Engine and has limited functionality. Which means if you want to broadcast your products in multiple engines you have to make separate data feed for each of them. As every shopping engine has the requirement of its own for Product Feed. So you need to follow all instructions for each separate engine. That's why you need All-in-One Data Feeds Pack by MagneticOne. This software will do this job for you!   

If you want your online store to be successful, competitive, and bring profit – you really ought to use All-in-One Data Feeds for osCommerce, X-Cart, Zen Cart and CRE Loaded shopping carts Pack. See how it works yourself at MagneticOne.com/store

Tags: amazon.com, cre loaded, google base, kelkoo, msn shopping, mysimon, oscommerce, price grabber, shopping.com, shopzilla.com, x-cart, yahoo shopping, zen cart
Current Location: Ukraine

A site map is a graphical representation of the architecture of a web site. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site.

While some developers argue that site index is a more appropriately used term to relay page function, web visitors are used to seeing each term and generally associate both as one and the same. However, a site index is often used to mean an A-Z index that provides access to particular content, while a site map provides a general top-down view of the overall site contents. -Wikipedia.org

Have you ever seen it? Of course you have, because almost all web-pages on the Internet have got it. When I saw a site map for the first time, I was wondered: why and what was it  made for. Nowadays nobody faces this question. Site maps are inalienable parts of usable web sites. Site maps help visitors to find exactly the information they are looking for on your web-page by clicking on a hyperlink from the list. Sitemaps provide users with an overview of a web-resource's content and make it easy for your visitors to find needed products or services.

But the most important role of a site map is its great support in Search Engine Optimization. That is:

• All pages (i.e. hyperlinks of these pages) included in a site map will be indexed by search engines’ web crawlers and your web-page will be successfully registered in Search Engines. It is a real competitive edge, if potential customers find exactly your web-site while looking for needed information at Search Engines.
• Keywords are included in hyperlinks and this is an additional factor, which makes a rank of your page higher, so it'll will appear in a list of search results on first pages. Now customers find your web-store on Google or Yahoo quicker and without any problem! 

Have you ever tried to manually create and update a site map of your own? Creation of a site map is easy… if your web-site has only 10 pages, but if there are 50, 100 and even more pages… It can take lots of time and efforts. All of this you can save using software for creating site maps. Your site map has to be 100% professional! And a software will do it in absolute perfection! Here is one of the best – Site Map Module for all sopping carts. It is a very powerful and flexible module for dynamic site map generation. It’s truly efficient, reliable and cost effective solution. With help of this module you will achieve two important goals: your visitors will navigate your web store easily and fast, creation of a site map will give the best search results for your online store.

Here are just few features of the Site Map Module:
 

·         very easy installation - start using it in 5 minutes

·         ability to restrict depth of categories and products to be shown in generated site map

·         you can add unlimited number of custom links

·         advanced Admin Section available for advanced users

·         supports SEO links (must have enabled for excellent results)

There are modules for osCommerce and others shopping carts - http://www.magneticone.com/store 

The modules will create a complete, professional and effective site maps for you in few minutes. You and your visitors will be for sure satisfied!

Tags: oscommerce, site map, sitemap
Current Location: Ternopil, Ukraine

I guess if you read it, my friend, you have doubts about RSS: do I really need to use it? Let’s try to find out it together.

Abbreviation RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication and means a specific way of delivering information from web-pages to your page, PC or blog. «RSS-channel» or «RSS-stream» — it’s a regularly updated content of Internet sites with hyperlinks to a full version of content (news, article, interview etc.) For example, you can make your news appearing on other sites or information from other web-pages placed on your Internet site. RSS is open file format for information export, which is used by variety of sites/services, RSS-aware software and most popular Internet browsers (like FireFox, Internet Explorer, Safari etc.) to review and import your products.

At the beginning RSS was made to be used to make it easy for publishers to share and display their content on other sites. RSS exists already for a few years and it’s becoming more and more popular online marketing tool. Now RSS use the majority of Internet sites. Usage of RSS is going strong all over the world. And there are reasons for that! 

You can get many benefits of using RSS. Here are few of them:

• using RSS you will communicate effectively with your targeted audiences
• RSS improves your site’s visibility
• RSS-translation – it’s a great possibility to make your auditorium wider
• this format is well-known and acceptable by mostly Internet resources
• you can know the newest information of your interest
• sites and its visitors, which receive information from you will get all the updating directly after it was made in real time
• providing a RSS feed you remind to your customers about your site, your new offers, inform them about campaigns etc. - so, you are always keep in touch with your targeted customers
• with RSS you don't need to use spam to deliver your information. Internet uses choose it according their interests and get the newest information from you in real time
• with RSS much more content of your web-page will be indexed by searching boots - so, you will get higher search engine ranking
  

All of that is great things for increasing your sales, isn’t it? 

Here is a hyperlink on a helpful RSS Module for osCommerce online stores. You can try it for better understanding and feel its benefits in real life: http://www.magneticone.com/store/oscommerce.modules/oscommerce.rss.export

This Module allows to syndicate information from your store using popular syndication formats. The software supports many languages, so you can deliver content to end-users on any language you need. To view your RSS content, your end-users have to download RSS aggregator. It easy and free.  

I hope now you agree with me that RSS is one of powerful tools of Internet Marketing, which helps you to reach your goal in sales. And This is the right time to start using RSS

Good luck!

Tags: oscommerce, rss, rss feed, rss module
Current Location: Ternopil, Ukraine