Google

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Tips to Use ClickBank Affiliate Program

 

1. Use the following sites where they evaluate ClickBank products. These sites can be helpful for a beginner like me to decide which products to promote.

http://www.clickbankguide.com/productreviews.htm
http://www.clickbankhotshots.com/
http://www.clickbankproductreview.com/

ClickBank Affiliate FAQ page: http://www.clickbank.com/affiliate_faq.html

2. Find products that are highly relevant to the content of your website or web pages.

3. Carefully read about the product from its vendor’s site before you start to promote it. If you don’t think the web site is trustworthy enough or the product has good quality, don’t promote that product. If you wouldn’t want to buy it, probably other people wouldn’t buy it either.

4. When you write reviews of ClickBank products to promote them, be a honest consumer rather than be a salesperson or an affiliate. Focus on the strengths of the product while frankly talking about flaws.

How to Have Magento Working on Godaddy

 

 

To have Magento working on GoDaddy Linux platform, you can follow a few steps from the installation instructions on forums from Internet:

1. Install Magento eCommerce application by downloading the latest Full Release Magento package (magento-1.3.0.zip), uploading the zip, and unarchiving it using the GoDaddy:FileManager:Unarchive function. Should unpack into a magento/ directory.

Note: There are also some special instructions on the forum for people who do not want to install to a magento/ directory but to the root.

2. Ensure that the directories app/etc , var , and media are writable by the web server. To do so, navigate to the directory with your FTP client and change to 777.

3. Make sure that you have the full mysql database name, and the correct address for where your mysql database is stored.

Still, people complains that the big problem is speed, it is painfully slow. Any optimizations help would be appreciated.

PS:
A common error, which usually comes up if you’re hosted by GoDaddy, is the no input file specified error.
There are a couple of things you can do to fix this, but we’ll start with the one that usually works. In your magento/ directory, there should be a file called php.ini. Rename this to php5.ini. If that doesn’t work, add the following to the end of your newly renamed php5.ini file:
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1
And if you’re still getting the error, add the following to the top of your .htaccess file:
Options -MultiViews

there’s a few more things that can be done, just check out the official posting about this issue here.

PPS

If you are needing a quick jump start with developing with Magento, I strongly recommend reading through the material provided by the Magento site.

Monday, March 30, 2009

Suggestions for magento on godaddy

 

with referring to this godaddy installation instructions for magento:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/5023/

I have almost successfully installed and run Magento on godaddy for a deluxe share hosting package with php5 environment: I can see the front page shown after the installation on godaddy, but magento is still not running properly: magento can run homepage, wishlist, popular search, etc all right, but it run into blank pages at many points, e.g. about us, customer service, etc. The only difference I can see is the step 10. select destination...leave at root default. I didn't do this because I have other program on it, so I chose a directory for the installation. And I did add php5.ini as the instruction shared, changing the .htaccess file by following the detailed guide for GoDaddy params also didn't work.

By all means, to my opinion, magento is not suitable to run on a share hosting package. Installing magento on Godaddy share hosting account can only be used for demonstration purpose, I guess.

Open Source Shopping Cart VirtueMart (VM) Together with CMS Joomla! (Mambo)

 

As the 4th topic, after:

  • Shopping Cart Focused Portal with 4 Open Source PHP Programs
  • Integrating Shopping cart like Magento, Zencart With Wordpress
  • Ubercart for Drupal to Combine a Fully Functional Community
  • here we have VirtueMart, an Open Source E-Commerce solution being used together with Content Management System (CMS) Joomla! (and Mambo). Joomla! and VirtueMart are written in PHP and made easy for use in a PHP/MySQL environment

    you can extend the Functionality of Joomla! and VirtueMart using Plugins, Components, Templates and Modules to make them do what you need.

    Furthermore, it's more than fair to also mention one commercial affiliate solution, which supports VirtueMart+Joomla!: VM Affiliate . It's is a complete affiliate solution designed specifically for VirtueMart and Joomla! It is J!1.5 native, and VM 1.1 compatible, yet supports any older version.

    Shopping Cart Focused Portal with 4 Open Source PHP Programs

    In previous blog,  Integrating Shopping cart like Magento, Zencart With A Wordpress Blog, we learnt that there are great benefits with having both shopping cart such as zen cart, magento, prestashop, oscommerce, etc.  integrated with wordpress into your Internet business, and someday shopping carts with integrated blogs will be the new community. This post takes a step further, talking about shopping cart focused portal with four open source php programs.

    Nowadays, many website hosting providers offer free open source programs that will enable you to create professional-grade websites that will help you build your business. These programs are all capable of producing websites for the purposes of search engine optimization, depending on how they are designed and constructed and what plugins are used, and they vary in terms of ease-of-use (learning curve), community support, flexibility, and Web 2.0 compatibility.

     

    1. Zen Cart

    Zen Cart is a shopping cart content management system that will help you generate pages for thousands of products. This can be used for any product-based website, and it can accept credit cards through Paypal or any other major online payment gateway.

    Adding products is as easy as writing in accurate descriptions and uploading images. Products can be arranged in categories and subcategories. This shopping cart is suitable for both physical and virtual products, but modifying it will require skills in graphic design because the standard template appears a bit outdated.

    This shopping cart can act as a standalone website, or it can be installed into a sub-directory of your main site.

    2. Joomla

    The Joomla content management systems is capable of creating dynamic websites that can contain a wide variety of interactive and visually impressive features. Many corporate and personal websites use this CMS because it can be easily modified, and it can manage and organize thousands of pages.

    There is a vast community of developers and designers that provides addons and plugins that are called "components" and "mambots". Free plugins such as discussion forums, shopping carts, media galleries, Google Adsense scripts, and blogs are available.

    Web pages in Joomla are considered "content items" that are categorized hierarchally in sections and categories. Each section contains categories, and as "content items" are created, they must be assigned to categories.

    In addition, there are hundreds of free Joomla templates available on the web that you can download and modify, or you can create your own template if you have some web-design skills.

    Alternatively, you may use Drupal.

     

    3. Wordpress

    The Wordpress CMS was specifically designed for blogging, but it can do that and a whole lot more. There are thousands of free templates and themes available online at the wordpress site.

    Wordpress is even easier to use than Joomla, and it enables users to share, create, and advertise their content. Wordpress plugins can be installed through any FTP program, and they can add shopping carts, analytics, and photo galleries to your site.

    Webpages are created either by blog posts or making new pages under the "Manage" tab. Links on the side or top menu can be modified under the "Blogroll" tab, and much like Joomla, themes can be changed on the fly under the "Presentation" tab.

    From an SEO (search engine optimization) perspective, this CMS is fairly effective in getting decent keyword ranking in Google and other search engines if you install the "All-in-one-seo-pack" plugin and build a site with solid content.

     

    4. Simple Machines Forum (SMF)

    Simple Machines Forum — SMF in short — is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.

    Its powerful custom made template engine puts you in full control of the lay-out of your message board and with our unique SSI - or Server Side Includes - function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other.

    SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software - and best of all it is and will always remain completely free.

    As well, alternatively, you may use phpBB or myBB.

    Sunday, March 29, 2009

    Integrating Shopping cart like Magento, Zencart With A Wordpress Blog


    Internet users have found blogs to be more compelling to look at than just shopping sites. Most blogs have written reviews and information relating to a product or service, allowing any web user to do their research before making a purchase. The review sites usually only provide a review and opinions, but don’t have a link saying where to buy.

    This is where having a shopping cart integrated with a Wordpress blog can benefit your Internet business. Instead of the customer going to other websites to read reviews and opinions about the product (by that time they may have forgotten your website), you can have your own reviews and comments linked to your products. This encourages the customer to stay on your website and helps them save time looking for other places for reviews and opinions.

    Additionally, the benefit of having a Wordpress blog integrated with your shopping cart system, is that it helps to increase your search engine rankings. With higher search engines rankings, your Internet business will be found much quicker and also help with becoming an authoritative site.

    Here are two integrations we look at:

    Magento: This is a relatively new e-Commerce system that is taking the e-Commerce Open Source market by storm. It’s very user friendly and is very powerful, just like how Wordpress has been very successful for many Internet businesses. Magento has an add-on extension called Lazzymonks Wordpress Integration 2.61, which allows Wordpress to be integrated with their system. You can easily access Wordpress from Magento’s administration as well and would save you the hassle of logging out of Magento and logging into Wordpress.

    ZenCart: This is the system I have been using for many years for many of my clients and own e-Commerce shops. It is easy to set up the Wordpress On Zencart add-on with a few installation files to upload. Though, I found it wasn’t matching the style of the shopfront at first with this basic add-on.

    In summary, with many Internet businesses seeing the growth of web users searching on blogs and search engines today, it would be unfortunate to see you lose sales because you did not have a blog integrated with your shopping cart. There are great benefits with having both these systems integrated into your Internet business and someday shopping carts with integrated blogs will be the new community.

    DIY to Get Free CBAds, Clickbank Mall, Search Box

     

     

    Everyone agrees that Affiliate Marketing is the best thing to do. But it is profitable only when you know the source of traffic. As an affiliate, you should be able to track your clicks and sales. This is more important when you are promoting the sites with the help of Google Adwords or any PPC.

    For instance, utilizing the Ads concept, a new form of high earning potential ClickBank Ads were designed. These CBAds have remarkable features and are much efficient in terms of earning power, for example

    1. You are awarded with full affiliate commission rather than pay per click for any sale

    2. The affiliate commission ranges upto 75% of the product price, so you can make good money.

    3. You have a perfect control over the Ads displayed.

    4. There are no restrictions for Ads placement.

    5. You have the flexibility to display the Ads depending upon your choice of keywords.

    In addition, you might be aware that CBTopSites is one of the best free Clickbank mall site available over the internet. This unique Clickbank mall is so flexible that you can alter the things as you like in it. You can edit the meta tags, meta description. Recently, it has gone a step further and provided the tracking ID concept.

    With the help of tracking ID, you can simply analyze how and from where you are getting the sale. So you can select your own tracking ID something like TID=blog/article/forum/PPC/Adwords/MSN/Yahoo/etc. Then it will be easier to monitor your sales and other related activity. It will also help you to compare and analyze the sales something like comparison charts.

    By having the tracking ID in your link, you can analyze whether to continue that promotion activity or not. So you will not be wasting your time and money on those unproductive methods.

    Saturday, March 28, 2009

    Import of ZenCart database into Magento using the osCommerce import tool

     

    By following the guide in the Wiki (http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/creating_an_oscommerce_import_profile) and renaming the database tables. Database table names are the main issue.

    Firstly, make a copy of existing Zen Cart db, then renamed all of the tables (in the copy). The reason to rename the tables was to remove the prefix (zencart_tablename renamed to tablename). Afterthat, the import tool did what it was suppose to . . . . . kind of!

    Here’s what the import tool did not do: It did not import references to additional photos, so every product was imported with only its default image. No attributes were imported. Some odd characters showed up in the product descriptions, but that could be to do with character sets, not sure. The product descriptions were dumped in to both the description field and the short description field. Product and category META did not import. Product and category sort settings were dropped.

    So, even after using the import tool—you will basically have to go back to every imported product and re-do. Customers and orders did import just fine, though.

    Today, more and more people like a lot of the features of Magento, and it had been seriously considering migrating. However, it is not sure if it is worth the effort—yet. Zen Cart works flawlessly and it feels a lot more stable. Zen Cart is, at least in the experience, much faster than Magento.

    Sunday, March 15, 2009

    25 Free Open Source Zencart Modules and Support Sites

     

    Here are 25 Free Open Source zencart modules and support sites:

     

  • Addons and Contributed Modules, shopping cart software | Zen Cart ...

    shopping cart software | Zen Cart Ecommerce Solution , Addons and Contributed Modules, Addons and ... Learn tips, tricks and secrets for your Zen Cart Sign up for our FREE ...

    • Free Zen Cart Modules & Scripts

      At PRO-Webs, we customize a lot of Zen Carts... To this end we have some cool scripts and workarounds you might find valuable. You can download most of these scripts and modules ...

      • Free Trial License Request

        Zen Cart Free Modules Zen Cart Addons Zen Cart Data Feeds ... 2CO is an authorized retailer for services provided by MagneticOne company

        • Free Shipping Module Bug - Zen Cart Support

          Free Shipping Module Bug General Questions ... I think I have found a bug with the free shipping module. I'm using a fresh install of 1.3.7.

          • Free Shopping Cart Diagnostic Utility

            Greatly help to diagnoze shopping cart configuration problems - osCommerce, CRE Loaded, Zen Cart, X-Cart

            • Home - Mod Your Zencart

              We welcome you to your modding source for your individual Zen-Cart! Feel free to contact us for a free quote for complete Zen-Cart modules, hosting, webdesign or an entire project ...

              • Free Shipping Module Bug - Zen Cart Support

                Free Shipping Module Bug General Questions ... Learn tips, tricks & secrets for your Zen Cart™ Sign up for our FREE Newsletter

                • Canada Post Module - Zen Cart Support

                  Canada Post Module Contributed/Addon Shipping Modules ... Learn tips, tricks & secrets for your Zen Cart™ Sign up for our FREE Newsletter

                  • zencartbuilder.com, Zen Cart modules, featuring Easy Populate Advanced

                    ... ecommerce shop, online shopping, ecommerce store, ecommerce modules, zen cart modules, zen ... This free Zen Cart template is an XHTML version of the Zen Cart Classic template, and is ...

                    • R+L Carriers Zen Cart Shipping Module (Freight) : Free Zen Cart ...

                      Free Zen Cart Templates 4 free shopping cart R+L Carriers Zen Cart Shipping Module (Freight) - "With over 40 years of service, R+L CARRIERS has grown from one truck to a fleet of ...

                      • Zen Cart Modules

                        Quality Zen Cart Modules to improve your ZenCart-based store ... Zen Cart Modules. Zen Cart Free Modules. Zen Cart Addons. Zen Cart Data Feeds ...

                        • Addons and Contributed Modules, shopping cart software | Zen Cart ...

                          ... software | Zen Cart Ecommerce Solution , Addons and Contributed Modules, Addons and Contributed Modules, open source ... Zen Cart. Sign up for our FREE ...

                          • Free Shopping Cart Diagnostic Utility

                            ... cart configuration problems - osCommerce, CRE Loaded, Zen Cart, X-Cart ... Zen Cart Modules. Zen Cart Free Modules. Zen Cart Addons. Zen Cart Data Feeds ...

                            • Free Zen Cart Templates : Free Zen Cart Templates 4 free shopping cart

                              ... Shipping Modules free zen cart templates, zen cart templates, zen cart seo, ... Atheme - A Free Professional Zen Cart Template ...

                              • Zen Cart Shipping Modules : Free Zen Cart Templates 4 free shopping cart

                                ... Cart Templates 4 free shopping cart : Zen Cart Shipping Modules - Rent-A-Coder ... R+L Carriers Zen Cart Shipping Module (Freight) ...

                                • Free Zen Cart Modules & Scripts

                                  ... scripts and modules for free here and most in the Zen Cart Contribution section also. ... SEO - Optimization Site Reports Link Building Free Zen Cart Scripts ...

                                  • Adding shipping modules in Zencart - Zencart Tutorial

                                    This tutorial will show you how to add shipping modules in Zencart. ... Tutorials: Free Zencart Tutorials: Adding shipping modules in Zencart ...

                                    • Latest Press : Zen 4 Dummies! Creative Zen Cart Templates, Zen Cart ...

                                      Disclaimer: The modules listed in the section are available from zencart.com. ... If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Zen 4 Dummies ...

                                      • Numinix • Quality Ecommerce Solutions: Programming, Templates, SEO

                                        Free Zen Cart modules for promoting and managing your Zen Cart based ecommerce store. ... of working with Numinix, browse through our large collection of free Zen ...

                                        • Adding payment modules in Zencart - Zencart Tutorial

                                          This tutorial will show you how to install payment modules in Zencart. ... Tutorials: Free Zencart Tutorials: Adding payment modules in Zencart ...

                                          • Zen cart Development Company India Zencart Integration Customization ...

                                            Offshore software development company India Zencart outsourcing custom software consulting services Website Design Integration Customization modules developing ...

                                            • Account Holders, shopping cart software | Zen Cart Ecommerce Solution

                                              shopping cart software | Zen Cart Ecommerce Solution Account Holders, This is a simple rework of the existing CHECK/MONEYORDER Module, and it behaves in exactly the ...

                                              • zencartbuilder.com, Zen Cart modules, featuring Easy Populate Advanced

                                                zencartbuilder.com : - Modules Templates Services Zen Cart, Easy Populate, EZ Populate, osCommerce, CRE Loaded, The Exchange ... XHTML - free template! Payment ...

                                                • Zen Cart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

                                                  Zen Cart. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to: ... through external module ... under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. ...

                                                  • About Web Development by Activo " 5 Important Zen Cart Modules

                                                    ... a handful of modules from the free software add-ons of the official Zen Cart site. ... The Ultimate SEO for Zen Cart module modifies the default clunky ...

                                                  • Friday, March 13, 2009

                                                    Zencart vs. Magento: features comparisons

                                                     

                                                    ZenCart, which was initially based on osCommerce code but has developed dramatically and now it  is a fully independent product. Known for its long list of added features, ZenCart is PHP-based and uses a MySQL database and HTML components.

                                                    Zen Cart is unique in its own way. Some of its features are as under:

                                                    Wide Range of Administrative Tools:

                                                    a) You can configure image of products, customer details and other things very easily.
                                                    b) You can Edit HTML code if you have knowledge of HTML.
                                                    c) You can add/edit/delete product/category details.

                                                    Simple Installation

                                                    a) Built in installation tool can be used to install zencart.
                                                    b) A separate section for demo products.
                                                    c) Before installing zencart, you can check server and database requirements.

                                                    Status Mode of Customers

                                                    a) This feature can force your visitors to get registered before viewing the price of a product.
                                                    b) A visitor  can shop whatever he likes from your online stores.

                                                    Products and Proper Categories

                                                    a) You can add whatever category that suits your requirements.
                                                    b) You can a separate section for downloadable products such as video games, softwares, anti-virus etc.
                                                    c) You can one product in multiple categories as well.
                                                    d) Radio Button, check box, drop down menus can be added in your e-commerce website.

                                                    Some other Features

                                                        * Multiple display modes
                                                        * Multiple shipping options
                                                        * Multiple payment options
                                                        * Multiple ad banner controller
                                                        * Multiple discounts and sales
                                                        * Numerous Zen Cart Temples to choose from

                                                    As for Magento, here is a simple description: a basic, simple shopping cart that:

                                                    "paging” within a Wordpress blog—able to easily design it to look like the blog.
                                                    Does not require an SSL to work.
                                                    Does not require customers to set up an account.
                                                    Uses Google checkout AND Paypal as payment gateways.

                                                    Furthermore, one of the things that make Magento such a helpful tool to use when setting up an eCommerce site is the reports and analytics feature. This tool, which is built into the core Magento code, allows you to track sales, watch your shopping carts, learn about your customers, and analyze your traffic patterns, all from your administrative panel. You can also download all of the reports to an Excel spreadsheet or CSV to make it easier to keep track of your numbers.

                                                    In summary, as people always say: choose the one you like.

                                                    Top Open Source Shopping Cart Review Unveiled

                                                     

                                                    Original Title: Top Open Source Web Commerce Apps

                                                    March 5, 2009
                                                    By Kerry Watson

                                                    What a difference a year makes. Rarely does an industry landscape change so radically in just 12 short months. This year the upstart New osCommerce Project was crowned Best Open Source Commerce program by respondents in my Second Annual Open Source Commerce survey. It was followed by CRE Loaded, the original osCommerce, Magento, PrestaShop and a long list of "Other open source commerce programs."

                                                    Best Open Source Commerce Program: Then and Now

                                                    A year ago, the CRE Loaded version of osCommerce was crowned best open source commerce program by respondents, followed by Zen Cart, osCMAX and osCommerce.

                                                    Editor's Picks

                                                    » osCommerce is Dead: Long Live the NEW osCommerce Project

                                                    » Open Source E-Commerce Platform Magento Debuts

                                                    » osCommerce is Dead: Long Live the NEW osCommerce Project

                                                    » Open Source Watch: CRE Loaded 6.31 Released

                                                    » Open Source Watch: Magento 1.1 Released

                                                    » Open Source Watch: Specialty Hosts for E-Tailers

                                                    » OS Commerce: The True Cost of Free Shopping Carts

                                                    » Open Source: Noteworthy Newcomers PrestaShop, Ubercart

                                                    » Can Iozzia Get the CRE Loaded Love Back?

                                                    » First Annual Open Source Survey Results

                                                    » Open Source E-Commerce: Twelve Promising Programs

                                                    This year 39 percent of respondents voted for the winner New osCommerce Project, an offshoot of the moribund original osCommerce. This year's winner is followed closely by CRE Loaded with 36 percent of respondents. Last year CRE Loaded was far and away the winner, receiving votes three to one over the second place program. The original osCommerce maintains its third-place position, same as last year, but just barely, after receiving only 10 percent of all votes.

                                                    Survey Reveals Greater Industry Fragmentation

                                                    Last year the vast majority of votes went to osCommerce, CRE Loaded, Zen Cart and osCMAX, and there were virtually no "Other" votes. This year, only CRE Loaded remains in the top three. Two newcomers — the New osCommerce Project and Magento — pushed last year's second place ties, Zen Cart and osCMAX, off of this year's top tier.

                                                    An explosion of changes in the industry last year led a full 15 percent of this year's respondents to vote for other programs including Magento, PrestaShop, CS-Cart and a handful of other programs.

                                                    A year ago, Magento Commerce, a new open source e-commerce program that enjoyed wild popularity when it debuted in April last year, was not yet released for the last survey. Through most of the past year it looked like Magento was a sure thing to win, place or show, but was suddenly eclipsed with the release of the New osCommerce Project in November.

                                                    Individual Category Winners

                                                    When a program is viewed in only one category, the results can be very different. To help prevent the vote from being a pure popularity contest, the supporting survey questions are designed to help find out exactly why respondents nominate a particular program. This is because the programs have different strengths that appeal to different types of users, so it helps us to validate the data. It's also an effective method because users value different things — for instance, one user will consider a program the best because it is easiest to upgrade while another because it is friendly to store owners or customers.

                                                    In my survey, for example, voters are asked to choose only the program easiest to install, and PrestaShop is the winner in that category. Zen Cart is still the winner for easiest to upgrade.

                                                    CRE Loaded was given the highest rating by its voters in the greatest number of categories, including easiest to make additions, and most friendly to customers, store owners and Web pros.

                                                    PrestaShop, the second-newest program on the market with a July launch last year, was given the highest rating by its voters as easiest to install, and was rated very high as well for upgrading and friendliness to Web pros.

                                                    New osCommerce Project, launched in November, received high ratings by voters for easiest to install, make additions, upgrade, and friendliness to Web pros. It is basically the original osCommerce, but with the code cleaned up and no contributions installed, so it makes sense that it would win in these categories.

                                                    Interestingly, Magento was rated by its voters as very customer-friendly and store-owner friendly, but very unfriendly to Web pros. This may be because the architecture of the program is radically different from the other open source programs, forcing Web pros to invest a lot of time learning before they are able to use it.

                                                    Winners by individual category:

                                                    Easiest to Install: PrestaShop
                                                    Easiest to make additions: CRE Loaded
                                                    Easiest to upgrade: Zen Cart
                                                    Most friendly: CRE Loaded

                                                    Overall Winner by # of Votes* Voted easiest
                                                    to Install
                                                    Voted easiest
                                                    to make additions
                                                    Voted easiest
                                                    to upgrade
                                                    Voted most
                                                    customer-friendly
                                                    Voted most friendly
                                                    to store owners
                                                    Voted most friendly
                                                    to Web pros
                                                    Overall Winner
                                                    by Weighted Rating**
                                                    New osCommerce
                                                    Project
                                                    PrestaShop CRE loaded Zen Cart CRE loaded CRE loaded CRE loaded CRE loaded
                                                    CRE Loaded CRE loaded PrestaShop PrestaShop Magento Magento PrestaShop PrestaShop
                                                    Original osCommerce New osCommerce Project New osCommerce Project New osCommerce Project PrestaShop PrestaShop New osCommerce Project New osCommerce Project
                                                    Magento Magento Magento Magento Zen Cart Zen Cart Zen Cart Magento
                                                    PrestaShop Original osCommerce Original osCommerce CRE loaded New osCommerce Project Original osCommerce Magento Zen Cart
                                                    Zen Cart Zen Cart Zen Cart Original osCommerce Original osCommerce New osCommerce Project Original osCommerce Original osCommer

                                                    *Overall Winner is the raw popularity, the program that received the most raw votes regardless of whether or not they matched the supporting questions.
                                                    **Overall Winner by Weighted Rating ranks the programs by votes received for each of the supporting questions.

                                                    About the survey

                                                    The Second Annual Open Source Commerce survey includes both a "beauty contest" store design contest for store owners and Web professionals, and a serious survey on what actual users consider to be the best of the industry. Although like any Web survey the results can be influenced by a candidate's campaigning, each respondent is required to answer a short series of questions to help explain why he or she believes the candidate is the best.

                                                    It is important to note that any survey on the Web is not a scientific sampling, even when careful controls are used. Not all respondents will answer all questions, and not all questions receive a statistically significant number of responses. Also, it is impossible to independently verify that a respondent has actual experience with a subject.

                                                    To improve reliability, this study compares the IP address and e-mail address of each respondent and eliminates duplicate votes. The series of questions that are required with each entry help to eliminate casual voting by persons who did not have actual knowledge of the program, boosting the reliability of these data. Nevertheless, comparing the results over a period of time reveals interesting trends in opinions by actual users.

                                                    The Users Have Spoken

                                                    This is the second annual study of open source commerce programs by actual users, and the survey results this year correlate well with last year's results. Once again, the survey results imply that the most popular open source commerce programs are correlated with the most user-friendly features toward the store owner. The most popular programs will also be the easiest to install, add additions and upgrade. They will also contain the most features that are geared toward the store owner, rather than the end customer or Web pro. It is hoped that the results of this regular survey will help improve the industry. Congratulations to the winners.

                                                    This article was first published on ECommerce Guide.

                                                    open source shopping cart brief

                                                     

                                                    One of the most important problem for e-commerce merchants today is which shopping cart solution to choose for their web stores. There are number of shopping carts available in the market. A recent Google search on “online shopping cart” turned up 20 million hits, many of them offering shopping cart products of their own. So decision is very tough.

                                                    Open source shopping cart is good choice as : open source available at no cost . There was a time when many in the e-commerce world was not ready to use open source products. Some said they were difficult to install and configure, while others were not using it because of their lack of available features and technical support. Fortunately for online entrepreneurs on a budget, those days are all but gone.

                                                    The latest open source shopping carts offer pretty much everything you’d find in a proprietary solution, provided you have the basic technical expertise to install and configure them. Most have become much easier to install than previous offerings and include numerous developer contributions for increased features and customization. Technical support tends to come in the form of user forums and the are heavily trafficked and often get answers in a matter of minutes.

                                                    Monday, March 9, 2009

                                                    Canonical URL Links' SEO for Zen Cart

                                                    Canonical URL Links support a format that allows you to publicly specify your preferred version of a URL. If your site has identical or vastly similar content that's accessible through multiple URLs, this format provides you with more control over the URL returned in search results. It also helps to make sure that properties such as link popularity are consolidated to your preferred version.

                                                    Google’s announcement that they have (along with Yahoo! and Microsoft) adopted this canonical attribute for link tags, this is great news for SEO’s. This special attribute is great tool for resolving duplicate content issues within a given website.In the last 24hrs.

                                                    I have seen several plugins and code snippets appear which will allow webmasters to take advantage of the canonical url attribute within various open source CMS platforms. I didn’t however see anything for use in Zen Cart that struck my fancy. Since Zen Cart is my preferred shopping cart system I decided to write a simple PHP script(let) so that my Zen Carts could take advantage of the canonical attribute.

                                                    The following code is easily implemented, and may be freely distributed and used (at your own risk of course).

                                                    The Code:

                                                    <!– Begin SE Canonical –>
                                                    <link rel=”canonical” href= <?php
                                                    $original_url = HTTP_SERVER . $_SERVER[’REQUEST_URI’];
                                                    $split_url = explode(’?', $original_url);
                                                    $no_querystring_url = $split_url[0];
                                                    echo $no_querystring_url; ?> />
                                                    <!– End SE Canonical –>

                                                    The Install

                                                    Simply copy and paste the script right after the closing title tag (</title>) of your html_header.php file (located in your Common folder of your custom template folder in your Zen Cart installation).

                                                    Zen Cart & Wordpress Integration

                                                     

                                                     

                                                    WordPress is an extremely powerful and widely used open-source blogging platform. It has a wide community of developers and users, and almost all kinds of plugins are available for it. Although there are some shopping cart plugins for WordPress, they are not full-blown shopping carts like Zen Cart or osCommerce. E-commerce plug-ins available for WordPress have limited features.

                                                    Those who are running blogs using WordPress may want to integrate it with Zen Cart to provide e-commerce functionality to their blogs. In fact, there is a Zen Cart module for integrating these two. You can download that module from www.zen-cart.com.

                                                    After downloading the plug-in WordPress on Zen Cart, you have to install it on the webserver. You can install the plug-in in two ways: first, in an environment where you have a working WordPress installation, and second, when you have not installed WordPress.

                                                    WordPress and Zen Cart Installed in Separate Directories

                                                    When you have an existing installation of WordPress, generally it will be in a separate directory from that of the Zen Cart installation. If your web document root directory is public_html, then the installation directories may be: /public_html/blog and /public_html/shop. Follow these procedures to install WordPress on Zen Cart plug-in:

                                                    Step1: Install WordPress

                                                    If you have not installed WordPress yet, then download the WordPress files from www.wordpress.org and unzip the files. Then, upload the files to your webserver’s /public_html/blog directory. Now, change the permission of this directory to 777 and point your browser to http://yourdomain.com/blog/wp-admin/setup-config.php. The installation wizard for WordPress will be displayed. Follow the instructions on the wizard and give the necessary information. Once all of the information is given, WordPress will be installed.

                                                    Step 2: Configure WordPress

                                                    During installation, an administrative account will be created. Note the username and password for this account. Then, point your browser to http://yourdomain.com/blog/wp-admin/. The login page will be displayed. Type the username and password for the administrative account and click on the Login button.

                                                    You will see the dashboard for administering WordPress. Go to Options | General. Now, change the Blog Address (URL) to Zen Cart’s URL http://yourdomain.com/shop/. From the administration dashboard, go to Presentation | Themes and select WordPress Default 1.6.

                                                    Step 3: Upload WordPress on Zen Cart

                                                    When you unzip the WordPress on Zen Cart plug-in zip file, you will find that there is a directory called ZC_ROOT and WP_ROOT. Now, upload the contents of ZC_ROOT directory to Zen Cart’s installation path on the server, that is, /public_html/shop/. Similarly, upload the contents of the WP_ROOT directory to WordPress’ installation path, that is, /public_html/blog. Before uploading the contents of the ZC_ROOT directory, please change the name of the /ZC_ROOT/includes/templates/MY_TEMP/ directory to that of the template directory you are using for your Zen Cart shop

                                                    Step 4: Edit WordPress File

                                                    For older versions of WordPress, you may need to edit the /wp-include/template-loader.php file. Open the file in a text editor and replace all exit; with return;. However, you may not need this for the newer versions of WordPress. WordPress 2.3.1 can work without this modification. First, try without this modification.

                                                    Step 5: Edit Zen Cart File

                                                    You also need to edit another file in the Zen Cart installation. Open the /includes/extra_configures/wordpress-config.php file under the Zen Cart installation folder and find the following line:

                                                    define ('ABSPATH','/var/www/vhost/example.com/public_html/blog/');



                                                    Type the appropriate WordPress path, that is, /home/username/public_html/blog/. The above line will look like this:




                                                    define ('ABSPATH','/home/public_html/blog/');



                                                    If you are trying it on Windows, you may need to put the absolute path, as in, e:/www/blog.



                                                    Step 6: Configure Sideboxes from Layout Boxes Controller


                                                    Once the file modifications have been done, login to the Zen Cart administration panel. Go to Tools | Layout Boxes Controller. The screen will notify you that some new sideboxes-wp_cats.php, wp_archives.php, wp_pages.php, wp_links.php, and wp_sidebar.php-have been found. To use these sidebars, click on the reset button at the bottom. To show these sideboxes on your Zen Cart shop, click on the sidebar and change its left/right column status.



                                                    Step 7: Test your Integration


                                                    Now, it’s your time to see how the Zen Cart and WordPress integration works. Point your browser to your Zen Cart shop, that is, http://yourdomain.com/shop/. If everything is okay, you will find the screen as shown in the following screenshot:



                                                    If the ABSPATH value in wordpress-config.php file is not entered appropriately, you will get a message saying that wp-config.php file in a particular path is not found. In that case, edit the wordpress-config.php file and enter the correct path to the WordPress installation.



                                                    Note that a left sidebox named Blog Sidebar is shown in your Zen Cart shop. You will find links to pages in the blog, links to archives, and links to categories. Click on a link and that category, archive or page will be displayed.



                                                    You may be disappointed when you look at the result because the whole WordPress page with headers, footers, and sidebars is displayed. If you have some knowledge of customizing WordPress themes, you can work out a nice solution by removing the header, the footer, and the sidebar from the theme layout.



                                                    For learning WordPress theming, check the excellent tutorials at www.wordpress.org. You can also read WordPress Themes, published by Packt.





                                                    WordPress and Zen Cart Installed in the Same Directory



                                                    You can also install WordPress and Zen Cart in the same directory. In such a case, install Zen Cart first. Configure it for normal use, and then proceed with the installation of WordPress. For example, if your Zen Cart installation is in /public_html/shop/, then WordPress will also be installed at /public_html/shop/. First, download the WordPress installation package, unzip it, and upload all files, except index.php.



                                                    After uploading the files to the Zen Cart directory, i.e. /public_html/blog/, change the access permission of these to 777. Now, point your browser to http://yourdomain.com/shop/wp-admin/setup-config.php. The installation wizard for WordPress will be displayed. Follow the instructions of the wizard and provide the necessary information. Once all information is made available, WordPress will be installed.



                                                    Now, follow Steps 2 to 7 as described in the previous section. In this case, the paths to Zen Cart and WordPress will be same.

                                                    Zencart vs. Magento: Leading Two Open Source Shopping Cart Platforms

                                                    Although there are tons of popular online shopping carts out there: opencart, oscommerce, prestashop, etc. However, anyone who is involved with an online shopping cart and was considering open source solutions probably stumbled upon two major ecommerce providers: ZenCart and Magento Commerce. ZenCart is an evolving and older shopping cart with roots in osCommerce, while Magento Commerce is a newcomer to this category written from scratch on top of the new Zend Framework.

                                                    Magento

                                                    Magento is a brand new (about a year old as of writing this article) and it is now beginning to see community and developer adoption. Magento is written on top of PHP5 and Zend Framework. Magento was developed from scratch and in an object oriented manner on top of the new Zend Framework. Therefore, it is expected to have better extendibility options for developers and much better module/plugin management consules in the back-end however will probably come at the expense of instability in the short term. Magento’s templates out of the box look sharp and eye candy. Its creator definitely placed an emphasis on the way it’s admin panel feels & looks and the way its demo templates look & feel. Additionally, almost all aspects of the UI feels a lot more like Web 2.0 with many AJAX features and many time saving UI features.

                                                    One of the biggest downsides to Magento is its current speed since it lacks an effort in optimizing its DB and overall structure. Hence, it is relatively heavy and requires a bit of advanced know-how when installing and setting it up. It’s forums seem to be gaining traction with developers and many developers say that once you migrate a store to Magento you will never look back.

                                                    Magento bottom line: While it is definitely a matter of time until we see the real value, Magento does seem to have some advantages over any other open source eCommerce system. Merely the fact that it was developed from scratch recently means that a whole lot of best practices are thought of right of the bat instead of showing as an after thought (which we as developers have to deal with it). Nevertheless, Magento’s forums indicate that the product has yet to have reached maturity. If you are ok with somewhat unstable solution and looking for the absolute cutting edge shopping cart Magento is for you!

                                                    ZenCart

                                                    This is a great open source shopping cart that can power almost any size eCommerce sites. We have successfully used ZenCart for sites offering 20 products all the way up to tens of thousands of products and variations (which by the way is connected to a POS and kept up to date to the minute). Since its fork from osCommerce ZenCart has gone through extensive development and now offers much broader extendibility and robust template system. Some of the underlying systems that make this shopping cart so robust are: template system, initialization system, object autoloaders, plugins a-la observer design pattern, flexible and extendible configuration system, and more.

                                                    One of the biggest disadvantages for ZenCart is that all these great systems were built on top and in an after thought to an existing platform. Hence, there are many dependencies and the learning curve for professional grade customization and development is steep. For example, one of the tasks that current core developers are working on is to transform additional functions to object oriented design, in other words, they are still trying to get rid of the spaghetti code left from the osCommerce days.

                                                    Nevertheless, ZenCart is a true workhorse that has proven itself many times and with hundreds of thousands of stores world wide. In fact, it has excellent support for multiple languages and multiple currencies stores.

                                                    One more thing that ZenCart excels in when the right modules and the right setup is applied is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Once setup correctly, ZenCart is one of the most SEO friendly stores out there. I have seen multiple times where a brand new ZenCart store with some SEO efforts generating more than $50,000 per month in sales (within 2-3 months of Go-Live).

                                                    ZenCart bottom line: Great solution if you want to see a solid and proven shopping cart with mostly standard features and you do not care about the type of technology that powers it. Currently, for best and fastest deployment ZenCart is second to none.

                                                    Ubercart for Drupal: Shopping cart with CMS

                                                     

                                                    There are lots of outstanding Open Source Shopping Carts there, such as magento, prestashop, zencart, oscommerce, etc. However, one shopping cart which always was missed is Ubercart for drupal in our free online shopping cart collection.

                                                    Ubercart is an exciting open source e-commerce package that fully integrates online store with Drupal. It was designed to take advantage of Drupal’s major core and contributed systems, providing users with shopping cart functionality that seamlessly integrates with other parts of your company or community website.

                                                    One of the key strengths of Ubercart is its design that allows official and third party developers to add to or alter its features to accommodate virtually any e-commerce need. This means you’ll never have to change the source code to add new features, so you’ll have an easy upgrade path when the core gets improved or bugfixes are released.

                                                    Therefore, if you are looking for a shopping cart which is built in within an open source cms, then ubercart for drupal is the choice.

                                                    Saturday, March 7, 2009

                                                    Easy Populate plugin makes zencart over magento

                                                     

                                                     

                                                    A cart program is a server side php script for a webshop site. Basically what it does is it provides you with alot of different options like adding your product, prices, content in general, shipping modules, taxing modules and lots of other stuff.

                                                    The ones I have tried so far are Magento, Virtue Mart for Joomla, OScommerce, Zencart, Opencart, I have also looked at Cubecart for Drupal and Prestashop. They all have in common that they are free.

                                                    The one I got furthest with so far was Zencart, especially with its Easy Populate Advanced ZenCart Ecommerce Website Product Adding, Editing etc from Excel files - Data Entry, Data Conversion, Data Management. A file that’s makes adding products a breeze compared to what I now need to do, adding them by cutting and pasting. Well well, nothing to cry about, hopefully that means that someone else can’t be arsed to do it.

                                                    The Top 5 Per-Sale Affiliate Networks

                                                     

                                                    These top 5 per-sale affiliate networks offer primarily pay-per-sale programs with some pay-per-lead. They will have plenty of affiliate offers you probably will not find in the other  CPA networks.

                                                    1. Commission Junction

                                                    Number of Advertisers: 1,966 as of early 2007

                                                    With that many advertisers in their network, it means that no matter what your site is about, you are likely to find a merchant affiliate program that is a good fit for your website. These 1,966+ Commission Junction (CJ) advertisers are spread throughout 28 main categories including computers, finance, health, travel, and web services among many others.

                                                    Go To CJ.com

                                                    2. Linkshare

                                                    Number of Advertisers: 600+

                                                    LinkShare was established in 1996 and now boasts Fortune 500 clients and other prominent companies including J.C. Penney, 1-800-Flowers.com, American Express, Avon Products and Dell. Linkshare claims to have created the largest network of affiliates of any program provider - over 10 million partnerships.

                                                    Go To Linkshare.com

                                                    3. ShareASale

                                                    Number of Advertisers: 1700+

                                                    Shareasale.com was established in June 2000 and has grown to have a large network of advertisers mostly due to their lower merchant entry costs. The ShareASale network hosts many large and small companies that you will not find elsewhere.

                                                    Go To ShareASale.com

                                                    4. Performics

                                                    Number of Advertisers: 200+

                                                    Performics, acquired by DoubleClick in 2004, is a fairly small affiliate network with some big name advertisers such as America Online, BOSE, CompUSA, HPshopping, Verizon Wireless, and more than 200 others.

                                                    Go To Performics.com

                                                    5. Clickbank

                                                    Number of Advertisers: 1,000+

                                                    Clickbank has over 10,000+ digital product vendors with many merchants offering huge percentage payouts as high as 75%.

                                                    Go to Clickbank.com