Tech Anorak

Earthy asked:


I implemented the Litecommerce shopping cart into my site thinking it would improve sales and make things easier to get around. In reality though, it has done the very opposite. It takes up to 30 seconds (and sometimes longer) for any page to open. Why would this be? It’s quite ridiculous and sales have gone down dramatically, and I can understand why. People don’t want to wait such long periods to open pages while browsing and shopping a site. I like the layout of the system, but with this speed sales have plunged.

Does anyone have any input on why this system is so slow. Is it the way it is coded? is it the way it accesses the database? Are there other shopping cart systems out there that are much better, faster and user friendly?
my site was php before and ran fast, When I build the html catalog for the litecommerce site, the html pages are faster, but the problem is that’s only good for browsing. As soon as you go to the cart, add to cart, log in, etc, it reverts back to the coding scripts and becomes ultra slow again.

I’ve spent months getting this site up and now I’m so disappointed with the speed and customers are obviously getting fed up with the waiting for each page to open so they move on to somewhere less frustrating = slump in sales for me.

Content supplied by Yahoo Answers

Beige asked:


I’m starting an ecommerce site that will sell things from China and will be delivered in the provinces of China. My business registration is in California. So basically, no items or goods will come to CA, just the payment. For security reason and convenience, my merchant account and bank depository is in California. My market primarily are Chinese people in the US who will want to buy things for their family who are in China. With this situation, what are the taxes applicable to me in the state of California?

Content supplied by Yahoo Answers

Hanabells asked:


Please help!! Here is an image of the book:
http://www.scoutingbooks.com/miva/graphics/00000001/1-876778-65-2sm.jpg

Content supplied by Yahoo Answers

As you go about the task of developing and designing a website for your Net based business, you will find yourself stewing over what sort of shopping cart program to incorporate and integrate into your website. This can be a very complicated, challenging and even frustrating task. There are so many different shopping cart software programs on the market today that choosing which one will be right for your particularly operation can be a daunting task. One of the most popular shopping cart software programs on the market today is the osCommerce Shopping Cart. You may have heard more that a few times that the osCommerce Shopping Cart is the best product in the market. Through this article, you will be provided with some basic information to assist you in making the determination as to whether or not the osCommerce Shopping Cart is the right choice for you.

Keep in mind that while you are provided specific information about osCommerce Shopping Cart, nothing in this article should be construed as being an endorsement of osCommerce Shopping Cart. You need to do your own independent homework before making a decision to purchase any software application, including osCommerce Shopping Cart.

First of all, the osCommerce Shopping Cart has proven reliability time after time. As mentioned, it is a popular brand of shopping cart today. The history of a product is one of the best indications of its overall reliability and the osCommerce Shopping Cart has a solid track record thus far.

Second, the osCommerce Shopping Cart has proven to be quite adaptable in different types of settings. In other words, the osCommerce Shopping Cart has proven to be a good product whether or not you’ve got a small or a large retail operation on the Net. Adaptability is an important consideration particularly if you are starting or already involved in an Internet business that you hope will grow over time. You will want a shopping cart software program that will grow with your own business.

Third, the osCommerce Shopping Cart is accompanied with a reliable system of customer services and technical support. Because in so many ways the shopping cart program you select really will be the heart and soul of your business enterprise, it is important that you select a program that comes with the backing of outstanding customer service and technical support. Generally speaking, when it comes to customer service and technical support, osCommerce Shopping Cart has consistently obtained high marks.



By: Wisam Abdulaziz

About the Author:

Content supplied by Articlesbase.com

bpjsurf asked:


I have a specilty oils and candles web site. I was hosting with a local provider who had Miva cart included with the web hosting plan. The webhost closed, went out of business with out notice. Luckily I have my domain but I lost everything else with my web site because it was all on the server. I am very frustrated and would like to restart my ecommerce web site, but I donot want to be held hostage by a web host ever again. I am looking for a ecommerce cart I can run on my own servers or host anywhere with no strings attached. Frustrated!!!

Content supplied by Yahoo Answers

onepage2000 asked:


The Jpanese konbini (convienience store) system allows anyone to purchase online and then pay for that puchase at their corner c-store. When it was first announced, it seemed rather successful — yet I cannot find any information on the percentage of overall ecommerce revenue that goes through that system.
Well — so far this has been a waste of time. Does Yahoo really hope to make this a real service?

Content supplied by Yahoo Answers

Open Source Software and its Relation to osCommerce

E-commerce sites such as osCommerce function through the use and continued success of open source software – in fact, open source software is what makes these sites free. So what exactly is open source software? The purpose of article is to help you better understand what open source software is.

Basically, open source is based on the idea that when people have access to a software’s source code they can change, improve and evolve a piece of software at astonishing speeds – a characteristic that ends up produces really great software that meets the needs of its users.

Open source software is not just free code for website and software. Open source software is “governed” by the Open Source Initiative. According to the website for the Open Source Initiative it must meet several criteria to actually qualify as open source:

First of all open source software must not restrict anyone from selling (or giving away) the software. In other words, it cannot require a royalty or fee. For a product to be open source, it must also provide the source code so that the users can easily evolve the software to fit their needs and any software created with free software must be free as well. Furthermore, open source software distribution cannot discriminate against people or fields.

So, how did this concept begin? Most experts on open source software will agree that the concept of open source software began with the creation of the internet which was created and improved upon by it’s users who continually changed the code to make it work for them.

Then, when computers were first used, programs were often sent as a printed version that had to be entered into the computer line by line. Programmers not only entered the programs onto the computers, they also were able to “play” with the programs and make changes as well as share there ideas with others.

Once computer became more mainstream and people other than programmers began using programs, the need (and desire) for the source code declined. This is when software companies began realizing the economical benefits of keeping their source code for software private. This also began the influx of new and incompatible operating systems which further declined the ability for programmers to share and collaborate with one another. While there are benefits to creating and selling software in this manner, some programmers realized the limits this posed on the usability of the software.

Without keeping the source code open, the users were bound to the limits of the software and were not able to alter it to fit their individual needs. This is what began the development of the GNU Public License operating system for open source software. The premise behind renewing the concept of open source software is that software development would be faster and more efficient in giving people the programs they need and want to use.

Today, open source software is becoming more and more mainstream and is used quite frequently on the internet for websites and browsers.

How does it all relate to osCommerce?

Obvious by its name, osCommerce is based on the concept of open source software. This means that osCommerce is free to use and the community members can feed off of one another to continually develop the code that they use. The store owners don’t simply purchase a software program (such as a shopping cart code) that they need to implement as is. They can design, develop and evolve their store presence to meet their changing needs. The beauty of open source code in a situation such as this is that the members of the community can help one another develop new code on an ongoing basis.



By: Myles OReilly

About the Author:

Content supplied by Articlesbase.com

If you have an online store based on osCommerce with a lot of products in many categories, and you are spending more than few minutes everyday updating your products, then you may gain benefit from the Store Manager for osCommerce. It is cost-effective software to manage osCommerce-based online stores.

Store Manager for osCommerce is a multi-language software to manage your online store. You get:

- multiple osCommerce stores management

- products, categories, attributes, manufacturers and orders management

- quick and easy osCommerce products import/export including product attributes, manufacturers, taxes, categories, additional fields

- smart and easy pricing for many products at once

- easy product navigation, quick search, advanced filters

- quick product, order, customer search etc

- advanced reporting tools, including more then 20 reports out of the box

- and much more

You can manage osCommerce store much faster and more effectively – import / export products, change product quantities, availability, backup your store, automatically re-size your product images while uploading etc. Hundreds of additional features are included in Store Manager for osCommerce to simplify typical and more advanced tasks. For example, SmartPrice Feature makes price changes for multiple products very smart, quick and easy. Advanced Reporting Tools show most popular products, most profitable products, products viewed, products purchased, customer orders total etc. And you can even design your own reports by any criteria. All changes you made are applied to your store immediately, no synchronization, no delayed updates – it all live.

Store Manager for osCommerce also provides multiple stores management, you can manage many stores at once and quickly switch between your stores. And all this right from your desktop computer. To know more about the software, see the screenshots, check out online flash presentations, or if you are in a hurry, just download Store Manager for osCommerce and try.

oscommerce-manager.com

Maybe you’ve realized that the e-commerce system you’re using just doesn’t do things in the way you want them done. Without Store Manager for osCommerce adding and managing your products itself can be a chore. In fact, the default version of osCommerce really only offers a very rudimentary product template that many users feel the need to customize. And customisation is one of the most valuable aspects of osCommerce. That’s why the developer created the Store Manager for osCommerce that will help you to successfully manage your osCommerce-based online store.

Store Manager for osCommerce is very easy and intuitive software and can be effectively used by NON-IT professionals. Everything you need for your effective and easy work with products, customers, orders, pricing and other store data is there – is in the software.

Do you have a comment or question about this software or other osCommerce topics? Speak out in the Support Forum oscommerce-manager.com/forum



By: Martin Wann

About the Author:

Content supplied by Articlesbase.com

Choosing the best shopping cart solutions for your launch into ecommerce is critical to the success of your online business. If you’re wanting to learn more about this sometimes confusing world, this guide will explain the points you should consider before purchasing a cart.

If you’re currently in the market for software or services and would like our recommendations, Please check our NextAge Shopping Cart software at http://www.nextagecart.com . They have a Powerful SEO Shopping Cart Script

What is a shopping cart?

In a basic definition, it’s a series of scripts that keep track of items a visitor picks to buy from your site until they proceed to the “checkout”. A popular misconception is that shopping carts handle the whole financial transaction, but they only really act as a front end which passes information via a secure connection (another service) to a payment gateway – a separate service altogether.

The payment gateway service then channels the requests and transfers throughout relevant financial networks, including the Internet merchant account with your bank. It then sends back confirmation or denial back to the shopping cart software. For further information on the “back-end” aspects of ecommerce; The good news is that there are literally hundreds of shopping cart packages available. The bad news is the same as the good. Sometimes, too many choices make it very difficult to make a decision – especially when all companies claim to have the superior product. I recently experienced this challenge by reviewing over 130 shopping cart programs. I hope this article may make your life just a little bit easier!

Free or premium shopping carts?

It’s very important before you begin reviewing software and services to be to be very specific in what you actually want the cart to be able to do. It may be that you really don’t require all the bells and buzzers offered by high end packages – if this is the case, then a good package will cost around the $US150 mark. Some companies offer free shopping carts, but bear in mind that nothing in this world is truly free – read the fine print.

Free ecommerce solutions

One of the best free ecommerce solutions around is Paypal, which integrates basic shopping cart functions with a payment gateway and merchant account – funds are paid to you via check or through direct deposit. Paypal is an excellent way to begin in ecommerce and is very widely accepted around the world.

You only pay a small percentage of each sale and there are no monthly fees or setup costs, plus you receive free fraud protection – no chargeback fees to worry about. Paypal also offers web developers a wide variety of easy to use tools to assist with rapid implementation.

What other features do shopping carts have?

Shopping cart software has come a long way in recent years, and many packages are so advanced that they are in effect entire store fronts. Some integrated elements of benefit to your online business you may wish to consider include:

Suggest sell/cross selling functions

Just as in the physical world, impulse buying via the Internet is quite common. Some shopping carts will suggest another product to complement a customers current selection. If offered at a discount rate, this strategy proves quite successful.

Quantity discounts/coupons

Many shopping carts now allow for the calculation of discount rates based on the number of units a customer wishes to purchase. Coupon functions allow you to issue special offers as part of your marketing campaigns. Usually, prospective clients are given special codes that are matched against a particular item or overall discount rate.

Autoresponders

If you follow up all your clients with regular email offers, you may want to consider shopping cart software that has integrated autoresponder capabilities – this will streamline your operations and can be used for maintaining other contact lists as well. Why buy two pieces of software when you can get them rolled into one?

Affiliate modules

One of the most effective, low cost ways to advertise your product is through an affiliate program. Your outlay is minimal if you only pay on performance; i.e. sales generated. An affiliate module can handle the signup process, provide statistics, streamline communications and keep track of payments to be made to affiliates.

Other features commonly incorporated into carts include inventory tracking, sales tax calculation and stationery creation/management.

There’s a number of questions you’ll want to ask yourself when compiling a shopping cart wish list:

What kind of shopping cart does my hosting service support?

Shopping cart scripts are written in many different coding formats – PERL, PHP, ASP just to name a few. Be sure to check with your host before purchasing a program. If you’re currently in the market for software or services and would like our recommendations, Please check our NextAge Shopping Cart software at http://www.nextagecart.com . They have a Powerful SEO Shopping Cart Script

What is my budget?

It’s easy to blow your budget on a turbo-charged shopping cart only to find that there were a number of other critical items you didn’t factor in – like a payment gateway, or the fact that the cart software may be so complex that you need to hire somebody else to assist in implementation!

What kind of delivery mechanisms will I require?

If you are selling hard goods that need shipping, choice of cart is a little easier as this is a standard function. Many carts also offer customers the ability to calculate different shipping options. If you are trading in soft goods such as software and want to make delivery available online immediately, you’ll need to carefully compare carts.

As an example, some shopping carts that are capable of delivering goods online redirect customers to a static download page after a successful transaction. This isn’t a good idea as the customer (and his/her friends) are able to return to the page to download again and again. A better equipped shopping cart will only provide customers with a temporary URL, that will be unique to that customer and may only be available for a few hours after purchase before it is deleted.

Another strategy employed by some carts for soft goods online delivery is to use a static URL for downloading, but scripting is implemented to ensure the visitor to the page has come via the shopping cart after a successful transaction has occurred.

Yet another soft goods delivery means used by carts is that the software is attached to an email sent to the customer after a successful transaction. This may be suitable for very small files, but I don’t think many ISP’s would appreciate you sending 20 megabyte attachments to a customers inbox – in fact, it would not be possible in many instances.

Where will my business be in 6 months time?

Does the package allow for scalability? While you may not require bells and buzzers now, as your business grows you may find that your needs change. The better shopping carts are in a modular format which allow for scalability with minimum downtime. Be sure to check the prices of modules you may need in the future. It isn’t uncommon for companies is to offer the base model for next to nothing and then to charge like wounded bulls for any upgrades.

Is the cart software compatible with my payment gateway?

There are dozens of different payment gateways which plug into various shopping cart packages – but perhaps not yours! Before purchasing your cart, also review gateway services supported by the software (and also make sure that the payment gateway is compatible with the Internet merchant account you have with your bank). It can be a bit of a challenge getting the cart you want to talk to the gateway service you want and also to your bank! Read our guide to

What kind of payments are supported by the cart?

Credit card transactions are now a normal part of our online world. If your shopping cart software does not support credit card transactions or if you have not enabled credit card processing, you’re in trouble – you may as well just close up shop!

There are still some customers who will refuse to use a credit card over the Internet, so you will need to be able to offer other forms of payment – e.g. money orders, echecks etc.

What about disaster planning?

A good shopping cart application will have excellent support for backing up files and allowing for export into a variety of formats. Flexible exporting functions will also be of value in the future should you need to change carts and wish to import existing data into a new application. If you’re currently in the market for software or services and would like our recommendations, Please check our NextAge Shopping Cart software at http://www.nextagecart.com . They have a Powerful SEO Shopping Cart Script

What level of support will I need and receive?

All shopping cart providers will tell you that their software is simple to install and configure. Few will be actually correct in making that statement. If you don’t have the technical expertise to configure your shopping cart, get quotes from the company or a third party contractor to undertake this work for you.

Test out the support system by sending a query to the sales department – if they don’t respond quickly this is usually a good indicator that after sales support will be even worse!

Also, read the fine print before parting with your hard earned cash – you may find that technical support will be charged out per incident.

Some shopping cart software companies also offer user forums as part of their service. This is an excellent bonus. If you are having problems with setting up your scripts, no doubt someone else has experienced the same issues and may be willing to help you out.

Be sure to review the company’s “bug” policy; i.e. if a error in the software is fixed and an updated version is released, will you be entitled to recieve that upgrade or patch at no cost.

While I am all for supporting the solo programmers, a shopping cart is so crucial that it may not be wise to purchase a product from a one-man operation as customer support may not be efficient. If you’re currently in the market for software or services and would like our recommendations, Please check our NextAge Shopping Cart software at http://www.nextagecart.com . They have a Powerful SEO Shopping Cart Script

Remotely or locally hosted shopping cart?

Some shopping cart programs can be purchased as stand alone programs or as pay per month services hosted on another companies’ server. Remotely hosted options usually allow for extensive customization of pages to fit in with your sites look and feel.

Remote hosting advantages

Fast implementation, secure connection supplied, monitoring of service and usually many other features are offered as part of the service. Because the cart is actually hosted on another server, you can also save on bandwidth charges – especially if your products are soft goods and delivered online.

Some remotely hosted shopping carts are in effect total marketing solutions, containing options to run affiliate programs and the ability to send sequential pre-defined messages to clients and leads. Some of these services are excellent for people ‘testing the water’ as they also include gateway services and even an Internet merchant account!

If you are looking for features without needing to spending thousands of dollars up front, remotely hosted may be the way to go. Plan on spending at least US$60 per month for these kinds of services. Compare prices carefully – I have seen one company charge US$200 a month for the same service provided by another for $US59 per month. Remember, this added recurring expense will need to be taken into account when establishing a price level for your products and services.

Remote hosting disadvantages

What happens if the company goes belly up overnight? Remote hosting also tends to give you less control over how cart pages display. If you are going to use a remotely hosted service, check the company history carefully. Some operators have also been known to ‘harvest’ your client databases for spamming purposes.

Local hosting advantages

Total control over the software, no ongoing fees.

Local hosting disadvantages

Time spent in installation, configuration and maintenance, greater initial outlay, requires SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to be enabled on your site which usually incurs an extra charge per month.

As you can see, there is a lot to consider before purchasing shopping cart software or services. It is very important to remember that the shopping cart is only one part of your ecommerce arsenal. Without an effective payment gateway and Internet merchant account (sometimes these are combined), the cart is useless.

Don’t rush your decision to purchase based on marketing hype – the future of your business is at stake!



By: Hassan_Ahmed

About the Author:

Content supplied by Articlesbase.com

What does Online Shopping Cart Solution have that make it stand out from any other software around?

It has absolute power to automate your online internet business. It can manage your orders and products without any hassle, Make sure that your mailing list receive they daily dose of email, process payments and many more. How about that?! Shopping cart software probably quenches your thirst for online business automation. This kind of software is very in demand today, for it does work easily that cannot be done by a person or even a group.

Nowadays, going online is a great chance of increasing your sales and spreading your customer base. Statistics show that online sales are steadily increasing and lots of merchant ecommerce are going online. To keep up with the competition, one must use internet marketing strategy like using available tools around. And a web shopping cart is a perfect tool for the success of one’s online business.

You may see these shopping carts on most of the sites you visit. They play a vital role in improving people’s business. It has become one of the essential part of a shopping cart website. These ecommerce stores are creating markets of never-ending choice where consumers can get exactly what they want. Since there have been many advances to the internet and the internet marketing services, it made it very easy to make money online.

It is a clumsy process to manage the details of the purchase-history of customers if you business is not automated. Manually, it is impossible to update details of customers as well as commodities for a particular ecommerce hosting site. Moreover, if a system is not capable of handling large amounts of data, chances are that it might go haywire. That is why ecommerce shopping cart solution seems to be the most useful ecommerce software available today.

An Ecommerce Cart Software essentially includes a database that has all product information, customer database, etc., a storefront that displays all information to the viewer, and an administration area that allows the store administrator to manage the store. The administration area of the ecommerce cart is what you would be managing. It is this part of the software where the ecommerce merchant account can make all changes and updating like, adding and editing products, categories, discounts, payment settings, affiliate network etc. Since most of the information is stored in the data base, the cart creates pages in ‘real time’. These pages do not exist till the customer requests for one, that is the page is created only when the customer visits the store and looks for a product.

Easy Shopping carts are very essential for online business opportunity. Without a shopping cart, you are hindering your buyer from purchasing everything that they may purchase. Selecting the correct cart to match your business is decisive. There are so many different carts available and all of them do different things in different ways. Choosing the right shopping cart web hosting can make the difference between succeeding and failing in online business. So you need to choose the best ecommerce hosting and hosting merchant account for your shopping cart. You need to find that perfect system that fits your website, allowing you to handle payment processing and giving your clients a smooth shopping environment

A software cart makes online shopping much easier and enjoyable, not only for the buyers and merchant but also for those who want to do internet marketing online advertising of products that they do not own. They are called affiliates. Shopping carts offer affiliate opportunity for people. This only proves that everybody including people, who do not have their products can benefit on the beauty of shopping cart software.

To quench the thirst of people for online business automation, web hosting shopping cart was introduced. Honestly, we never can tell how closer this software can bring you to success. It’s just one of those online marketing business opportunity that you need to manage well in order to succeed. But all in all, shopping carts really prove itself in the ecommerce world to be very helpful software for all of us.



By: masterlistbuilder felipe

About the Author:

Content supplied by Articlesbase.com