osCommerce Watch

Questions to Answer for the Online Shopper

The Shopping Cart: How to Answer the 5 Unanswered Customer Questions

Good discussion of "unanswered questions" an online shopper is likely to have before making a purchase. Definitely worth a read. Here are the 5 questions they identify ..

Here are 5 key, unanswered questions (beyond shipping costs) of the shopping cart:

Do you offer alternate forms of payment (aside from credit card)?
Are you safe and secure?
Why are you asking for this information?
Do I have to set up an account to buy?
Do I get to review my order before we transact?

Top Converting Online Retailers

Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: March 2009

An interesting list of top converting online retailers. Check out these sites for new ideas for your site.

Attitude's Online Fraud Guide - new website

Attitude's Online Fraud Guide

Our guide to preventing fraud which was previously only available as a PDF has been launched as a website:

www.onlinefraudguide.com

This features the full content of the guide. Including ...

Check it out and leave a comment.

osCommerce DPS module update

Download the latest module here

Two changes are required for merchants using the DPS payment gateway on their osCommerce stores. A new version of the DPS module (which Attitude originally created) is available with the updates here:
http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,2032

To apply the fixes manually find and replace the instance of
https://www.paymentexpress.com/pxpost.asp';
in the module file with:
https://www.paymentexpress.com/pxpost.aspx';

The SSL version also needs to be updated from version 2 to version 3.

Replace:
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_SSLVERSION,2);
with
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_SSLVERSION,3);

Anyone needing the upgrade can contact Attitude.

Break your osCommerce Cart -Tip #1: Session Settings

There are plenty of ways to create problems with an osCommerce store by not understanding implications of a particular setting. Some problems will only appear in an intermittent way, making it harder to diagnose and fix. Hopefully this helps someone avoid tweaking settings that can cause problems, and will help others solve problems with their store.

In the Configuration section of the osCommerce admin area are a group of settings related to "Sessions". An easy way to break certain user's access to your site is to set "Check IP Address" to "True".

Certain ISPs (including one major US ISP), may change the IP address of their customer over the course of a session. In particular their IP address may change when they visit a page on your site requiring SSL to view. Enabling the check on IP will effectively log them out.

This setting can create problems with users being logged out in a seemingly random way, or having problems with their shopping cart contents disappearing, or being unable to log in to the store. These are all potential symptoms of lost sessions.

Some of the other settings here can cause predictable problems if enabled. Make sure you or your developer understand what they are for before enabling. Setting everything to "true" does not necessarily create a more secure store.

Finding products for your Ecommerce Store

From Affiliate to E-Commerce Mogul - The Real Secrets To E-Commerce

Eli from BlueHatSEO.com writes a great article on one of the central problems facing any ecommerce store, creating and building relationships with suppliers. He covers some of the business issues suppliers will be considering when dealing with someone who wants to sell their products online. Whether you follow his approach or not, understanding a potential supplier can help you preempt some of their objections to dealing with a new online store.

Creating a Squidoo Lens to promote your Store

Online Stores and Lenses - promoting your store on Squidoo

How Squidoo can help you promote your online store. A quick guide to building a lens for your store.

Don't know about Squidoo? Besides being an entertaining website, it has some great benefits for store owners. Basically, Squidoo allows anyone to create a web page about a topic they know or care about. They call these pages "lenses". You don't need to know about HTML, their system makes it easy to create a lens.

Why is it useful? Besides being a potential new source of traffic, if you create the lens right there are potential search engine ranking bonuses for your website.

Check out the lens we created on using Squidoo to promote your store. It covers in detail why Squidoo is useful for online stores and provides information on how to create a great lens for your store.

Improving product descriptions to increase conversions

Traffic isn't the answer to increased profitability for many online stores. Which is more difficult? Getting 50% more traffic to your store or selling to 50% more of the people already visiting your store.

I have mentioned this site here before, but the whole GrokDotCom site is worth checking out. They specialize in increasing conversion rates, that is the percentage of people who come to your store who actually purchase. There are lots of elements to this and something that can be continually tested and improved.

Many sites skimp on writing product descriptions that really sell the product or even help the buyer find the product they desire. The article quoted below is worth a quick read for the good point it makes.

Poor Conversions? Discover Great Products Descriptions:

Retailers are missing incredible opportunities to sell more product. All they would need to do is simply commit to writing better product descriptions, descriptions that would not only help prospects make a buying decision, but actually lust after products.

With a busy store the rush is often on to add a product. Take the time to think about what different kinds of customers would want to know if they were standing right in front of you. Answering those questions and addressing the desires of your customers can set you apart from your competition.

Book Review: Deep Inside osCommerce by Monika Mathé (from Packt Publishing)

Deep Inside osCommerce: The Cookbook

The byline on the cover states "Spice up your osCommerce website using 69 mouth-watering ready-made recipes". The cooking analogy that runs through this book is cute but probably unnecessary.

To be honest, my impressions of this book are not great, especially in comparison to the previous Packt books. I do think there are readers who will get value out of the content and I will be more specific about this below.

The book lists out 69 modifications that can be made to an osCommerce cart, divided into 11 Chapters. These include:

customizing the design
modifying the navigation
modifying infoboxes
changing the way products are displayed
improving store search
improving the checkout process
adapting shipping modules
tweaking payment modules
using banners within your store
improving the admin area

Some example "recipes" include:

Make Removing Products From the Cart More Intuitive
Add Your Customers' Email Addresses and Phone Numbers to Your Order Confirmation Email
Highlight Orders According to their Order Status
Add Images to Infoboxes

The recipes contain helpful screenshots of what the change will do and include instructions as well as all the code changes. This means the book is padded with a lot of code, so the substance is really much less than it appears.

Some of these recipes are very (perhaps too) simple and it is unlikely all will be useful for a store.

The book assumes some familiarity with osCommerce and also some knowledge of PHP and HTML, and also the database administration tool PHPMyAdmin. I would say anyone with a very basic understanding of PHP, and who likes to learn by example could use this to start "tinkering" with osCommerce. There seem to be lots of hobbyists and DIYers who have osCommerce stores. Many people get a great deal of enjoyment from being able to understand and make minor tweaks.

I am sure that after going through this book a novice would have an understanding of the structure of the osCommerce application files and would have enough experience to attempt their own simple modifications and perhaps go on to more advanced customization.

For anyone with more experience with PHP I would recommend the other Packt books on osCommerce or to simply dive into the osCommerce forums and osCommerce Contributions site.

Ecommerce Stores: Make the most of key retail seasons

2007 Merchandising Calendar from Marketing Experiments Journal

The Marketing Experiments Journal has been recommended here before. It provides consistently good research of relevance to online store owners.

Their latest edition covers the key retail seasons throughout the year and how to benefit from them. It also includes 11 key practices to help merchants take advantage of the seasonal fluctuations throughout the year.

Worth checking out is a PDF download they provide which features a full calendar with important dates for online stores. Any merchant could use this to plan and develop ideas for the coming year.

Definitely worth the time to visit and read.

osCommerce and PunBB Forum Integration

There are plenty of reasons why a forum and an online store go great together. Integrating a forum with your store allows you to offer support for your products, gives your customers the opportunity to interact, and allows you to talk direct to your customers.

Attitude has developed a low impact integration between popular lightweight forum software PunBB and osCommerce.

A customer can create an account in the store and a forum account is created at the same time. The login and account areas are connected so there is only one login to access the store and the forum.

For information on how you can integrate a forum with your store contact Attitude.

Christmas tips for your online store

Christmas Ecommerce Suggestions

Last year we featured a collection of ideas from 37signals with some specific ideas on how to improve your store for Christmas. With only 15 days to go is there anything you can do?

Sure! Here are some links to some of the tips you could implement today in your store:

Add a "holiday help" page - when will I receive my product? what gift wrapping options do you offer? are you closed for the holidays? what is your returns policy? Provide answers to all those specific questions in one place.
Add a category for stocking stuffers - create a category that groups small and affordable items.
Help your visitors find gifts - feature products men/women, by age and by price. This could be as simple as adding some extra categories or adding a section to your homepage to feature specific items.

Good luck for your Christmas sales!

Inspiration for your shopping cart icon - 87 examples

300 Images from 1800 Sites

Designer, Ro London, has collected together examples of various kinds of icons from major sites. The shopping cart icons are most relevant for osCommerce store owners. There are a variety of shopping carts and shopping bags icons for inspiration.

Icons are available for sale at iStockphoto. Here are some Sets of Web Icons at iStockphoto.

Optimize stock tracking with osCommerce: Low Stock Report contribution

It's vital that every online store maintains adequate stock levels to meet demand. The Low Stock Report contribution helps to centralize and simplify this process by displaying a dynamic, interactive list of all products and their current stock levels.

The report's color coding feature allows to you to see at a glance which products are below the stock reorder level, giving you all the warning you need to reorder on time.

Inbuilt links let you directly access and edit product details via the Low Stock Report, making stock management faster and more efficient.

This is a simple addition to your store that can streamline your stock management process and make the most of your store's stock tracking ability.

Require someone to install this contribution? Attitude offers paid assistance with osCommerce contribution installation.

What costs are involved in setting up an osCommerce store?

There are several costs that all osCommerce store owners have in common.

Buying a domain name. This is an annual fee.

Setting up a web hosting account. There is usually a monthly fee for web hosting.

Setting up merchant accounts and/or payment gateway arrangements. There are often setup fees and then regular fees, usually on a monthly basis.

You may need to pay for an SSL certificate.

You may have a budget specifically for store promotion.

Other costs depend on your individual needs. For example, think about which of the following you might want:

Store installation.

Graphical changes to the default look of the store.

Installation and configuration of payment and shipping modules.

Support and training if you need help with any aspect of using the store.

Development and costs related to the installation of custom features.

Costs for these services will vary depending on your store's requirements.