osCommerce Watch

The latest in our series of simple guides explaining essential elements of operating an osCommerce store.

Sending Customer Newsletters

You've built up a customer base for your new shop. How do you keep in touch with these customers? This guide tells you how to send email newsletters to customers.

The new guide covers use of the default osCommerce Newsletter system.

A number of modifications to the default system are possible, including adding new newsletter modules, adding images and formatted text, and enhancing the system for sending newsletters to a very large number of recipients.

Contact us for more information about modifying your osCommerce cart's newsletter system.

One of the first steps in a successful search engine optimization campaign is information gathering. This gives you a clear baseline for analyzing where traffic to your store is originating and how visitors are navigating your store. It provides the starting point to track your store's performance over time.

Google Analytics is a free service that gives you access to a range of site traffic statistics, including how visitors found your site and how they interact with it.

Contact us if you require someone to add Google Analytics tracking code to your store.

Downloadable products can be transferred directly to the customer via the Internet, allowing merchants to sell them without packaging, printing, or shipping.

This guide tells you how to create products that customers can download from your osCommerce store. It covers:

• Uploading files to the store's download folder.
  
• Creating products.
  
• Changing configuration settings.
  
• Creating product attributes.
  
• Using product attributes to link products with files in the store's download folder.
  
• Testing downloadable products.
  

Downloads are not the easiest part of the osCommerce
system, so we hope this PDF will save you time and hassle when
learning to use the osCommerce download system.

• Immediate financial loss due to stolen stock/earnings
  
• Damaged reputation
  
• Loss of customer trust
  
• Loss of investor confidence
  
• Lowered sales
  
• Extra costs of time/money to manage each fraud incident
  
• Lowered staff morale
  
• Possible legal costs
  
• Lowered value of your stock/services
  
• Additional bank fees for transaction reversal
  
• Potential problems retaining your merchant's bank account after too many reversed transactions
  

osCommerce is a powerful open source solution to your ecommerce or shopping cart needs. osCommerce is free, easy, fully functional "out of the box", and setting up and maintaining a store is simple and efficient.

• How osCommerce works to create a positive shopping experience for customers
  
• How osCommerce works for merchants to allow effective selling on the Internet
  
• How osCommerce works to allow you to administer your shopping cart
  
• The strengths of osCommerce
  
• osCommerce template customization
  
• Weighing up shopping cart options
  
• Advantages and disadvantages of osCommerce
  

Anyone conducting online transactions runs a risk of being defrauded. This article outlines specific things you can look out for and steps you can take to minimize that risk.

• Online credit card fraud and other types of online fraud
  
• The effects of online fraud
  
• Risk assessment
  
• What to watch out for
  
• High-risk areas
  
• Preventive measures
  
• What to do if you've been defrauded
  
• Useful links
  

You're set up with an online shop, so now it needs some products to sell. This guide shows you how to add a product to your shop.

As your store expands, you may need to add new categories of products. This guide shows you how to add a new product category to your shop.

When customers create an account they enter their details into sign up fields. This guide tells you how to remove some of those fields from the customer's sign up process, and how to restore them.

Your online shop looks good, but you'd like some of the text to be in your own words. This guide shows you how to change the text of headings, links and messages in your cart.

You've got a shop with products, customers and orders. Time to learn how to safeguard your data.
This guide tells you how to create a database backup.

1. Check out our osCommerce Review. This provides an overview of osCommerce and the main functionality.


2. Try osCommerce! Check out some osCommerce Demonstration Stores for yourself. While the standard install might not look or function exactly how you want, it does give you an indication of the major functionality.


3. Ask someone! A developer, like Attitude, who has experience with osCommerce Installation, Support and Customization, can answer many of your questions. You may also know other store owners who are using osCommerce who can tell you about their experience with the software.

So you've got your shop up and running, and you've received some orders. How do you access information about a particular order?
This guide tells you how to retrieve that information and how to update its status.

You've built up a customer base for your new shop. How do you keep in touch with these customers?
This guide tells you how to contact customers by email.

As you build up your product range, you might want to alter the pricing on some items.
This guide tells you how to update a product's price.

1. Clicking a row in the configuration section edits the setting. By default, clicking a setting row shows you the current value with an edit button. It is a minor edit to make the setting immediately editable, skipping a step.


2. Easier menu accessibility. By default not all links in admin are displayed. This, more often than not, adds an extra click when you want to access another page.

• Have you setup shipping correctly? Have you tested the shipping amounts returned with addresses outside your country? Have you tested the shipping amounts returned with very large quantities? Also see:Shipping Calculation Problem?


• Have you checked that all pricing on your site is accurate?


• Have you removed languages you don't support? Is all information complete for each language you are trying to support?


• Have you removed the currencies you aren't supporting? Are your conversion rates accurate for the currencies you do support?


• Have you gone through all configuration options?


• Have you thoroughly tested modifications or contributions you have installed?


• Have you conducted test transactions to confirm that you will receive payment!?


• Have you secured the admin area of your osCommerce site?


• Have you checked My Store in Admin to make sure the settings (e.g. email addresses, etc) are correct? If you want to receive emails via Send Extra Order Details, has this been enabled?