At Kodeplay , our esteemed clients come up with queries,ideas during the initial stages of an ecommerce project . As they venture into the world of online
retail , we are happy to help them make the right decisions after studying their requirements and business model . We have compiled a list of FAQ’s for
Businesses wanting to chalk out a strategy to hit the Bulls Eye with their first attempt at starting a web store .
1)Which ecommerce software solution will be the best for me?
In order to get a web store up and running quickly , It is important to start with the most appropriate out of the box solution .
As per the Business rules and user feedback customizations can be added .
Open source solutions have the advantage of a wide community , less turn around time for customizations,available plugins,modules for plug and play.
Closed source solutions can be looked at for high scalability ,security and use cases involving integrations with legacy systems, integrations with existing architecture
The most widely used open source ecommerce solutions currently are :
OSCommerce , Zen Cart , magento , VirtueMart ,Uber cart ,WP commerce, prestashop , opencart ,CS cart .
The following points must be considered to choose an open source solution :
1)Level of customization required to implement Business Rules
2)Choice of web server , infrastructure
3)Skills required for possible customizations
4)Expected traffic , end user preferences,ease of use
It is very important to use the right opensource codebase for the right job.
To avoid changes , rework it is best to evaluate the open source solutions in detail or hire an expert .
2)Can we have the same web store for multiple languages across countries
Yes . Most open source solutions as well as propreitory systems offer language packs which can be easily integrated.
In case a specific language pack is unavailable , Translation services will have to be subscribed to .
Cusomized modules should also use text from the language packs . The end users can choose a language of their choice from the frontend.
3)Will I be able to change the look and feel of my web shop instantly from time to time ?
This is an excellent idea during seasonal offers , festivals . It is best to create custom themes for specific events .
Themes can be switched from the administrator panel. The customized themes should be web standards compliant for better performance .
4)Can I bulk upload products from excel directly into my web store
Yes . This can be done with the help of available or custom plugins .
The excel file can be imported from the administrator panel and products will appear on the store frontend .
5)Can I change the marketing content or create emarketing spots on my web shop ?
It is possible to hook content management systems like wordpress with a web shop . Plugins also exist for open source solutions.
Marketing spots , Best selling products can be updated through the administration panel.
6)How do i set up Taxation rules for my web shop ?
Tax rates can be associated with targeted jurisdictions . Tax rules can be associated with the products .Selected products can be made tax free . Support for
multiple currencies is also present in the administration panel .
The end user can choose a preferred currency from the store frontend.
6)Which payment gateways should we integrate with ?
First we should identify the geographic locations we are targeting . We will then evaluate the payment gateways which support currencies of these geographic locations and are trusted by the users of specific locations . Payment gateway extensions to integrate open source soutions with popular payment gateways are often avaliable .
7)For paypal integrations should our buyers have a paypal account?
The shoppers will not require a paypal account . They will be redirected to paypal on checkout . After completing credit card payments on the paypal website the shoppers will be redirected back to your webshop .
8)Will i need an ssl certificate?
An SSL certificate will be required only when we accept payments on our website itself .
PCI compliance will also be required for this case . This can be obtained from reliable ssl , PCI vendors
9)Will we be able to create staff accounts or roles for product managers , sales managers , customer care ?
Yes. Users with specific roles and permissions can be created from the administration panel . This is an important requirement as you move onto scaling up and appoint staff to manage parts of the store . Ease of use should be verified for this feature .
10)How will we handle backups of our database ?
Periodic Backups for database can be implemented by exporting the database file from the administration panel . It is important to backup regularly . As Order transaction volumes increase ,automated daily backups should be set up .
11)Can we source products from multiple suppliers ?
Yes . User roles can be created for suppliers . The suppliers can then import a csv file to mass upload the products
12)Are there any security concerns while starting a web shop ?
Web Application security best practices should be factored in by the web developers . Penetration testing needs to be implemented before migrating the store assets to the server . Open Source solutions also implement best practices to avoid exploits . Payments are normally handled by the gateways so most of the exploits can be avoided .
13)How will I promote my web shop to increase sales .
It is important to integrate your web store with social media like facebook , twitter to create a community around your products . Allow your users to login through their twitter and facebook accounts . Update your social media pages with news about product launch , discount offers . A Customer database can be created . Newsletters with helpful content can be sent out .
Search engine optimization can be implemented to provide more visibility for your store content .
It is important to identify useful content for your shoppers and serve quality content through the right channels on the web.
14)Will we be able to add multiple shops on the same sites ?
Multi store mode or online shopping malls are not available out of the box . We have customized open source solutions to work as online shopping malls .
Please feel free to contact us for a demo .
Posted in Ecommerce on July 8th, 2010 by admin>
After installing FireFox (FF) the first thing I do (normally every developer will do) is search and install the addons.
Here are some handy addons a web developer must install.
1. Firebug
Firebug is considered to be the ultimate developer’s tool for Firefox. You are given a ton of web development tools to use from within your browser. You can explore, edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript in real-time on any web page.
2. YSlow
YSlow analyzes web pages and why they’re slow based on Yahoo!’s rules for high performance web sites.
3. Coral IE tab
If u develop website in FF and also care for IE users then u will love this one. It enables you to use the embedded IE engine within tabs of Mozilla Firefox.
4. Web Developer
The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.
5. Measure It
Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.
6. ColorZilla
Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies.
7. X – Ray
See the tags on a page without viewing the sourcecode.
8. Font Finder
FontFinder is created for designers, developers and typographers. It allows a user to analyze the font information of any element on a page, copy any piece(s) of that information to the clipboard, and perform inline replacements to test new layouts.
9. Professor X
The Professor X Extension let’s you see inside a page’s head without viewing the sourcecode.
10. Aardvark
Cool utility for cleaning up a page (for printing or better viewing) as well as for web development. Displays a red rectangle on the element under the mouse — hit “w” to go wider (get the containing element), then hit other keystrokes to remove, etc.
Which Firefox Addons do you use?
Just leave a reply and tell us about your favourite FF add-ons.
Posted in Firefox on April 8th, 2010 by jimy>
As a developer coding in php on windows OS, at one stage you would want to switch completely to linux, for following reasons -
1) it’s a requirement
2) you use a linux server and want to get familiar with your remote server environment
3) no license fees.
4) you think its cool or geek or both.
Whatever might be the reason, using linux for developing php applications is definitely a plus because php was made for linux.
Likewise even I wanted to make a switch to linux for a number of reasons and was checking out various options like virtual machine and multiple installations on my windows machine just to play around and understand. But I took it up seriously only last week and decided that i would code our side project (which we work on saturdays) entirely on linux. So the target was to get linux (Ubuntu 9.04 also known as Jaunty Jackalope) at a stage similar to my existing development environment on windows ie. apache, php, mysql, eclipse, subversion (subclipse). In doing so, I had my fair share of the usual eureka moments, roadblocks and a lot of google search. In the process I found out a some superb resources which I wish to share through this post.
First of all let me tell you that linux isn’t difficult anymore. The gnome interface brings it very close to windows and no extra effort is required to figure out basic stuff like working with folders, browsing the internet or playing games that come with the package. In fact, I know many non-techies who use popular linux distributions like Ubuntu for various reasons, most importantly for reasons #3 and #4 stated above. But if you are a developer the interface might not take you far because you will be doing a few things that requires root access and for that, (as it seems so far,) Terminal is must .
So the first thing you would want to do is to get yourself familiar with a few basic shell commands. Here are a few tutorials that actually take you through the process rather than just mention to commands as facts.
http://jucato.wordpress.com/2006/08/22/ubuntu-classroom-command-line-basics/
These tutorials will get you rolling and if you are really determined, you will probably start enjoying the terminal.
The next important thing is to set up LAMP. The following links explains it better than anything else I could find on Google. If you follow this, believe me, LAMP installation will be a breeze.
http://www.supriyadisw.net/2006/12/lamp-installation-on-ubuntu
Now apache, php, mysql is set up and you can see ‘It works! ‘ when you navigate to localhost. If you havent figured out yet, this file lies in /var/www/ folder. So this is your document root. But http://localhost/phpmyadmin still gives a 404 not found error . This is because you have to tell apache that mysql client is there. So put this piece of code at the end of you apache2.conf file and restart apache.
Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf
Cool. As soon as this started working i thought i was all set to migrating my code to linux. But not yet because I had still to set up eclipse. So I downloaded eclipse PDT for linux and untared it by typing a hard to grasp command in the terminal. An important command to know now is how to deal with compressed files, although you can do it using interface as well.
So that got eclipse up and running but it didn’t allow me to have /var/www/ as my workspace if I didn’t launch it with root access. Doing a sudo launch every time was quite annoying. Also, the files inside /var/www/ couldn’t be edited by a non-root user. Then the ‘home/user/public_html/’ directory on a typical linux remote server struck me. So what I wanted now was to configure virtual hosts on apache2 and I found out this link which made it so easy.
http://www.debuntu.org/2006/02/22/7-virtual-hosting-using-apache-2
After this, eclipse can be started from a launcher on the desktop. Now the most painful part, Subclipse. I remember it was easier if not very easy on windows. With linux, you can clearly make out that the problem is some version compatibilty issue with Javahl library that subclipse uses, but it seems to be impossible at one point of time until you come across something like this -
http://en.newinstance.it/2009/05/13/making-eclipse-javahl-working-recompiling-subversion-from-the-sources/
So that was it. Lot of nice things learnt and finally all good stuff working smoothly on ubuntu. Hoping to have the entire team on linux now and the next few challenges are -
1) installing php and apache extensions so that all projects work in linux.
2) instaling the APE server
3) migrating to linux full time.
Posted in From Our Blog > linux on April 1st, 2010 by vineet>
