Introduction: What is the Google +1 Button?

Until someone creates a Magento extension for the Google +1 button, like there is for the Facebook Like button, here is a quick and easy way to add it to your Magento store in two steps:

Step #1

Add the JavaScript code to your Magento config: System –> Configuration –> Design –> HTML Head –> Miscellaneous Scripts.

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Step #2

Place this tag in your template phtml files where you want the +1 button to render (example location: /app/design/frontend/XXXXXX/XXXXXX/template/page/html/header.phtml)

<g:plusone></g:plusone>

Please Note: Google has several styles of this button, you can select the proper code when you get the code here.

This post has been submitted by PixelCrayons. PixelCrayons is a creative web design and development agency that specializes in providing custom web design and development, PSD to HTML, Content Management System and ecommerce solutions.

An e-commerce solution has become the utmost requirement of every business website. It is rather indispensable. Without a good e-commerce shopping cart, an e-commerce website is incomplete and can’t expect good returns in terms of traffic, sales, ranking and ROI. There is plethora of e-commerce solutions available in the market. However, selecting the right e-commerce shopping cart software can be a daunting task. Planning for a shopping cart is very important. This is because e-commerce significantly affects your website’s layout and available features. Therefore, it is important to have an e-commerce shopping cart that not only offers the required features but also meets other important criteria. Here is a complete guide to selecting the right shopping cart for your e-commerce store.

If you are considering creating a shopping cart on your own, then mind it, it is very complicated, time consuming and a lengthy task. Also, it requires proper knowledge of various technologies. There are a number of viable shopping carts available commercially. Thus buying would be much better than spending both your time and resources on creating one on your own. The commercially available shopping carts range from free to price ones.

An important point to consider before buying a shopping cart is- do you want to integrate with an existing website or start from scratch. There are some shopping carts that are simple and handle only the check out process. Such shopping carts require you to simply add snippets of code to your existing pages. Thus this type of shopping cart is best for those who are looking for an e-commerce solution for their existing website. But if you are starting from the scratch, you may want to have a more complex and customized system. Shopping carts that can create your product pages are extremely useful when changing product information, adding new products or deleting products.

Next point to consider is- what all features do you need in a shopping cart? Just like every business operates differently, their requirements also vary. Every online store is unique. It has to be. Visitors prefer user friendly and attractive online stores. Although, depending on your business, you many need a shopping cart with only basic functions or you may need all the attention grabbing features of a big e-commerce website. This depends entirely on you to determine the type of features you want in your online store. This will help you utilize both time and resources. It is better to decide before hand than to repent later. It can be really frustrating to be half-way done integrating a cart into your website only to find that it does not support a necessary feature.

Some of the essential features an e-commerce store should have are

• It should support dynamic product/page creation.
• Ensure that it is database-driven
• It should provide options like user registration, coupon codes, product reviews, product options etc.
• It should provide affiliate tracking and inventory tracking
• It should have shipping integration
• It should be template driven
• It should have features like order management/editing and product categories and sub categories.
• It should support multiple currencies and multiple payment processors

The technical aspects also require some consideration. There are many shopping carts that require you to host the site on their servers. Hence, if you already have a website, it would not be a viable option for you especially if you have paid for a year of hosting in advance. Before installing the shopping cart, ensure that it is compatible with your hosting. An alternative is to get hosting that is compatible with your shopping cart. An ASP/MS SQL shopping cart will not work on a Linux web server (and vice versa). Make sure your web server meets all the listed requirements before purchasing the software. Ask the host service if they can install the missing components for you.

Price is also an important factor. The prices of shopping carts range from free to hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is important to make sure that the solution you choose meets all your needs. However, refrain from going overboard. You may end up spending a hefty amount on a solution that you may not need so much. At the same time, do not go for the free solutions either. This is because most free of cost shopping carts are developed by programmers on part time basis and some of them are not updated for months or even years. If you plan to go with the free shopping cart, make sure that there is adequate support from either the developers or other users online. Also ensure that bugs or security issues are addressed immediately.

Scalability counts a lot. When one starts with an online store, one has plans to make it big and turn the store into an internationally recognized store. For this, it is mandatory that the shopping cart is scalable and can handle a large number of orders and visitors simultaneously. Also make sure that it has all the features you will need, or that you can upgrade to a more advanced version if needed.

Also look out for the technical support available. You will need assistance for either setting up or installing, configuring or maybe customizing the cart to fit your website. If an error appears, it also needs to be debugged. Therefore, ensure that there is quick support because a small delay can lead to a significant number of lost sales (and revenues).

From the above mentioned points, it is clear that it requires a lot of factors to be considered while looking for a shopping cart for your e-commerce site. It is important to analyze the requirements and then proceed with the process of searching for a shopping cart. Keeping the above mentioned points in mind will help you to select the right shopping cart for you website.

Image Credit: The Rocketeer

• Part I — 10 Great Magento Extensions For Your E-Commerce Store
• Part II — 10 More Essential Magento Extensions For Your Store

Here are some more extensions that add a lot to your eCommerce store.

#1 – Follow Up Emails
	The Follow Up Email extension is a powerful auto-responder and customer relationship tool that helps to keep your site in the customer’s mind always. Use this automated email follow up Magento module and you’ll never lose track of your customers even if they have abandoned their shopping carts. You can set up as many alerts as you want.
	Demo | Extension Info | Price: $199
#2 – Easy Catalog Images
	This extension will help to display child categories in products catalog. Installation and configuration will take approximately 5 minutes.
	Demo | Extension Info | Free
#3 – Canonical URL for Magento
	This extension adds the new canonical links to the head of your Magento pages.
	Extension Info | Free
#4 – Daily Deals
	With an eye catching flash countdown our extension adds a deal of the day functionality to your magento store.
	Demo | Extension Info | Price: $99
#5 – Customers Who Purchased This…
	The extension displays in different Magento blocks products that were purchased by other customers together with the product being viewed.
	Demo | Extension Info | Price: $39
#6 – PDF Customiser
	Easily change the look of your PDF print-outs. This extension adds 20+ new options to your Magento back-end to fully customise the PDFs your shop produces.
	Extension Info | Price: $59
#7 – Unirgy Gift Certificates
	Allow your customers to purchase and use Gift Certificates.
	Extension Info | Free
#8 – Refer A Friend
	Refer a Friend extension is a smart piece of software that helps you benefit from a combination of viral and affiliate marketing (without launching a conventional affiliate program). It stimulates your customers to invite their friends to your store.
	Demo | Extension Info | Price: $99
#9 – Product Questions
	Let your potential customers ask you product-related questions and display the answers on the product page itself.
	Demo | Extension Info | Price: $129
#10 – Call For Price
	This mod adds a new administration tab to all products that will provide the option to remove the “add-to-cart” button from that products Grid/List/Display page and allow you to display a custom text snippet of your choice. This is great for items which have a MAP policy that does not allow you to show a price.
	Extension Info | Price: $27

Did we miss any of your favorite Magento extensions? Let us know in the comments.

More From This Series: Magento Extensions

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III

What is Magento Go?

Magento just announced  Magento Go, a hosted version of the popular Magento eCommerce. This is very exciting news for small businesses that want the benefits of a platform like Magento, without the hassle of getting it set up and managing the server. Just sign up, fill out a few forms and you’re good to go (pun intended).

The idea behind Magento Go is almost as old as eCommerce itself. A few of the big names in hosted eCommerce are BigCommerce, Volusion, 3dCart, AmeriCommerce… There are so many, it hard to keep track. The question is… How do these stack up against Magento Go? Stay tuned to find out once we receive more info from Magento.

From The Magento Blog:

Coming in February, Magento Go is a hosted, SaaS service designed for small and emerging merchants who want the benefits of selling online, without the complexity of managing servers and software. It provides them with a robust platform at a cost that any small business can afford.

The number one reason, is that consumers who search tend to convert at a higher rate. So if you get more people to search, you can get more people to buy…

Here is a snapshot from Google Analytics, where you can measure the difference in conversion rate by visitors who search and those who don’t.

You can find this report under: Content –> Site Search –> Usage. Note: This section will only be visible if you set up your Google Analytics account to track site search.

I’ve outlined some really cool Magento extensions in the past. What are your favorite extensions? Which are impossible to live without?

Any small business eCommerce retailer that has tried migrating from one platform to another, knows how complicated it can get to successfully migrate all your information to a new platform.

Recently I tried moving a shopping cart from Zen Cart to Magento… with simple products it’s no big deal. You export. You modify in excel. You import. The problem is that it is not always so simple. If your store has product options on most products, it is usually extremely complicated to migrate platforms. It doesn’t have to be, it can be simple with Cart2Cart (aff link) made by MagneticOne.

Migrate Shopping Carts Easily

Since I used Cart2Cart for a Zen Cart to Magento migration, I figured I’d share the process with you.

Price

Before you start, keep in mind that this is a paid service although it seems to be reasonably priced. I tried a cart with less than 500 products and the cost was $49.00 for the products only. The estimate including the customers and orders was $129.00. You can get a price estimate here.

Migration Process – Step 1

The first step after you buy credits is to enter the source shopping cart information. As of this time, Cart2Cart supports 22 standard carts including Magento, osCommerce, ZenCart, PrestaShop, CRE Loaded and more… After you fill in the required information, you will need to download the Cart2Cart “bridge” files and upload via FTP to the root directory of the source cart.

Step 1: Enter Source Cart Information

Migration Process – Step 2

The next step is to fill out the information of the destination shopping cart and to upload the “bridge” files via FTP to the destination cart as well.

Step 2: Enter Destination Cart Information

Migration Process – Step 3

In the third step you need to select the data that you want to transfer as well as any upgrade options available for your cart.

Step 3: Select Migration Options

Migration Process – Steps 4, 5 and 6…?

Step four will help you match up the currency options from the source cart. Step five will let you do a demo with 10 items… Click “Skip Demo” if you want to do a real migration..

It should be harder, but it’s real easy. Try it and let us know how it worked for you…

NOTE: I have not tested this with a lot of products (394 to be exact). I have no idea if it can handle a few thousand products. It sounds like it can…

Want a Magento theme that is professional and free? Check out this list of free premium Magento Themes from around the web.

1 – ElectroMagik

ElectroMagik is a minimalist professional design. Lots of white-space, easy on the eyes.

Info | Live Demo | Download

2 – Absolute Theme

Absolute Theme is a slick&smooth blue theme for Magento.

Info | Live Demo | Download

3 – Classic Theme

Classic Theme is a professional theme that comes in 9 colors.

Info | Live Demo | Download

4 – HelloWired

HelloWired has a very simplistic clean look with space for gallery images on the home page.

Info | Live Demo | Download

5 – Foot Prints

Foot Prints has a cool earthy tone to it.

Live Demo | Download

6 – EversonStore

Everson Store is a grayish theme that would work well for a clothing store.

Info | Live Demo | Download

7 – HM Modern

HM Modern is a yellowish modern looking theme.

Info | Live Demo | Download

8 – Glam

The Glam theme makes your store a glamorous one.

Info | Live Demo | Download

9 – Grayscale

The Grayscale theme is minimalistic, beautiful and sleek.

Info | Live Demo | Download

10 – Oops!

You got ripped off. I only listed 9 free premium Magento themes. You’ll have to check back for more another time.

Magento is a great open source eCommerce platform. Merchants love it for it’s full feature set as well as it’s ability to add-on features via extensions. One issue that a lot of people run into is the page load speed. Magento is very picky about the server set up. Here are some tips to help boost the performance and speed of your Magento store.

1 — Query Cache Size

Change the default Query Cache Size, it should be 32 or 64mb.

Magento Blog: Modify the configuration for your MySQL server to take better advantage of your server’s RAM. Most Linux distributions provide a conservative MySQL package out of the box to ensure it will run on a wide array of hardware configurations. If you have ample RAM (eg, 1gb or more), then you may want to try tweaking the configuration. An example my.cnf is below, though you will want to consult the MySQL documentation for a complete list of configuration directives and recommended settings.

Example my.cnf:

2 — Disable Access Time Logging

Magento Wiki: For Linux servers, if you have access-time logging enabled on any of your mysql, web server or cache partitions, try turning it off for a performance boost. If you’re using ext3 or reiserfs there may be faster journal write methods you can use. For more information see Linux.com.

3 — Enable KeepAlives in Apache

Make sure your Apache configuration has KeepAlives enabled. KeepAlives are a trick where multiple HTTP requests can be funneled through a single TCP connection. Since the setup of each TCP connection incurs additional time, this can significantly reduce the time it takes to download all the files (HTML, JavaScript, images) for a website. More information at Apache.org.

4 — Memory Based File Systems

Are you using a memory-based filesystem such as tmpfs? This helps Magento move faster because of all the reads/writes.

Use a memory-based filesystem for Magento’s var directory. Magento makes extensive use of file-based storage for caching and session storage. The slowest component in a server is the hard drive, so if you use a memory-based filesystem such as tmpfs, you can save all those extra disk IO cycles by storing these temporary files in memory instead of storing them on your slow hard drive.

For more in depth tips on how to boost performance on Magento, see the Magento Blog.

Image Credit: Viernest

Magento Commerce has the ability to track eCommerce sale with Google Analytics out of the box (more on that in a future post). Something that a lot of merchants struggle with is how to set up conversion tracking for other tracking software or comparison shopping engines.

How To

Here is an easy hack to track conversions for Shopzilla, PriceGrabber and the likes:

Open the file: app\design\frontend\XXXX\XXXX\template\checkout\success.phtml

At the end of the file, add the following code, this will create two variables with the order number and the order total:

<?php
	//Get Order Number & Order Total
	$order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->loadByIncrementId(Mage::getSingleton('checkout/session')->getLastRealOrderId());
	$amount = number_format($order->getGrandTotal(),2);
?>

After the above code snippet, copy and paste the tracking code from the third party analytics software of comparison shopping engine. Insert the following variable where they suggest placing the order ID and the order total:

<?php echo $amount; ?> // Order Total
<?php echo $this->getOrderId() ?> // Order Number

Here is a code example for the Shopzilla conversion tracking tool:

<script language="javascript">
	var mid            = 'XXXXX'; // Your Shopzilla Merchant ID
	var cust_type      = '';
	var order_value    = '<?php echo $amount; ?>'; // Order Amount
	var order_id       = '<?php echo $this->getOrderId() ?>'; //Order Number
	var units_ordered  = '';
</script>
<script language="javascript" src="https://www.shopzilla.com/css/roi_tracker.js"></script>
<script language="JavaScript" src="https://eval.bizrate.com/js/pos_193511.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Image Credit: Search Engine Journal