osCommerce Templates

Intro: Two of our most popular products are osCommerce templates and CRE Loaded templates. Both are actually a combination of osCommerce 2.2 (ready built online store) provided by osCommerce.com and a unique template design from Foamers.net. Likewise we also offer professional osCommerce, CRE Loaded and or ZenCart templates customizations at affordable prices. In this article Tan Thomas offers as tips on how to customize your shopping cart as well as market your product.

Article: When you decide to go with osCommerce for your e-commerce site, you can simply take their stock layout and insert your information and voila! you have a completely functional e-commerce site ready for customers and sales.
If you’re like most e-commerce sites, however, you’ll want to go a step further than that and customize your “storefront” to make it better fit your product. If you are savvy in both the technical and marketing fields, this will probably be a no-brainer. If, however, you are an expert in your product, but not necessarily how to sell your product, this article is for you. It’s filled with tips to help you both design your site and well as market your product.

Design Your Site

1.Change your colors. You can go into your stylesheet.css file (in your catalog root folder) and simply change the colors from the stock layout. It’s amazing what a difference something as simple as a custom color layout can do for your website!

2.Choose a template. If you don’t want to start your website design from scratch, you can use a template that has everything you need for your site except the information.

3.Or, go even simpler. If you don’t want to change the complete template you can opt to change just one thing on the site. This could be the background, buttons or logo. Whatever you choose, just do something to make the site your own!

4. Improve your images. Spend some time learning image editing programs so that you can save your pictures in high quality with the smallest file size so that they both look great and load quickly. With the high speed of the Internet, most people don’t have the patience to wait for slow loading pictures and they may leave your site rather than waiting for the image to load completely.

5.Change the page titles. Make sure that you give each page a descriptive title so that when the page appears in the search engines it gives people enough information to get them to want to click on your link.

6.Put your self in your customer’s shoes. Customers do not like long drawn out checkouts. If you can get the information you need in two to three pages (including the confirmation of information page), your site will have an advantage over those sites that draw it out. The osCommerce forum has information on how to do this.

7. Get a design expert who is experienced with osCommerce. By installing STS Template system or some other equivalent, they can customize your shopping cart to anything. This website lists a series of osCommerce website which had gone through a serious make-over. http://www.efusiontech.com/E-Commerce-Projects.html
Market Your Product:

1.Make your site unique. This is a basic marketing technique and is sometimes referred to as creating a Unique Selling Proposition. Basically, this is a simple statement that tells people what makes your site and your business unique from other businesses, especially those in the same niche. Whether you always offer free shipping or guarantee the lowest prices, your unique selling proposition is what sets you apart from the rest.

2.Don’t forget to sell your product! Getting people to your site and getting them to stay on the site are important, but once they are there you need to SELL the product. You won’t be there to tell them about the items and they aren’t in a bricks and mortar store to examine the product themselves, so your descriptions need to do these jobs for you and the customer. Be detailed, be specific and be honest. Include who would likely enjoy the product and why they would need it. Instead of focusing on the details of the product or service, put some emphasis n the benefits.

3.Make your store more than an online entity. Give your customers a way to contact you. This includes a name, address, email and phone number. If they have no way to get into contact with you, your credibility with the customer declines.

4.Offer more than just the product or service. Don’t be afraid to add articles, tips and information related to your product for customers coming to your site. It will increase your credibility as well as give them reasons to return to your site even if they don’t have an immediate need for your product or service. Related to this is sending out a periodic newsletter that gives useful information, announces specials and sales and highlights specific products.
With just a few customizations your osCommerce store can be a unique site that fits your philosophy, product and needs. You can view samples of some oscommerce website from eFusiontech.com who has done over a hundred osCommerce implementation with customized skin and layout.

About the Author
The author is a designer working in Singapore

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Shopping is an activity that we all have experienced. By either going to the grocery store to pick up eggs or to the mall to buy clothes. Today, with the development of the computers and of the Internet, some brilliant minds thought that it would be even better if people who do not have enough time to spend in shops, could buy stuff over the Internet. Revenues from ecommerce stores have increased consistently over the past few years. Logically, online shopping is strictly connected to the use of websites, because through the sites, people can view products and place orders.

First, whenever you plan to launch an ecommerce site, one of the most important things that you should plan is the layout. Why? Simple, image and first impression. When someone visits your online store, you want them to feel as if you’re a professional, not somebody who does not care about the appearance of their business. If the site is not professional, would you want to give these people your credit card information? If you went to buy a new car and the car you were interested in had “wash me” scribed into the dirt covered hood, would you buy it? Also, the layout should be clear and easy for your customers to navigate. Now, the next question is, how can someone have an ecommerce store like this when their knowledge about html is little or the budget is not very big? This question has two answers.

Oscommerce and oscommerce templates. First I’ll explain oscommerce. Oscommerce is shopping cart software used to perform the duties of an ecommerce store. Duties such as maintaining inventory of products with photos and descriptions, processing orders and payments, etc. This software is open-source and available for free. Anyone can download and install oscommerce and in minutes have there own ecommerce store. Oscommerce stores come with lots of options and can be customized.

This brings me to oscommerce templates. For many beginners or advanced users, oscommerce templates are the perfect option. They are already made so you can, in a way, preview the look of your site. Also they can be modified and updated, and moreover, they have no errors, so there won’t be any worries concerning a line or a box not being where it should.

Oscommerce templates are made by web designers and developers and come in several themes and colors. There are many such templates that can be found on the Internet. For the most part you must pay for them. Some may be free, but you usually get what you pay for. Keep in mind that the price you will pay for an oscommerce template is going to be much less than what you would pay a web designer to create a personalized ecommerce site for you. Sometimes thousands less.

If you decided not to use a template, it would also take much longer to develop your ecommerce site from scratch. On the other hand, using oscommerce templates give you the template at the time of purchase. Also, the template provider may provide configuration services for the template. This would allow you to do everything with one company at the same time.

Finally, I want to say that it is not a strike against you to use an oscommerce template instead of hiring a web designer. This is often what designers and webmasters will tell you when you decide to use a template. These templates are made for you to use. Most templates are actually created and used by web designers all the time.

Before starting your own ecommerce website you should think of what you really want to do, how your site should look, and then choose from the large number of oscommerce templates. Good luck. This solution is ideal for beginners who want to start their own online shopping site or web designers who want to save time.

About the Author
For more details about oscommerce templates visit http://www.mayviktemplates.com/oscommerce.php

This article was written by Kyle M. http://www.mayviktemplates.com

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osCommerce is a powerful and open source e-commerce storefront system, that’s not without a few shortcomings. We pointed out a few of them in our review here a little while back. We also pointed out that one of its great strengths was its extensibility, which is manifested in many user-contributed modules as well as spin-offs. Two such spin-offs of osCommerce are Zen Cart and CRE Loaded — both of which are based on osCommerce and both of which enhance it in a number of ways.

One of the most disturbing items that I found when originally evaluating osCommerce was its lack of a proper security setup for an administrator. I’m pleased to report that both Zen Cart and CRE Loaded have addressed this issue and both have some form of a proper administrator login. Both of these applications are based on osCommerce and as such have a similar core base of functionality and operations. Where they differ is in the new modules/features added and how close or how far they stray from their progenitor.

Zen Cart

Zen Cart carries the moniker, “the art of e-commerce” as its tagline and as a virtual mission statement for how the software should work. Installation of Zen Cart, much like osCommerce, is simple and easy to follow. The step-by-step installation goes a step beyond the ordinary by alerting you if something is not properly configured, for example file permissions. Though this may sound trivial at first, it can be a serious troubleshooting issue later on, as file permissions are not always what they should or need to be right off the bat. By identifying any potential ‘gotchas’ at the installation phase Zen-Cart facilitates a pleasant installation experience.

Zen Cart coupons
This setup screen in Zen Cart allows users to create electronic coupons.

Though Zen Cart is based on osCommerce and has a similar menu setup, the default setup does not look like a typical osCommerce installation. The main Zen Cart Admin screen starts with a “dashboard” type approach that lays out the core statistics of your e-commerce activities (hits, sales, customers, products, orders). This is different than the default osCommerce (and CRE Loaded) main screen, which is a list of admin options. From a business point of view, starting with the core statistics is probably a good thing and gives you an immediate first glance at what’s going on. From an admin point of view though, you need to navigate through the lengthy pull down menus to get to the various administrative options. For a novice the pull-down menus may seem a bit overwhelming at first.

The default configuration of Zen Cart does not, for some reason, have an inline WYSIWYG HTML editor enabled (that makes editing certain content easier) by default. For that you’ll have to select the option under the configuration menu and enable it.

Added Features

Beyond some aesthetic changes, the major differences between osCommerce and Zen Cart come from Zen Cart’s long list of added features. Among the modules included are a Gift Certificate/Voucher module which allows you to create, send and manage the digital coupons. The Downloads Manager enables you to effectively manage downloadable sales (pdf or other media files). Attribute configuration options in the Download module allow you to configure how many days the download is available for and how many downloads per purchaser.

Zen Cart also has an option that allows for integrating phpBB bulletin board support, though you’ll need to install that software on your own separately.

I found the documentation for Zen Cart to be very un-zen in that it is disparate, text heavy and not always easy to follow or understand. There is a 59-page Administrator Manual that is available as a separate download, but unfortunately it is not up to date and currently matches Zen Cart v1.1.2. This large tome is detailed and indexed properly but is likely overwhelming for the average user. There is a much simpler “First Steps To Setting Up A Cart, Newbie Guide” that a user contributed in the support forums that, though less detailed, is probably sufficient enough to get going with the application and to properly set up a reasonable storefront.

Zen Cart index template
One of the Index page templates included in Zen Cart.

CRELoaded

CRELoaded looks and feels much like osCommerce (as opposed to Zen Cart which has its own Zen Cart “look” by default) such that it even carries the osCommerce logo (by default before customization). The purpose of CRELoaded is to supercharge osCommerce - a purpose which is stamped on the footnote of every page with the statement, Powered by osCommerce Supercharged by CRE Loaded Team.

Installation of CRE Loaded lacks the “gotchas” notification for file permissions that Zen Cart has. This can be a bit annoying once you get into the program and realize that you need to go back to your server to set the appropriate permission. The installation setup also does not allow you set up the original Admin user/password setup. Though, if you read the README.txt file (which I didn’t) you’ll discover what the default is admin@localhost/admin). The administrative capabilities of CRE Loaded are greater than those of Zen Cart, as it includes multi-admin capabilities, which allow more than one admin to be specified as well as permissions for different admins.

If you would like to continue reading The Disciples of osCommerce, Zen and CRE Loaded by Sean Michael Kerner you may do so by simply going here

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As a long time web designer I’ve dealt with any number of
eCommerce options over the years. In general you’ve always had two major options:

1) You build and code from scratch. This required a great deal of knowledge in various coding languages in addition to the ability to design an attractive interface which will work within the construct of the website’s structure. 2) You pay a company with pre-built systems. This was not only extremely expensive but rarely allowed you freedom to create any sort of pleasing
design as it would have to conform to their limited header/footer customization.

Well, I’ve seen the light now! The future is here and (unfortunately for people in “the business” like me) it’s unbelievably easy to do.

These free solutions are Open Source based online shop e-commerce solutions that are available under the GNU General
Public License. They all contain a rich set of out-of-the-box online shopping cart functionalities that allows store owners to setup, run, and maintain their online stores with minimum effort and with no costs, fees, or limitations involved. Most of these Open Source solutions provide an e-commerce platform, which include the powerful PHP web scripting language and the fast MySQL database server. With no special requirements, they are able to run on any PHP 4.1+ enabled web server running on Linux, Solaris, BSD, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows environments.

Unbelievable right? Well,, it’s true and I’m loving it.

In addition to the obvious advantages of these open source stores, there are many less obvious benefits such as - Active user forums where you can get answers to most any question without dealing with charges or “canned responses” from a profit company. - The ability to change the design of your store nearly instantly by simply selecting a new “template” from within your administration panel - Countless free “add-ons” and “modules” which add all types of additional features to your store. - As the projects continue to grow and the stores improve you can upgrade, and of course the upgrades are free also.

In my opinion once of the greatest of the above features is the ability to change the design and/or appearance of your site with the ease of a few uploads and button clicks (ONCE YOU HAVE A DESIGN DEVELOPED). The most common complaint I found from OS users was the same one I’ve heard about other e-commerce packages. People weren’t aware of how much work would be involved in getting an original design put together. They would get to a certain point, hit an unexpected bottleneck, and be unable to keep going. The majority of the work involved in
getting your store up and running was getting a design to function within the limits and restrictions of the store’s code. Every implementation will run into these problems, and everything takes longer and costs more than you plan for it, whether it’s proprietary or open source. There are now; however, easy solutions for this issue which will prevent you from
getting overwhelmed. Many businesses on the web (example:http://www.bg-website-templates.com &
http://www.bluegelmedia.com ) who focus on web template development have entered a whole new era in template design. They have begun development of stunning designs for Open Source eCommerce solutions such as OScommerce, ZenCart, and CRE Loaded (the most popular of these Open Source eCommerce solutions). This allows you to easily implement a perfect store design within minutes. While these design templates are not free like the eCommerce solution, they are worth the mere $50 average
price, saving you weeks of frustrating design.

You can find more information on these Open Source eCommerce Solutions at their hub sites. Just type in the OS solution name you wish to research into your search engine and their home
pages will show up. The most popular solutions are ZenCart,
OScommerce & CRE Loaded. But there are many other ones out there to choose from; however these three have proven themselves over time and have such large user bases and support groups that I
would recommend trying one of them first before attempting to delve into lesser known solutions.

To sum this all up. While large companies will always need a custom built solution for their online stores, the average small business no longer needs to spend five or ten thousand dollars to have a quality store developed. The use of a free OS solution along with an inexpensive design template will have you selling online for pennies on the dollar compared with a custom built store. Even if you don’t feel you have the skill set to work
with the OS solutions, you can hire any competent developer to implement it for you. Sure you’ll be charged, but the price will be a small percentage of what you would have paid.

Written by Gene Torrey

Webmaster/Lead Designer.

I have spent nearly seven years in the pursuit of how to make high end websites using small business resources.

This article may be reproduced if all content, links and byline remain intact.
Ecommerce Web Templates can be found using this link.

About the author:
Written by Gene Torrey Webmaster/Lead Designer. I have spent nearly seven years in the pursuit of how to make high end websites using small business resources.

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