TransPacific Software

Installing OpenCart extensions developed on vQmod

OpenCart is one of the popular ecommerce frameworks. It has numerous extensions available, ranging from payment gateway, order management, language, shipping methods, reports , product feeds and so on. Installing these will quickly ramp up the functionality of your Opencart shop

However unlike Magento and WordPress , the extensions need to be manually installed.( A slightly boring part).

vQmod a preferred framework for developing Extensions

vQmod stands for Virtual Quick Mod.

“vQmod” is an override system designed to avoid having to change core files.

More than 70% The concept is quite simple. Instead of making changes to the core files directly, the changes are created as xml search/replace script files. The advantage of using vQmod is keeping the “core functionalities” of OpenCart  untouched of OpenCart extensions are built on vQmod . Here is a practical guide to install vQmod based extensions.  Read More…

As a leading ecommerce developers on OpenCart platform; we are been frequently asked  Which is the best hosting service for Opencart ?

Riding on the popularity of OpenCart many webhosting companies have started advertising as “opencart hosting” or “opencart optimized servers” or  “reliable open cart hosting”  and so on.

So what is Open cart enabled hosting?

 Simple answer: there is nothing like OpenCart enabled hosting.  All the ad noise is advertisement gimmicky; in over competitive hosting market.

OpenCart is Open source php based framework for ecommerce store. It requires a regular hosting account  on windows/Linux server with php and mysql . That’s it.

PHP and MySQL  are  available with almost all hosting providers.

So if you wish to host your OpenCart ecommerce shop select the hosting provider based on its uptime, pricing and customer support.  Ignore all the noise about Opencart enabled or opencart hosting etc.

Some so called “Opencart enabled hosting “ guys may offer pre-installed Opencart.  The same can be done in 15-20 min by uploading the free OpenCart version. Pre-installed OpenCart has no value addition as such.

If you are a small or mid size company; start with a shared hosting account on Linux  server + cpanel.  Shared accounts are cost-effective to start with. Most of them have php5.3 + and MySQL available.

Opt for Cpanel or any similar control panel. This will save you hassles in account management.

Feel free to contact us on connect@transpacific.in

Of late we had a strange experience with Google’s PPC ad approval/disapproval process.

Our PPC  advertisement on “ Shopping Cart Migration” was disapproved apparently  because we had used Terms : “osCommerce” and “Magento”

As per Google both these terms are Trademarks and cannot be used in the PPC ads .

====================
Disapproval Reason
====================
[Trademarks] Trademark in Ad Content or Keyword Insertion: Due to
trademark complaints, we don’t allow advertisers to use certain
trademarked terms or elements in the content of their Google AdWords
campaigns unless they comply with our Reseller/Informational Site
policy.

We are fine with it. But what we noticed was they did approve the PPC ad by Volusion mentioning.

“OS Commerce” instead of “osCommerce” seems like Volusion guys are able to trick the Google’s PPC inspectors.

       ”Why osCommerce is losing popularity so drastically ?

 A quick look at Google trend map shows ; Once  the most popular eCommerce platform “osCommerce”  is biting the dust.

What could be the reason?

osCommerce was always a defective platform. Security was never given any importance by original developers.  Websites got often hacked and defaced. Its archaic MVC pattern was ever upgraded.

To add to few more snags of osCommerce:

There is no facility to password protect admin area.

The development of osCommerce has been  non existent  lately.

All extensions must be added manually -   Not actively updated anymore.

osCommerce was a popular platform back in 2000 because there was no other open source e-commerce platform in the market. After some time other platforms appeared either from some CMS (virtuemart etc) or other platforms built inspired by osCommerce (zencart).  Also x-cart (commercial, low price) started to be widely used.

In 2007 Varien announced Magento and in 2008 the first version that was ready to use in production (1.3) was available in the market.  It took the e-commerce platforms to the next level.

Prestashop also gained popularity in Europe and because it’s much easier to customize than Magento (which requires quite some experience even for basic theming).

osCommerce  decline is caused by the fact that the platform was not improved to keep up with the technology.

Now, it has a new version, osCommerce (code on github), but there are still a number of issues, lacks features in order to be able to compete with Magento/prestashop and other open source platforms  like Opencart.  It doesn’t seem to attract developers either due to its fast declining usage. So it looks like end of the road for osCommerce.

Two most suitable platforms for osCommerce migration are Magento and OpenCart.

There are few off-the-shelf tools available for quick database migrations from osCommerce to magento but as per our experience these hardly work.

The solution is going for customized manual migration solutions.

If your e-commerce shop is built on Opencart ecommerce Framework; you could install this free extension for better search Engine optimization (SEO) and increased click through rates (CTR).

The extension inserts micro-data adhering to Google recommended GoodRelations e-commerce vocabulary.

http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route=extension/extension/info&extension_id=10192&filter_search=rich%20snippet

TransPacific Software : a leader in ecommerce Technologies is firm believer in semantic web and its applications in search technologies. Google has already adopted RDF, GoodRelations  and Microdata formats in a big way and Bing, Yahoo followed suit.

For installing GR rich Snippet on custom OpenCart themes our free support is available on connect@transpacific.in

(Source: transpacific.in)

As a leading e-commerce developers we regularly face an awkward question from clients.

How to track ecommerce conversions on Google Analytics when the purchase cycle is long and happens through multiple devices?

Here is more explanation:

We establish small and large size e-commerce portals; mostly for high value items like gems, Jewelry and Diamonds. Most of  our clients do Bing and Google ad-word promotions. The problem is how to track conversions.  Purchase cycles are as long as 2 to 6 Months.

 In a typical case a prospective buyer gets the lead from an ad-word (or we don’t know from where) selects a jewelry , sends the link to friends or to himself.. Link is reviewed on multiple devices and purchased in about 3-6 months from some device; may be a tab, desktop, mobile, Ipad.  Google’s Conversion cookie is live for 30 days that too on the same device. Rarely the conversion gets accurately tracked by Analytics Ecommerce feature.

To summarize: Google’s Entire Analytics works on client side cookies . The client machine (desktop ,tab, iphone) changes with advent of one user multiple device concept.

How do I track the conversion rates? How should I know if my campaign is a success to failure? Am I burning too much cash  on adwords?or otherwise..

 Any solution?

The problem is tricky and complicated So we posted the question on Multiple Industry forums like Quora , stackoverflow ,Linkedin and Google Analytics forums.

Here are some of the interesting responses 

Response -1: Prevent  overwriting campaign data through ga.js hack

If you want Google Analytics to keep the first referrer as the source of a conversion after the visitor has returned through other channels, you can use the “&utm_nooverride=1” value:
Google Groups

Our Take: It is relevant to tagged campaign on a single device doesn’t  offer a solution to the stated problem of multiple devices. Also messes up your regular organic analytics results.

Response -2: Multichannel reports in Analytics

You can pull a multichannel report, such as first click / last click conversions and track down the conversion journey. Bad news are that unless you manage to save the email of this user on the first interaction the moment it changes device it will be seen a fresh new user.

Our Take : Multi Channel is a great feature rolled out by Google to drill into the conversion path. It uses funnel anology to identify the path traversed by a buyer. You may check out the video here to understand how it works http://youtu.be/rZ2RbGsuy3U

However the solution will not work for multiple devices. Also not possible to pick an identifiable variable of a client like her “e-mail” until she processes a purchase.

Response 3 : Cookie hack and get account suspended

You can save uniquely identifiable information in one of the custom variables but that will be against the terms (http://www.google.com/analytics/… - look at section 7 – Privacy.

Our Take : Technically a hack approach but legally a bad one. This is directly hacking into Google cookies.. For example you manage to plant the customer e-mail or ip into custom variable and try to track buyer. Even if you are able to do it ; some browsers may block writing to third party cookie .Your Google Analytics account may get suspended.  Will fail in https protocol, will fail on multiple device. Anyway “Don’t try this at home “approach.

Response 4 : Ask the customer Where You heard about us?

I own jewelry store and if the jewelry sales are like ours you interact with the client. Build trust and ask. They will tell you. Add key concepts in your ads because some times they remembered the words not the place where they hear it.

Our Take: simple but good approach. More “human” less machine” approach. Simply ask the client where he got the reference and input in your CRM software. Or present a mandatory field in the check out option with drop down on “where you heard about us?” It will give you a good idea on which campaign to credit for conversion.

Response 5 : A combination of offline Online approach

For low volume, high ticket transactions this method should work. Store your leads in a CRM, do most of your follow-ups and conversations using the CRM system. Track the initiating traffic source using this. 

Any further visits by a user to the site can only be determined if you are capturing the contact details in further interactions as well. Capture the traffic source in these interactions as well. 

When the purchase comes through, you can see the complete timeline of that visitor (first visit - when he/she generated the lead, next visits - when he/she got back using the contact form, purchase). The crucial thing for this to work is one common field which is captured in all the interactions which is unique to a visitor. That is the email id.

Our Take : Good solution but manual and off-analytics through CRM

Response 6 : Tagged discount coupon with campaign URL

You offer a $10.00 discount or meaningful amount, people will use the coupon and you will have ad tracking information.

Our Take : street smart solution similar to tagged campaign. Will work if user strictly maintains the URL with unique coupon code for purchase.

Google Universal Analytics

Looks like someone must have already haggled Google with this question (before I did ..Joking). How to track conversions if they happen through multiple devices? 

Well  here come  panacea from Google:  Google Universal Analytics

We are one of those lucky chosen once by Google testing  Universal Analytics for Developers  closed door preview.

Its radical and next generation. You must un-learn the analytics as you know it and re-learn it again.

Here are some highlights

1) No client side cookies (except anonymous  identifier)  all tracking will be done on server end.

2) Offline Conversion Import: Using the Measurement Protocol you’ll now be able to send offline conversions to Google Analytics. For example, if a user converts via phone you’ll be able to track that conversion in Google Analytics.

3) For More information check out Justin Cutroni blog on http://cutroni.com/blog/2012/10/29/universal-analytics-the-next-generation-of-google-analytics/

We at TransPacific Software work very hard to provide solution to our client’s ecommerce needs with cutting edge technology Do e-mail me on connect@transpacific.in  Prashant Telang CEO

(Source: transpacific.in)

Design your own jewelry and provide it a personal touch through online Design it Yourself tools

Jewelry and engagement rings  is one of the fastest in the growing design-it-your space; because it is extremely personal and highly configurable. Jewelry is the perfect fit for an online design tool that lets you mix and match colorful jewels and precious metals.

Each piece that you design is built to order and is likely a one-of-a-kind. Custom jewelry is a great way to express your individuality and style. Thanks to online shops that offer online design tools, you can start getting creative right away..

Listed are the top four jewelry , Diamond and color stone portals with intuitive “design it yourself” widgets.

1. Adiamor

2. Blue Nile

3. Gemvara

4. James Allen

TransPacific Software works with jewelry e-retailers to create top quality “Design it yourself” tools

We invite you to check out tab friendly drag and drop ring designer tool on www.naturaldiamondcompany.com http://www.naturaldiamondcompany.com/index.php?route=product/ring/one

For more info contact :connect@transpacific.in

Let me give you an illustration. Recently I posted a technology related questions on quora.com under “Technology trend” topic (refer to the screenshot)

The question is “After Kodak which company to bite the dust in 2013 due to technology tidal wave? Would it be Nokia or Research In Motion; What’s your prediction?”

 Remember ! Search technology is without brain

Along with the question Quora provided a slew of related topics:  Tides, Hudson Bay, Physical Oceanography and wind waves”.   Totally irrelevant.

This simple case illustrates one of the biggest drawbacks of “search engines”; It simply cannot understand the context and reference in human language.

Search engines search “in a dumb“ way;  by comparing text strings with text strings. Whatever advances are made by Google or Bing they still remain dumb.

In the above example “Quora” has picked up a seemingly most important word “tidal wave“ and served us the suggested topics which are unrelated to question.

It’s the problem with the way search engines search

“Can RIM pull rabbit out of its hat to save itself” the search string on Google provided me much more relevant results but ad-links to  “Rabbit farming” and “save our environment. “

Neither my question is wrong nor is search engine is wrong. The problem lies with search methodology.

Semantic web try’s to solve problem of “string based searching”

Semantic Web look at the meaning of the data. Semantic Web meta tagging will put meta data in the web page which will help search algorithms in distinguishing from a “computer chip” to “potato chip”  Eventually, your computer will know that this document you’re reading is a “blog”, it’s author is “Prashant Telang”, it’s publisher is “ TransPacific Software”, and it’s topic is” semantics in ecommerce

The term Semantic web was coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium (“W3C”), which oversees the development of proposed Semantic Web standards. He defines the Semantic Web as “a web of data that can be processed directly and indirectly by machines.”…..

Semantic Web and ecommerce

So how can  semantic web be put to use in ecommerce sites?

Organizations like Good Relations are developing powerful ecommerce vocabularies for publishing all of the details of your products and services in a way friendly to search engines, mobile applications, and browser extensions. By adding a bit of extra code to your ecommerce Web content, you make sure that potential customers realize all the  features and services and the benefits , because their computers can extract and present this information with ease.

Search engines like Google & Bing have already adopted semantic web through knowledge discovery products like Google Knowledge Graph and inducted it in Google webmaster central under “structured Data Dashboard”. Further Google Recommends Using GoodRelations Vocabulary for ecommerce products descriptions

TransPacific Software specialization in semantic web

Few shopping cart frameworks like Magento, OpenCart & WordPress-ecommerce have come up with semantic meta data plugins.

Here is a WordPress Plugin screenshot with semantic web meta data input per product. However providing semantic meta data with each product “manually is cumbersome.

Automated semantic web meta data tagging

TransPacific Software is working with its ecommerce clients to have automated systems developed, to have backend semantic meta data automatically inserted with products. We expect enormous benefit to ecommerce sites in SEO and search engine Ranking.

Feel free to put up your comments or e-mail us on connect@transpacific.in

Recently we added  a new arsenal in our testing apparatus. A 7 inch tab with Android Icecream Sandwich, 800*480 resolution and Cortex 1.5GHz processor. It will join our ever growing list of testing devices including Android, window smartphones, laptops, desktops, 10 inch tabs, BlackBerry the list seems every increasing and endless.

Five years back ; testing a web site was as simple as testing it on 1024 resolution CRT monitor, typically in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Since then computing trends have vastly shifted towards mobile and touch screen devices.

Tablet sales are expected to exceed 100 million this year. Their sales numbers may top notebooks next year. Smartphones with touch screens are in vogue like never before – as per The Nielsen Company, the majority of mobile subscribers around the world own smartphones. Shift to mobile touch screen devices is happening at an extraordinary speed.

Most of our clients with e-commerce web-sites have as high as  40% of  traffic from mobile devices including iPod, Ipad, and Tabs. We expect by the end of next year, this may exceed 50%.

Its important that you get your web-site made “touch screen device friendly” or as it is called “responsive”.

Responsive web site defined in simple words should look good on all devices including iPods, iPhones and tablets of all screen sizes.

Responsive web-sites auto change its layout by reading  host machine’s resolution. For example it will change a long menu into drop down when displayed on a 7 inch tablet or iphone.

It is important that your web development contractor should have devices of varied resolutions and sizes for testing a responsive web-site.  On-line simulators for design testing are available but do not provide accurate results.

Apart from layout there are few additional aspects to be taken care off; including user experience in navigating the website over touch screen devices. The data size of the website and speed at which it renders is of importance as most touch screen devices will be connected with Wi-Fi  or mobile data line.

Check out our demo responsive site on responsive site design

For quick test, change the browser window size to experience auto layout management feature. (we use custom built media queries integrated in shopping platform like Open Cart and  Magento).

Note: how menu turns into drop down and multi column layout get converted to two or single column layout when browser window size is reduced.

Feel free to discuss any queries or questions you have on connect@transpacific.in

TransPacific Software (www.transpacific.in) achieves PCI DSS compliance for Diamondsinafrica.com

Amazon cloud hosted Diamondsinafrica.com ; achieved coveted PSS-DSS accreditation. TransPacific Software successfully completed PCI-DSS audit for Diamondsinafrica.com conducted through Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) Trustwave

Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS), PCI DSS is a standard the online retailers, must follow when storing, processing and transmitting their customer’s credit card data. The Data Security Standard (DSS) was developed and the standard is maintained by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC).  The PCI DSS standard, as of September 2009 (DSS v 1.2), includes the following 12 requirements for best security practices:

Build and Maintain a Secure Network:

1. Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data.

2. Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters.

Protect Cardholder Data

3. Protect stored cardholder data.

4. Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks.

Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program.

5. Use and regularly update anti-virus software.

6. Develop and maintain secure systems and applications.

Implement Strong Access Control Measures.

7. Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know.

8. Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access.

9. Restrict physical access to cardholder data.

Regularly Monitor and Test Networks.

10. Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data.

11. Regularly test security systems and processes.

Maintain an Information Security Policy.

12. Maintain a policy that addresses information security.