TransPacific Software

Step by Step guide to installing Opencart Extensions on custome opencart themes

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 05:41:00 -0400

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…

Is there anything like OpenCart Hosting?

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:07:00 -0400

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

Google’s funny ways of approving and disapproving PPC ads

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 08:28:00 -0400

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.

osCommerce the fastest vanishing eCommerce cart

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:44:00 -0400

”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.

OpenCart Extension for Rich Snippet released by TransPacific Software for better search Engine Optimization

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 02:37:38 -0500

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

Bye Bye Google Analytics; Hello Google Universal Analytics

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:52:00 -0500

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

This valentine’s Day go for “bespoke ring design”

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 06:19:00 -0500

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

Semantic web why it will be more and more important for ecommerce website development?

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 03:02:00 -0500

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

Responsive website; a must If you don’t want to lose 50% of your visitors.

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 06:59:00 -0500

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

Diamond retailer Diamondsinafrica.com is safest portal for e-commerce transaction

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 05:03:00 -0500

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.

Is there Over Communication by e-commerce guys?

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 05:26:00 -0500

So how many e-mail/text messages you receive when you make a purchase from the net???….

Have you ever counted the number of communications one gets after a purchase from net.

Recently I bought a book from a well know Indian Portal. As soon as I completed my purchase through CC; the constant stream of e-mails and text messages started.

It started with Thank you, next day it was “order is booked” after two days “order shipped” next day order delivered followed by thank you for shopping. Add to these few more e-mails & text messages by Credit card guys.

It landed up as text on my BB, in my e-mail and again e-mails found its way on my BB. Things did not stop there. I was made a regular subscriber to new offers, festival bonanzas ….then my e-mail was shared with a sister site which was a real estate portal. I started receiving home loan offers…

I never expected that one book purchase will result in a deluge of e-mail and text message. They are outright irritating.

So on the holy grail of “outstanding customer service” are e-commerce guys resorting to “Over communication”?

Whenever I receive an e-mail through abandoned cart recovery. I feel my privacy is invaded. Yes I did abandon the cart and I did it on purpose why these pesky mails? Its important to distinguish between proactive communication and over-communication. One order should be followed by just one e-mail for confirmation. Rather than pushing text and e-mails on to the customer we strongly advise our e-commerce clients to maintain a live chat window and a toll free number.

Support your e-commerce with optimal communication preferably with only e-mail channel.

Prashant Telang, CTO transpacific.in

Point to ponder: Why “subscribe” to newsletter check boxes are pre-clicked and placed on the most unnoticeable places on the e-commerce registration sites?

SEO Search Engine Optimization cheat sheet

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 08:55:00 -0400

You got a brand new web-site after much of toiling with your developer. Developer assured you that the web site is search engine friendly. Is it really a search engine friendly site?

Here are few “Quick Checks” you can try yourself:

w3c Validator

1) Run it through w3c validator http://validator.w3.org/ . Less the number of html errors more the site will be liked by search bots.

2) Are Title Tags, Description tags, correctly written? Are they unique for each page?

To check what meta tags are stuffed-in, run your site pages through

http://www.iwebtool.com/metatags_extractor?domain=www.transpacific.in

3) Open the web site in Chrome or Firefox and position the cursor on the image. Do you see well described meaningful alt text / Image description. Take care that your developer has not stuffed keywords repeatedly in alt text, over stuffing keywords will attract penal points from Google ranking algorithms.

4) Content is the kind; Get a blog (like WordPress) integrated in your web site. Blog regularly about products and put forward your opinion on NEWS related to your Industry. If you have no time to blog hire a professional writer and provide him Guidelines and topics.

share on social network

5) Ask your developer to integrate social media Sharing solutions like “http://sharethis.com/”. Most of them have free basic account. This will help visitors to pass on the word about your web site to their social circles.

6) Invite your customers to register review about your company, products, services on Independent review sites likeyelp.com

7) If you are a product company, list your products on ebay.com

8) Create your video channel on You Tube .Publish Videos on your products and services, or may be your facility tour or a video testimonial from your customer. This helps in cross linking your web site and improving your search engine ranking.

9) “Press Releases” do help. You can use services of PR distributors like www.prweb.com . However see that your Press release is well drafted and carries NEWS worthy communique.

In our opinion what doesn’t bring any noteworthy benefits to SEO are:

a) Integrating robot.txt inviting search spiders : Google, Bing bots are smart they will spider your site any way.

Keywords management trick no longer effective

Google crawls the site anyway

b) Submitting XML site maps repeatedly. It doesn’t really help in your ranking.

c) Keyword management. This is trick from nineties when search bots could be fooled. Keywords bloated in keyword tag; hardly carry any weight-age; Search bots look for real meaningful content.

d) Link building: if you are actively doing it STOP. on Google ranking you may be penalized for it.

*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

TransPacific Software is one of the leading software development company specializing in SEO friendly e-commerce portal Development through open source technologies like Magento, Open Cart , Word Press and YII framework.

Prashant Telang the author of this feature can be contacted on prashant.telang@transpacific.in
**********************************************************************************************************************************

Openings at TransPacific Software for Php Developer

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 01:23:11 -0400

Interested to Work with a Mid size company having big technology? TransPacific is to place to be.

Partial list of technologies used in last few months include:

Android + SQllite

Frameworks: CodeIgniter

Customising shopping carts: Magento OpenCart

Payment gateway integration: WorldPay , Authorise.net

Customized Charting libraries including Highcharts

Google App Engine

Goggle cloud based Sql server

Amazone AWS

Wordpress customizing and integration

Apply on: hr@transpacific.in

Openings currently Open for Experienced Php Developer at Mumbai

http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=3615956&trk=jobs_share_fb

Diamonds in Africa offers best prices for GIA diamonds online

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 05:41:00 -0400

Diamonds in Africa offers you the best prices for GIA diamonds online. All diamonds are ethically sourced. The business reinvests profits from every sale into education projects in Africa such as bitesizeedu.com

The web site is developed by TransPacific Software (transpacific.in) and hosted on Amazon Cloud server visit http://transpacific.in/jewelry-websites for TPS Jewelry web site portfolio.

A Rough Guide To Establish On-Line Business For Jewelry & Gemstone Companies

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 08:04:00 -0400

So you are a small or mid-size jewelry, gemstone company operating in traditional brick and mortal environment. You have realized the potential to take business on-line.

How do you start?

Here is compact and to-the-point guide:

1. Domain name:

First things first; get a simple but effective domain name for your company.

There are many companies which offer on line domain reservation Click Here for the list.

Our suggestion for selecting the domain name

Integrate your company name; for example Arsalan Gems can have arsalangems.com if not available then go for arsalangemsonline.com or arsalangemsshop.com would be good.
Don’t go for domain names with hyphen or which are difficult to type or pronounce for e.g. www.arsalan-gems.com
.com names are the most preferred once.
Most of the domain names will be unavailable. So using creativity in selecting the catchy but simple domain name is important.
Check out this article; a bit dated but still holds good when selecting a domain name.

2. Photographs:

Most important ingredients of the web site. Get ready with photographs of your inventory. Preferably in three angles and in good lighting conditions. If hiring a professional photographer is out of your budget you can do it in-house. All photographs should be in a same angle and of good quality (at least 640x640 resolutions). Label the photographs appropriately example “solitare-ring-m123-Top angle .jpg” the labeling is not only self-explanatory but also SEO friendly.

Don’t Photoshop images except for clearing dirt. Photoshoping or doctoring images of jewelry is not ethical.

3. Budget:

It will range from $2500 to $6000 depending on your requirement. But $3000 would be good enough. If you have something like bluenile.com or gemvera.com in mind ;set aside a million as they have huge ERP system , logistical module, billing, accounting and dozen more modules integrated.

4. Data:

Be ready with your data in any spreadsheet format. It may include Jewelry stock number, design number, metal, size, stone details stone origin, cut, size etc.

5. Programmer:

You may find a good web site development agency through elance.com but be careful to look at their past experience and feedback. Jewelry web site designing is a specialized job.

Ask the programmer how long he will support your web site with bug fixing. Initial support of at least 3 months is crucial till web site becomes stable.

Also request your programmer or the development agency to provide a demo of backend console from where you can manage your web site with no or little training. Some of the backend web site management includes updating inventory, changing static page contents like contact details phone number etc., adding new pages in content like additional questions in FAQ.

All such maintenance and updating work can be done through web based simple admin console inbuilt with Magento and OpenCart frameworks.

6. Platform:

Go for Open source platform only like php+mysql. We strongly suggest opensource free frameworks like OpenCart or Magento. A developer may suggest frameworks like dotnetnuke or aspdotnetstorefront. But unless you have complete knowledge about these I would not suggest them.

7. Hosting:

You will have to buy a hosting package from server provider like Godaddy.com , Justhost.com or hostgater.com (there are hundreds of companies for hosting). Linux server with shared hosting is going enough. Don’t go for expensive fancy stuff like VPN or dedicated server.

Here is the list of some top hosting companies.

8. Additional cost:

For integrating payment gateways like PayPal, MasterCard or visa you need to buy a SSL certificate. Your developer will help you in getting one. For on-line transactions getting SSL certificates is an absolute must. Verisign is one of the most well-known certification authorities. But if you are looking for cost effective solutions checkout here; also check out cheapssl.com

Payment gateway:

If you wish to have real time online transactions through credit cart you will have to subscribe to payment gateway providers.

Payment gateway is the service that automates the payment transaction between the shopper and merchant. It is usually a third-party service that is actually a system of computer processes that process, verify, and accept or decline credit card transactions on behalf of the merchant through secure Internet connections.

Your developer will integrate the payment gateway into your ecommerce website. Alternately if you don’t wish to have online transaction you may opt for offline transactions where in when order is fired the buyer can make payment through check or wire.

Here is the list of some recognized payment gateway providers.

9. SEO:

Search Engine Optimization is perhaps the diciest area. If anyone is promising you to put your web site in first page of Google for search terms like “engagement rings” or Diamond Jewelry” he is conning. Google algorithms are extremely sophisticated. It takes months before your site can even start showing up in first three pages for generic search strings like “Diamond engagement ring”.

The best you can do is to make your web site search engine friendly by following this guideline:

Ask your developer to integrate a blog and keep regularly blogging your thoughts, industry News etc.
Don’t use flash in your web site.
Introduce original content in the web site like “How to select jewelry” or “Type of color stones” etc. Google ranking algorithm will give good scores for original content.
Ask your developer to create account on Google webmaster central and submit sitemaps to Google spiders.
Submit your web site to directory listing services such as Dmoz or Yahoo Directory.
List your website in appropriate category of social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon, delicious and Digg.
Ask your developer to provider Google Plus, Twitter and FB sharing Icons on the web site.

10. Social Networking

You may open a Face Book –fan page, Twitter and Google Plus account. Regularly announcing “what’s new “on your web site, news and your thoughts. But you need to keep these accounts buzzing. Don’t open social networking accounts unless you devote regular time to keep these active.

How should I advertise my web site?

Advertise your web site URL wherever you can.
Print it in stationary; e-mail it to your clients.
Declare it on your personal FB profile.

PPC ads or Google paid advertising

We would not suggest the same for small and medium size jewelry companies unless you have $2000 monthly budget exclusively for advertising. It’s expensive and competitive.

Related Readings : What features to ask for in a typical e-commerce web site?

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Any questions feel free to communicate to connect@transpacific.in

Visit our Jewelry web site portfolio on:http://www.transpacific.in/jewelry-websites/

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What features to ask for in a typical e-commerce web site?

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 07:46:00 -0400

Here is the list:

Following features will be offered for the stated price on e-lance.

Designs

The following pages are unique:

1. Home

2. Search

3. Product Details

4. My Account

5. Contact Us

6. Email capture landing page

7. Check-out

8. My Basket/Saved

9. Update account information

10. Standard content page

Content needs to be provided by the client

i) Full e-commerce functionality including

o Promotional codes

o Secure checkout-process

o Product search page

o Print product and e-mail to a friend

ii) CMS which allows us to easily add new pages

o Edit SEO details like Meta tags, descriptions, author etc.

o Create new pages and add them to the navigation

iii) SEO friendly site including

o Urls that are text

o H1 tags for headings

iv) Other

o Support for 30 days after going live

o Use of lightboxes to show some content

o Main navigation, side navigation and footer navigation

o Use of database on product page to

o Use of breadcrumbs

o Powerful backend to add remove inventory

Client will have to buy a SSL certificate from verisign or any other certification agency. We will get it integrated

If you are an Entrepreneur or start-up in bootstrapping phase; what are your options for getting quality talent in Information Technology.

Tue, 15 May 2012 03:34:00 -0400

Referencing: works too slow
Job Portals: Naukri or monster.com are too expensive and you get as high as 80% junk response.

Print Advertisement: Old Idea

Try SmartPhone based Hiring

Visit: www.civet.mobi

Videos
Civet App Overview
http://youtu.be/PGEEwgOAijA

Civet For Employer
http://youtu.be/0zpot4ZPvWk

Civet For job seeker

http://youtu.be/-cJFdm4keYQ

Mon, 14 May 2012 08:16:00 -0400

Android App for Job Search - Employer

Hire Developers Software Engineers through Civet Network in real time.

Information Technology is man powered industry rather brain-powered. Recruiters have to go through hundreds of thousands of Applicants to find the suitable candidate. Try out next generation recruitment solution. “Civet” a smartphone based App.

Finding the right candidate for an IT recruiter is an arduous task. Putting up an advertisement on job portals like monster.com or naukri.com may bring in deluge of junk irrelevant applications. If you go for database access (even after paying high charges for a short time access); Employer has to go through thousands of resume to finalize a candidate for an interview call. Calling-up candidate at his work place may not be appropriate; e-mailing him may be a slow process. The entire process cycle of recruitment is slow and fails to give expected results.

“Civet.mobi” project is initiated by considering this pain area in IT recruiting. Recruiters / Employers can publish their requirements on a convenient web interface. The opening in real time gets pushed on the smartphone of thousands of Civet registered IT candidates.

Our cloud based intelligent matching engine ensures that only the most appropriate candidates with requisite skill sets, experience and matching location get the notification. In one click the candidate can apply for the post. The application will get delivered to you via e-mail. It’s extremely fast and simple.

Mon, 14 May 2012 08:11:49 -0400

Android App for Job Search - Job Seeker

Android technology for IT Job hunters

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 02:55:00 -0400

Off late there are many Android based smartphone apps for job hunting. But using these Apps on GPRS connections to weed through thousands of openings is an arduous task. It could take hours to find a suitable vacancy. “Civet.mobi” project is started by considering this pain area. Instead of searching for the vacancy it drops the suitable vacancy on your smart phone. Sophisticated cloud server powered “matching engine” does all the hard work. It scans hundreds and thousands of vacancies to drop the best fitting openings on your smartphone in real time.

If you are an IT professional with Android smartphone. You should try it out.

The app is free and community driven. Please participate in its development. Check out the video on: http://youtu.be/PGEEwgOAijA