Tag: online shopping

  • Sixth Blog on e-commerce: Drupal E-commerce

    Sixth Blog on e-commerce: Drupal E-commerce

    In 2000, two University of Antwerp students, Dries Buytaert and Hans Snijder, needed an internet connection they could rely on. But permanent internet connections were rare for Antwerp students. So, Dries and Hans set up a wireless bridge between their dorms, sharing Hans’s ADSL modem connection among eight students. It worked, but they thought something was missing: a place to talk to each other.

    Behind the name
    Dries turned that missing feature into an opportunity. He started a small news site with a web board. He and his friends could post notes about the status of their network, talk about where they were having dinner, share interesting news, and more. They’d created a small content framework.

    For a while, the software they’d built was nameless. But when Dries graduated and left his dorm, they needed a way to stay in touch, so they decided to put the internal site online. While looking for the right domain name, Dries considered “dorp.org.” “Dorp” is the Dutch word for “village,” so it fit the small community they’d started.

    Drupal Commerce is open-source eCommerce software that augments the content management system Drupal. Within the context of a Drupal-based site, Drupal Commerce presents products for purchase; walks customers through the checkout process; keeps track of invoices, receipts, orders, and payments; facilitates shipping and payment; and performs other functions needed by online merchants.

    Drupal Commerce was created by Commerce Guys under the leadership of Ryan Szrama, the author of shopping-cart software Übercart. It was originally born as a rearchitecture project of Übercart, and was called “Übercore” until January 14, 2010, when Mr. Szrama renamed it “Drupal Commerce”. Version 1.0 was released on August 23, 2011.

    Drupal Commerce has had steady growth since its introduction. Over 53,000 active sites use it, including U.K. postal service Royal Mail, international language school Eurocentres, McDonald’s (France), and hundreds of consumer brands. The Drupal Commerce market has also supported publication of several instructional books and video courses

    Like Drupal itself, Drupal Commerce can be extended through the use of modules that add functionality and themes that define visual presentation. There are more than 300 Drupal Commerce-specific modules available for free in such categories as payment gateways, shipping service providers, and administrative and development tools.

    Drupal is content management software. It’s used to make many of the websites and applications you use every day. Drupal has great standard features, like easy content authoring, reliable performance, and excellent security. But what sets it apart is its flexibility; modularity is one of its core principles. Its tools help you build the versatile, structured content that dynamic web experiences need.

    It’s also a great choice for creating integrated digital frameworks. You can extend it with any one, or many, of thousands of add-ons. Modules expand Drupal’s functionality. Themes let you customize your content’s presentation. Distributions are packaged Drupal bundles you can use as starter-kits. Mix and match these components to enhance Drupal’s core abilities. Or, integrate Drupal with external services and other applications in your infrastructure. No other content management software is this powerful and scalable.

    The Drupal project is open source software. Anyone can download, use, work on, and share it with others. It’s built on principles like collaboration, globalism, and innovation. It’s distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). There are no licensing fees, ever. Drupal will always be free.

    Drupal 8
    Drupal 8 is the biggest update in Drupal’s history. Creating content is easier. Every built-in theme is responsively designed. It’s available in 100 languages, and its integration tools make it a great hub for complex ecosystems. More than 4,500 people, companies, and organizations contributed their time, experience, and imagination. The result? Over 200 new and improved features. Find out what Drupal 8 can do for you.

    Who uses Drupal
    Drupal is the platform the United States, London, France, and more use to communicate with citizens. It’s the framework media companies like BBC, NBC, and MTV UK rely on to inform and entertain the world. It’s part of how organizations and universities like Amnesty International and the University of Oxford work to make the world a better place. Read Drupal case studies or check out a list of organizations with profiles on Drupal.org.

    Made possible by a global community
    The Drupal community is one of the largest open source communities in the world. We’re more than 1,000,000 passionate developers, designers, trainers, strategists, coordinators, editors, and sponsors working together. We build Drupal, provide support, create documentation, share networking opportunities, and more. Our shared commitment to the open source spirit pushes the Drupal project forward. New members are always welcome.

    Sources:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupal_Commerce
    https://www.drupal.org/

  • Second blog on the E-commerce website – WooCommerce

    Second blog on the E-commerce website – WooCommerce

    WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It is designed for small to large-sized online merchants using WordPress. Launched on September 27, 2011, the plugin quickly became popular for its simplicity to install and customize and free base product.

    Usage
    WooCommerce is used by a number of high-traffic websites such as Small Press Expo. For the 3rd week of September 2015, Trends indicated that WooCommerce ran on 30% of e-commerce sites and millions of active installs. Ecommerce is rapidly growing worldwide and WooCommerce has over 39 million downloads as a plugin and is currently active on more than three million websites and is the most popular eCommerce platform in 2018. WooCommerce has approximately 4% of the top million HTML pages. In 2015, statistics show that the percentage of online stores that utilize WooCommerce through WordPress.org’s plugin is more than 30% of all stores. The current 2019 market share for WooCommerce is 22% of the top 1 million sites using eCommerce technologies.

    Since Automattic’s acquisition WooCommerce has kept gaining market share, and has now become one of the leading E-commerce platforms on the Internet.

    Extensions 
    WooCommerce has attracted significant popularity because the base product, in addition to many extensions and plugins, is free and open-source. In 2018, WooCommerce has near 330 extensions and over 1,000 plugins. In addition, there are thousands of paid add-ons for fixed prices. Many Premium Themes now offer capability with WooCommerce as well as plugins that make a theme framework compatible.

    Service Providers
    If you’re a service provider, selling online can save you a lot of time, money, and hassle. It can also be more convenient for your clients, who may prefer to book appointments, conduct business, and make payments at the time and location of their choosing. But it can be difficult to figure out the best ways to list your offerings, collect payments from your clients, market to the right audience, and integrate with your existing tools.

    WooCommerce provides the solution for all of those concerns with one platform. Even though you may envision online stores selling physical or digital products, there are many companies using WooCommerce to sell services, rent accommodations, and book appointments.

    WooCommerce is a great fit for service-based businesses. Continue reading to learn how to sell services with WooCommerce and how to expand the functionality of your store to best reach your clients.

    The Benefits of Using WooCommerce to Sell Services
    One of the biggest reasons WooCommerce is the best choice for selling your services online is how customizable it is. You can create virtually any design and add endless functionality to your website thanks to the extension library and database of experts. You can ultimately build the perfect, customized solution for your specific audience.

    Keep everything in one place. Rather than using several different platforms to manage your business, you can control it all right in your WordPress dashboard. Edit your website content, add posts to your blog, and manage your clients’ payments without switching windows. And, if you also sell physical or digital products, your orders are all shown on the same screen. This could lead to less confusion, fewer mistakes, and an easier and less time-consuming workflow.

    Make payments easy for your clients. The easier the payment collection process is for your clients, the easier it will be for them to pay you. With WooCommerce, you can simply send your clients a link to the service they’re purchasing, where they can check out on their computer or on their phone, no matter where they’re located.

    Display services more effectively. Display and list your services in a visually-appealing way. You can also make it easy for your clients to filter and search your store so they can find exactly what they’re looking for.

    Up-sell and cross sell. Without downloading or installing a single extension, WooCommerce gives you the ability to make suggestions for related services and offer clients upgraded service plans when they’re checking out.

    Charge recurring payments. Do you charge monthly for services or put clients on a payment plan? Use WooCommerce with the Subscriptions extension to automatically charge your client’s account. No more chasing after them to pay!

    Easily integrate with your existing tools. WooCommerce integrates with dozens of platforms for email marketing, payment processing, accounting, and client management.

    Source: https://woocommerce.com/blog/
    www.wikipedia.com

  • First blog on the E-commerce website options

    First blog on the E-commerce website options

    Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly or by searching among alternative vendors using a shopping search engine, which displays the same product’s availability and pricing at different e-retailers. As of 2016, customers can shop online using a range of different computers and devices, including desktop computers, laptops, tablet computers and smartphones.

    An online shop evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a regular “bricks-and-mortar” retailer or shopping center; the process is called business-to-consumer (B2C) online shopping. When an online store is set up to enable businesses to buy from another businesses, the process is called business-to-business (B2B) online shopping. A typical online store enables the customer to browse the firm’s range of products and services, view photos or images of the products, along with information about the product specifications, features and prices.

    Online stores usually enable shoppers to use “search” features to find specific models, brands or items. Online customers must have access to the Internet and a valid method of payment in order to complete a transaction, such as a credit card, an Interac-enabled debit card, or a service such as PayPal. For physical products (e.g., paperback books or clothes), the e-tailer ships the products to the customer; for digital products, such as digital audio files of songs or software, the e-tailer usually sends the file to the customer over the Internet. The largest of these online retailing corporations are Alibaba, Amazon.com, and eBay.

    Over the next 10 blogs, we will be examining different e-commerce website platforms that one should consider when starting your online business to buy and sell goods or services. While this is not in any particular order we will start with the company that got the highest reviews a few years standing. That company is called BigCommerce out of Austin, Texas.

    BigCommerce is a privately held technology company and provides a SaaS ecommerce platform. The company was founded in 2009 and has 600+ employees with headquarters in Austin, Texas. BigCommerce was founded in 2009 by Australians Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper following a chance meeting in an online chatroom in 2003. In August 2009, the two relaunched a hosted version of Interspire Shopping Cart called “BigCommerce” and opened its first U.S. office.

    BigCommerce was 100% bootstrapped until July 31, 2011, when it closed $15 million in Series A funding from General Catalyst Partners. BigCommerce is one of the biggest Ecommerce website builders globally. They offer great features and excellent service with no transaction fees.

    BigCommerce has hundreds of apps in a searchable app store, including 3rd party developed features that you can add with 1-click. They’ve also got terrific SEO tools like table-less themes, optimized URLs, sitemaps, and a blogging platform, along with marketing tools with social media capabilities, email and multi-channel marketing outlets. Don’t forget analytics, multi-currency support and an auto-respond cart abandon feature that pushes them head and shoulders above the competition. BigCommerce premium templates are a better investment. BigCommerce has a beautifully-designed interface that’s modern, clean and effortless to navigate, and adapting your cart to incorporate features like bulk pricing or Google shopping is also a snap. If you are a coder or designer, you’ll also appreciate BigCommerce FTP access. Some may say that customer support is the most important factor in choosing website services. BigCommerce has 24/7 live chat and email, but limited phone support. BigCommerce wins here, as there are no limits on any of their subscription plans, either in bandwidth, or what you can sell. BigCommerce pulls ahead though, with their “go the extra mile” features and apps, their value for money and their across the board usability. Test drive BigCommerce today, and get your business off the ground in no time.

    Source
    www.ecommerceceo.com/ecommerce-platforms

  • This is what I noticed this weekend!!!

    03 November 2014

    On my way to the gym this weekend I noticed a number of retail stores closing two months before the holidays. Traditionally retail stores would usually ride it out for the Holiday season and then close in January when things slow down but it would seem that many of these independent businesses are trying to take advantage of the Holiday shopping season with people trying to take advantage of going out of business sales to grab some great deals.

    One has to ask if this could have anything to do with the impact that online shopping is having on the retail market in North America, one of the stores closing it’s doors was right at the corner of Yonge and Bloor and occupied that location for about the past 115 years, this is quite a long time for any company to be in business. A couple of the other business closings have been around for relatively long periods of time as well. It is clear that the world is changing right before our eyes but the question is are we ready for this much change?

    I was speaking with a long time friend of mine who was in the high end printing business and let’s just say when your profit margins all but disappear it’s a pretty safe to bet that that industry has changed forever. The internet has made it so that you can get more or less what ever you want, need or desire simply by the click of a mouse. It’s like having room service without the crazy prices. With companies like Alibaba and Amazon delivering what you want, when you want it and usually at deep discounts compared to what you would pay at a retail store this trend is probably going to continue and because of shrinking profit margins most likely programming and manufacturing jobs are going to continue moving to developing countries like India, china and Bangladesh.

    What does this mean for the next 20 years going forward? It’s that prices will most likely come down across the board for many non essential goods and services based on an over supply of goods that we will purchase because the deal is too good to pass up but we don’t need it and will end up paying double or triple for it as in sits in a storage locker collecting dust so that we can make space for more consumables we can’t live without.

    “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
    ― Albert Einstein

    “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”
    ― Paulo Coelho,

    Nexonta Technologies Inc

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