e-Commerce Magazine

Avactis Shopping Cart 2.0 Released

2010-11-27T16:10:15Z

Avactis Shopping Cart 2.0 have been released with many new features and improvements. Version 2.0 got a new layout and CSS editor in this release to make quick and easy modification in any store design, but the most interesting features for store owners are the Multi-language support, gift certificates, whish list, and new payment, in addition of being officially certified by PayPal, Gate2Shop, PayPoint, CheckGateway, and Moneybookers.

Key improvements in Avactis Shopping Cart 2.0 :

Visual CSS editor: Using the visual CSS editor you will be able to easily and quickly change the store design. Choose the element you want to modify in the editor, change the style using the color palette, and apply your changes.
Visual layout editor: The layout editor allows you to move store blocks any way you like. Drag-n-drop any store element, e.g. the newsletter box, to any position on the site in several clicks.
Multi-language support: To better serve your customers, you can use several languages in your administrative storefront and interface.
Gift certificates: Your customers will be able to purchase gift certificates in your store.
Wish list: Help your customers remember the products they want to buy later using a wish list.
Access Control List (ACL): Create new types of administrative users and restrict them to specific store functions.
Certified payment methods: Avactis is officially certified by PayPal, Gate2Shop, PayPoint, CheckGateway, and Moneybookers.
New payment methods: We added Moneybookers eWallet and PayPoint payment as new payment methods in Avactis Shopping Cart 2.0.

PrestaShop Wins the 2010 Open Source E-Commerce Applications Award

2010-11-27T16:14:06Z

Packt Publishing have recently announced that PrestaShop has won the inaugural Open Source E-Commerce Applications Award category in the 2010 Open Source Awards. Open Source E-Commerce Applications Award is a new category introduced to the Award this year, featuring various different types of type of web applications that simplify buying and selling of products on the Internet.

“This award is a great recognition for PrestaShop’s hardworking team and, of course, the contributors who help us enrich our software every day,” said Bruno Lévêque, PrestaShop Co-Founder.

“We are glad to have received this award from both a panel of expert judges and our growing Community -whose members increased threefold in the past year! They have really mobilized to support our project,” adds Sabrina Maréchal, Head of Marketing & Communications for PrestaShop.

“PrestaShop have achieved a lot in a short period of time considering that it is a community driven project, with the product maturing steadily and in a way that will stand the test of time.” Added Paul Anthony, bespoke e-commerce solutions developer and one of the judges for the 2010 Open Source E-Commerce Applications category. “The structure of the product has also given rise to numerous creative implementations, and the community is large enough and responsive enough to cope with these requests for improvement.”

“Every day more than 40,000 merchants use PrestaShop to manage their online activity and we want to continually improve our software for them, as well as our future users and developers,” concludes Bruno Lévêque.

While PrestaShop occupied the top spot in the 2010 Open Source E-Commerce Applications category, popular shopping cart system OpenCart came in at the first runners up position, while the second runners up position was secured by TomatoCart.

With this announcement, the 2010 Open Source Awards has four more categories left, including the Open Source CMS category, for which results will be announced from November 17th through to November 19th.

For detailed results on each category and more information about the Award, please visit: https://www.packtpub.com/open-source-awards-home.

8.1bn GBP To Be Spent Online For Christmas

2010-11-27T16:18:31Z

Verdict Research, the UK’s leading retail analysts, forecast online sales for Q4 2010 will be 17.6 per cent higher than in Q4 2009, resulting in online shopping accounting for a predicted £8.1bn in the run up to Christmas. Peer 1 Hosting shared with us this press release, after a survey based on 11,037 responses from Smooch.com global members aged between 18 and 105 years. This year, Christmas is going to be very Hot for the e-Commerce businesses.

Cyber-Monday, 6th December to break online shopping records, retailers warned

SOUTHAMPTON. UK, 19th October, 2010: PEER 1 Hosting, the global online business hosting provider, is predicting the biggest ever peak in online shopping this Christmas after survey results show Britons are increasing their festive budgets and plan to buy more gifts online than ever before. ‘Cyber Monday’, which this year will fall on Monday 6th December, is predicted be a peak traffic day, as people log on to kick-start their Christmas shopping.

When surveyed, a staggering 88% of respondents in the United Kingdom said they will spend more online this year than they ever have before. Just over half said they actually found it easier to shop for Christmas gifts online compared to physically going to the shops in one of Britain’s high streets. PEER 1 Hosting has warned many online retailers could be under prepared for the demand on their servers as the survey also showed that almost 40% of people will leave their shopping until December, which will cause huge increases in traffic.

Sites that are ill prepared for high volumes of traffic will fail at this time, likely costing a huge amount of lost revenue. With the potential to purchase goods from various outlets, if one site fails consumers are most likely to purchase the wanted item elsewhere.

“Retailers need to be ready this year for Christmas, and cope with big spikes in activity – slow page loading times or site crashes mean lost customers,” said Dominic Monkhouse, UK MD at PEER 1 Hosting. “It’s business critical for ecommerce sites to continue to perform at their optimum rate at the busiest time of the year, and working with a scalable hosting provider means there’s no need to invest in a lot of extra capacity that won’t be needed for the majority of the year.”

ecommerce sites can visit www.peer1hosting.co.uk for hosting service information or call one of PEER 1 Hosting’s highly trained sales team on 0800 840 7490

About PEER 1 Hosting

PEER 1 Hosting believes in the limitless opportunity of the Internet, and the business growth potential it provides for its more than 10,000 customers. As a global online business hosting provider, PEER 1 Hosting offers a reliable high performance Internet network supporting scalable Managed Hosting, Dedicated Servers through the ServerBeach brand, and Colocation solutions. Backed by its 100 percent uptime guarantee and 24x7x365 FirstCall Support™, PEER 1 Hosting ensures customers’ online presence is always fast, always available. Since 1999, PEER 1 Hosting has grown to include 16 state-of-the-art data centres and points-of-presence throughout North America and Europe. The company’s headquarters are in Vancouver, Canada, with European operations headquartered in Southampton, UK. PEER 1 Hosting shares are traded on the TSX under the symbol PIX. For more information visit: www.PEER1Hosting.co.uk.

e-Commerce To The Billions of Un-Banked Mobile Phone Owners. How?

2010-07-04T11:33:04Z

What happens when we throw out a lot of today’s assumptions around card payments and e-commerce and assume that the merchant shouldn’t have to store the data at all? What if we never even handed this sensitive information over to the merchant in the first place?
With a few clicks (and an NSDT “chirp”) customers can now make purchases online conveniently and in complete security. This new function revolutionizes online shopping by introducing a critical security mechanism and opening e-commerce to the billions of un-banked mobile phone owners.
In addition to the security risks in online card payments, e-commerce’s reliance on the card has resulted in the exclusion of un-banked populations. As the internet continues its expansion into developing countries, a solution allowing un-banked populations to participate in the e-commerce economy is needed. In many countries, even customers who do have payment cards do not have the possibility of using them to make purchases online due to high fraud risks. However, with MobiCash online mobile payments, the risk is eliminated and e-commerce can take place in complete security.

The mobile phone is the key to solving both security and accessibility issues faced by e-commerce. Practically 100% of banked online shoppers own a mobile phone. In addition, over 3 billion mobile phones belong to un-banked individuals. Getting a mobile phone is infinitely simpler than opening a bank account and getting a payment card.
The MobiCash e-commerce system is a secure online payments solution protected by Very Smart Authentication (VSA), which allows merchant websites to accept payments using MobiCash payment instrument. This solution can be easily integrated into all online commerce systems and websites.
VSA is based on Tagattitude’s Near Sound Data Transfer (NSDT) technology, which transforms any mobile phone into a secure means of making proximity transactions.
With a few clicks (and an NSDT “chirp”) customers can now make purchases online conveniently and in complete security. This new function revolutionizes online shopping by introducing a critical security mechanism and opening e-commerce to the billions of un-banked mobile phone owners.
How it works for Online Payment? At checkout, the customer is redirected to the MobiCash Online Payment System server using an SSL link. They arrive on the merchant payment page and simply enter their identifier (typically the mobile phone number) and a secret pass code. MobiCash verifies this account and the pass code and launches a VSA authentication procedure towards this phone to sign the transaction.
Unlike online payment systems where shoppers must locate, remember, and enter several pieces of information, when paying with MobiCash all they need to know is their phone number, pass code, and how to answer a phone call. MobiCash online mobile payment solution works instantly on any phone in the world. There is nothing to download on the phone or to modify on the handset. Furthermore, MobiCash is completely independent of the telecom operator. Any phone that can receive a phone call (all phones by definition) can be used to sign e-commerce transactions with MobiCash. This means that there are zero hardware deployment costs no heavy enrollment campaign.
eCommerce transactions are made 3 times more quickly than with a banking card without compromising security integrity. Even relative to SMS or USSD based mobile authentication solutions, VSA is substantially more rapid and convenient. Studies show that 67% of online shoppers abandon the purchase before completing the checkout process. Faster and less tedious transactions will reduce this percentage, thereby contributing to an even more flourishing e-commerce economy.
Author: Patrick Ngabonziza Gordon

Avactis e-Commerce Hosting, e-Commerce SaaS Hosting Solution

2010-03-16T10:23:06Z

Two hot news from Avactis today, Pentasoft Corp. releases Avactis Shopping Cart 1.9.1 and provides flexible SaaS hosted e-commerce solution.
Latest version of leading e-commerce solution launched in 2001 adds exciting features, new marketing tools and PCI compliant hosting services with free e-commerce support.

Key software improvements include:
- Built-in CMS (Content Management System) with WYSIWYG editor
- Advanced customer reviews and product ratings
- Advanced newsletter management
- Affiliate tracking

Avactis e-commerce hosting was significantly improved
Pentasoft Corp. offers 3 hosting plans with free e-commerce support for Avactis E-Commerce Shopping Cart and CMS platform.
Avactis e-commerce platform provides users with the ability to quickly build an online e-commerce store with no heavy investment and low time-to-market.
Key hosting improvements include:
- SaaS solution, Avactis license is included
- E-commerce optimized servers
- Free e-commerce support included
- Free transfer your store to our high quality service
- Daily data and site backups
- Free updates
- PCI compatible servers
- DDoS protection
Avactis is designed as one of the most web-designer-friendly e-commerce solutions. As a unique advantage, it greatly facilitates the job of integrating online store components into an existing website design.
Unlike other similar systems, Avactis eliminates this labor-intensive task by using special tags.
In addition, Avactis now supports Webgility eCommerceConnector for synchronization of online store inventory with QuickBooks. Webgility eCommerceConnector is a QuickBooks Certified application; Webgility is a Silver member of Intuit Developer Network. eCommerceConnector for use with QuickBooks is developed to cut down your order processing time from hours to minutes.
As a result, Avactis offers an extremely convenient set of tools to quickly launch an online business.
Avactis Shopping Cart has several editions: Free Edition (fully-functional, but without advanced features), eBusiness Edition (with all the features), and White Label (Private Label) Edition for inclusion into custom solutions.
Download Avactis Free Edition from https://www.avactis.com/free_shopping_cart.php
Visit http://www.avactis.com for more information.

Interspire Shopping Cart 6 Roadmap, the Hottest for 2010

2010-02-14T07:35:58Z

Mitchell Harper, Interspire Co-Founder, shared this week in their monthly newsletter the roadmap for Interspire Shopping Cart Version 6. The list is not final and is subject to changes, but the main focus with this release is to really step up their multi-channel retailing support. version 6 of Interspire Shopping Cart is expected around the middle of the year, new features include :

eBay selling integration – eBay selling integration will allow merchants to “push” some or all of their products to eBay, which would then appear in eBay search results and listings. You will then be able to process orders received via eBay just as you would those through your store. This will give you access to the tens of millions of people who shop on eBay every month at little to no cost.
Dropshipping and multiple warehouse support – Dropshipping will allow you to sell online without having to stock inventory or ship orders. When dropshipping is enabled, each product is assigned to a particular supplier whose details (including email address) are stored. When an order is placed, an email is sent to the supplier of each product in the order. The email includes the customer’s address, product, quantity, etc. The supplier then ships the item to the customer on behalf of the merchant, who typically pays each of their suppliers at the end of the month.

Shopping comparison export – Sites like Nextag, Yahoo Shopping, PriceWatch, PriceScan, Shopzilla, Pricegrabber, Shopping.com, MySimon and Bizrate allow people to compare prices amongst different online retailers – and these sites are used by tens of millions of people every week prior to buying online. They are, of course, an excellent source of traffic for online retailers, who can list their products on these comparison shopping sites for free. They only pay when someone clicks a link for one of their products, similar to Google AdWords. These comparison shopping sites typically require the store owner to import (or auto-sync) a simple XML file containing the details of the products they want to list. Along with eBay selling integration this is a fantastic way to drive hundreds or even thousands of new shoppers to a merchant’s online store for around 50 cents per click.
Pre-order/Back order support – Imagine for a minute that you sell books online. Your customers are waiting for the latest Twilight book and because you know stocks from suppliers will be limited upon release, you setup the ability to pre-order the book on your website before it comes out. You accept 1,000 pre-orders for the book (which might be all your supplier will send when it’s released) and when it’s released, you simply look up these orders and ship the books. Back order support allows you to continue selling a particular product even when its inventory dips below zero. You’ll be able to display a message to shoppers showing an estimated date when they will receive new stock and/or when their order will ship. When the new stock arrives, you can look up all back orders and ship them as usual, reducing your inventory count in the process. This is incredibly useful for merchants who experience seasonal variations in purchases or for those who under estimate demand.
Printable shipping labels – FedEx, UPS and USPS all have their own branded, specifically designed shipping labels which make it easy for the shipping carrier to route the package to its destination electronically, simply by scanning a barcode on the shipping label. These labels are easy for us to design using the publicly available API’s through UPS Online Tools, Endicia (USPS), etc. You will be able to easily print a shipping label for an order through your label printer, place it on the box and have the shipping company do the rest. This can save 2-3 hours a day if you’re shipping a sufficient quantity of orders.
iPad/iPhone template – As we all know, mobile is hot. People love to browse prices and products on their phones but why not let them buy right from their phones as well? The iPad/iPhone template will make it easy for merchants to sell to customers when they’re on the go, and if they enable one or more API-based payment gateways then the customer wont ever have to leave their store.
Being able to set the starting order number – No one wants to see “Your order number is 1″. This will allow you to set the starting order number when you open their “virtual doors” for business.
“Customers who viewed this product also viewed” panel – A great online merchandising feature which will drive more page views in your store, which will result in more sales.
Match up the import/export data formats – Right now they’re not the same which is time consuming for bulk editing.

Avactis 1.9.0 eCommerce PHP Shopping Cart Solution Released

2009-12-30T08:38:26Z

Pentasoft Corp. have just released version 1.9.0 of Avactis PHP Shopping Cart e-Commerce software. A lot of improvements to the new version of Avactis were added.

The key improvements include:
Built-in Content Management System
Now Avactis is not only a shopping cart system, but also an eCommerce Content Management System (CMS). You can change the logo of your store, the text of your main page or create new pages using the built-in Content Management System and a WYSIWYG editor. The pages you create will be SEO-friendly – you can add META descriptions, META keywords and SEO titles to them.
New CSS based “Avactis Blue” design theme
The new Avactis design theme is cleaner and more professional-looking. The “Avactis Blue” theme is XHTML 1.0 compatible.
Customer Reviews module
We’ve added the Reviews module to Avactis so your customers can rate and review your products. Customer Reviews are very customizable: you can enable them for any visitor or for registered customers only; approve ratings and reviews from the administration zone; and much more.
QuickBooks export
Now you can export your orders to QuickBooks’ .iff format. Also you can configure the QuickBooks export options directly from the Avactis administration zone.

Advanced Categories management
The new categories section is based on AJAX.
It looks like a “Folder tree” in your computer, and you can easily drag-n-drop and move your categories using your mouse.
New E-marketing related tools were added:
Newsletter Topics with list management
Your customers can now subscribe to newsletters they like at the time of registration or when viewing the catalog. Create several subscriptions, e.g. “New products” or “Special offers” and increase your sales using Avactis built-in email marketing features. You can import new emails from a .csv file or the Avactis database, create newsletters using a built-in WYSIWYG editor, and much more.
Affiliate Tracking
Now you can add affiliate IDs to links and view the affiliate tracking information in details of orders. This is very convenient: just give your affiliate his/her own ID number or publish the link with the affiliate ID you want on any site or service, and you will know what orders come from this affiliate, service or site.

Other important improvements include:

Custom Fields for Checkout forms
Label Editor at Admin Backoffice. You can translate, export or import language text labels
Shipping Cost Estimator on the shopping cart page
Mail (SMTP) configuration from Admin Backoffice
Group Product Editing at Admin Backoffice
Free Shipping Coupons
Advanced Coupons management at Admin Backoffice
Advanced Free Shipping rules
Coupons can be applied to certain products and categories
Memory usage optimization
Ability to set up attributes per Credit Card Type
New config options related to JS and CSS files compressing and downloading control
New tag and storefront block “NavigationBarCustom” added
Currency Management improved
Product Search improvement in Admin Backoffice

New payment methods were added:

Moneybookers payment method
IDEAL Easy payment method
Merchants CA payment method

About Avactis:
The Avactis team was established in 2001 by Pentasoft Corporation. The company’s headquarters are located in New York. Pentasoft is MySQL Enterprise Ready Partner of MySQL AB and Sun Microsystems. Free version of Avactis is integrated into Parallels Plesk web applications package.

Open Source Magento and vBulletin integration released

2009-11-26T08:52:03Z

Forum functionality is now available for Open Source eCommerce platform Magento through integration with vBulletin – the major Open Source forum publishing software. The extension that provides close integration between the two platforms was developed and released by AITOC, Inc. this November.
Forums benefit eCommerce business owners:

X-Cart v4.3 Released

2009-11-17T06:33:07Z

X-Cart, the ultimate PHP shopping cart software, have just released version 4.3. Besides functional changes there is the main one : change in X-Cart licensing model. Earlier people that wanted to test-trial X-Cart had to buy a license before deploying it. Now online merchants don’t have to do that. One can easily download X-Cart and register (i.e. buy a license for usage) it later after he/she is ready to go live.
More new features in this release include :

Built-in modules: X-AOM, X-RMA and Flyout Menus with new “Tree-like expanding menu” scheme
New “Vivid Dreams – Chromo” and “Light & Lucid (2 columns)” W3C-compliant storefront skin with a CSS layout
Ajax add-to-cart buttons, minicart and product ratings
A quick order/product/user search panel that can be opened with a keyboard shortcut
Integration with three popular WYSIWYG editors: CKEditor, TinyMCE, and InnovaStudio
Revised item groups in the backend menu
History of order changes
Certified integration with PayPal Website Payments Standard, PayPal Website Payments Pro (US & Canada merchants) and PayPal PayFlow Pro; plus support for Fraud Management Filters
Integration with Carrier-calculated Shipping API for Google Checkout
Integration with Global Gateway, Amazon SimplePay, NAB Transact, HSBC Secure ePayments (API) and Cybersource (SOAP API) payment gateways
in addition to a revised shipping and payment modules

For more information http://www.x-cart.com/

MobiCash, The Universal Mobile Payment

2009-09-21T04:19:00Z

Johannesburg, South Africa, September, 21 2009 – MobiCash may conveniently be described as the next generation of mobile payment system. When it comes to mobile payment options, nothing is more convenient than MobiCash cell phone payment! MobiCash is changing the rules in the contactless electronic transaction business and generates very large opportunities!
Patrick Ngabonziza Gordon, Founder / CEO, stated: “Think about it: No more Wallet! No more Check! No more Plastic Cards! No more POS Terminals! No more Wired Networks! No more handle of any Paper Money! All you have to do is to make a call and your mobile phone signs for you!”
Mr. Gordon went on to say: “With just a mobile phone number and a digit PIN and a free MobiCash account, MobiCash customers can make secure cashless transactions. All phones can make payments using MobiCash no matter what phone model or network operator. You do not need to modify your phone in order to use MobiCash. Due to its simplicity MobiCash mobile payment has wide appeal, is easy to deploy and open to everyone – there are no complicated software downloads necessary and no restrictions to enrolment.”

MobiCash is a complete mobile payment platform that works immediately on every phone. Transactions are securely signed with NSDT