Magento 1.1.6 has been released
As each ecommerce application Magento benefits from different updates. So a recent release of Magento 1.1.6 has been warmly accepted by Magento community. No doubt all bugs noticed since the last Magento release have been taken into consideration and fixed. Having explored Magento 1.1.6 you’ll find out the next improvements:
- Google Checkout table rates work perfectly;
- While upgrading existing databases you won’t experience SQL error any more;
- Refreshing products count in categories management page won’t make you any troubles;
- From now on order status after creating an invoice will be shown in a right way;
- Translations and locale settings used in PDF print-outs have been fixed as well;
- Managing product categories has been also made more effective.
Note we’ve listed just several improvements which have been made. Of course there aren’t perfect things but there are great things and Magento belongs to the last ones. In fact Magento has launched a blank theme for building online shops. This theme has a very simple design but it can be useful for those who can’t afford custom made design or purchasing professionally designed Magento themes.
Magento wins one prize after the other
Magento open source shopping cart goes on meeting with warm recognition from the public. As you probably already know SourceForge.net has announced the winners from 2008 Community Choice Awards and Magento has been recognized to be the Best New Project of the year.
Recently Magento has won one more prize. “Best of Open Source Enterprise Applications (E-Commerce)” at Infoworld’s annual BOSSIE Awards to be exact. Considering the fact that BOSSIE Awards is InfoWorld’s awards for the Best of Open Source Software Magento seems to have really good reputation. The 2008 BOSSIE winners include 60 products in nine categories covering business and productivity applications, development tools, middleware, networking, security, and storage. So BOSSIE has chosen 9 companies to be the best ones and Magento is one of them.
It has been mentioned that choosing winners is always difficult because the quantity and quality of free software offerings is constantly growing. Still Magento is worth to be chosen the winner. The number of downloads it already has proves that the prize has found the right company. Seems Magento users should be proud to apply such famous and fast developing software.
Product Comparison option for Magento stores
Magento open source shopping cart has a great number of stunning features which attract webmasters and online store owners. Today we’ll describe a Product Comparison option. This option allows Magento shoppers compare the products offered for sale at any Magento online shop. So each customer who is not sure which product will suit his/her needs best of all can compare different product and make the only right choice.
Being a Magento store owner you can offer a great variety of products for your customers. If you care for your customers and want to provide them with such a comfortable option as Product Comparison you’ll get really satisfied clients.
So each shopper who would like to use this option should browse the products offer at Magento online store and choose those ones which correspond his/her needs most of all. Having done so the customer should press Add to Compare button for the products which should be compared. This button is placed below Add to cart button. View the below placed image if you want to see what window appears when customer makes an attempt to compare several products from product catalog.
TemplateMonster.com will launch Magento Themes soon
TemplateMonster.com is famous for being the most popular web templates’ provider on the net. It develops web templates and themes for personal websites, commercial websites, online stores and web blogs. The quality of these designs has been numerously approved by TemplateMonster’s satisfied customers.
Note TemplateMonster.com has a huge collection of various ready made web page designs which already includes website templates, Flash templates, SWiSH templates, ZenCart templates, osCommerce templates, WordPress Themes and etc. Seems this company is already a true leader in web templates industry but it goes on adding new categories of products. This time TemplateMonster has good news to those people who like Magento and wish to find professional designs for Magento online stores.
In spite of the fact that TemplateMonster already offers templates for different shopping carts it’s going to add Magento Themes to its collection. It means TemplateMonster believes Magento shopping cart is a great basement for online shops.
Currently TemplateMonster hasn’t introduced any design for Magento but it has launched a special page for Magento Themes. Having visited this page you can subscribe to TemplateMonster’s Magento newsletter. It’ll help you be aware of Magento Themes’ release as soon as it happens at TemplateMonster.com.
TemplateMonster is a wise company and it won’t ask its developers create something useless. If TemplateMonster.com whose templates’ collection is already huge will start developing Magento Themes in the nearest future it means Magento Templates are going to be in great demand because of Magento’s growing popularity.
Magento vs other shopping carts
Webtecker.com is known like a great place for learning web design and finding the best open source resources. This site helps its readers be aware of the latest trends and techniques in web design/development.
So it’s very nice to notice that Webtecker.com has chosen Magento to be one of the best shopping cart solutions. Saying this we mean a recent review on 8 Best Open Source Shopping Carts published at this site.
According to Brett Bittke who is running Webtecker.com Magento takes the third place among other open source shopping carts. It’s a very good result considering the fact that Magento was launched for about a year ago while its competitors are much older.
The post represents a short description of each Shopping Cart included in the list. The author states that the best open source solutions are PrestsShop, OpenCart, Magento, CubeCart, AgoraCart, ZenCart, osCommerce and StoreSprite.
Note while reviewing Magento web developer Brett Bittke has mentioned he was impressed that such professionally developed and astonishing shopping cart can be used for free.
Whatever kind of online shop you would like to start you should be aware of all available shopping carts, their pros and cons. Comparing different shopping carts will help you make the right decision. So visiting Webtecker.com and reading such a comparison seems to be a great idea.
Magento has empowered one more online shop
Trendyshoppes.com is one more online shop that has been powered by Magento. This online shop offers exclusive products for sale. Some of the products you meet at this online shop can be bought in this shop only. Welcoming design impresses every potential customer and Magento shopping cart doubles the pleasant experience of shopping at Trendyshoppes.com.
Striving to attract more customers Trendyshoppes.com has also added a blog to its online shop. It’s obvious that blog will help to promote the products which are represented at this shop.
While shopping at Trendyshoppes.com customers can choose from such payment options like PayPal and paying via credit card. Frankly speaking Magento allows much more payment options. Who knows probably this very shop will add some of them soon. My Wishlist block will help customers order the products they would prefer to find at Trendyshoppes.com next time they visit it.
New shopping options such as Shop by Category, Shop by Designer and Shop by Recipient help customers find the products they need spending minimum time. Checkout process is also fast and clear. So shopping at this Magento store is a very pleasant way to buy original things.
Meet potential Magento users
A growing number of people try using Magento while building their online stores. Some people master Magento easily while the others feel slight difficulties.
Let’s describe potential Magento users, the people who will adore applying Magento for their online projects. It’s great if you feel like we describe you while describing potential Magento user because it means you have great chances to use Magento application successfully. Nevertheless you shouldn’t worry if you don’t find this similarity. Our post is just an attempt to figure out what skills are necessary for using Magento in the most effective way.
Fist of all potential Magento users are those people who want to build easy-editable online stores. Note programmer knowledge isn’t a must.
Magento shouldn’t be used by people who aren’t well in programming but want to make functional customizations because it’s quite difficult to find help on making functional changes to the stock code of Magento online stores. On the other hand such people can use Magento if they don’t mind hiring professional web developer to help them.
Even in a case you are well in programming but you are short of time for launching an online store you should understand that Magento is a new application and you should spend some time while learning the way it works. If you have some time for learning go ahead, Magento is for you!
If your PHP skills are nice and you are familiar with Zend you won’t have problems using Magento.
Whether you are a well-skilled programmer or no you can use Magento while creating online stores but you should remember that complex changes require deep knowledge of this application. This knowledge can be received while reading Magento tutorials and practicing.
Recently launched Magento store
Hairworks.co.nz is one more Magento Store which is a bright example of an impressive online store. This Magento store has a very original design. It doesn’t even remind the default design offered by Magento team.
No doubt Hairworks.co.nz uses most Magento key features. To name just a few of them: multiple site control from a single admin interface, single page checkout, ship-to addresses functionality, different payment methods, and etc. Each product has several information blocks which help potential customers learn more about the products represented at this shop. These information blocks are Quick Overview block and Product Description block.
Hairworks.co.nz is also a great example of a SEO friendly online shop. It is enabled by such SEO options as built-in natural search optimization, easily-editable metadata, and social shopping tools such as reviews and tags that encourage dynamic product-related content. Clear navigation enables quick finding the products customers are looking for.
Hairworks.co.nz was launched this year. So let’s wish good luck its owner and its customers. Time will show if choosing Magento platform was successful for this site.
Why Magento is better than other shopping carts?
Currently Magento is one of the most popular open source ecommerce solutions. Its user-friendly interface and usability suit online store owners perfectly.
So what are the main advantages of Magento over the other shopping carts?
Magento offers a great number of options including layered one page checkout. Using Magento dropdown menus for prices, products, and colors potential customers save their time for choosing the right product. They don’t have to wander from one page to the other in order to find these details.
Compare products option allows future customers choose several products from Magento online store and compare them in order to buy the most appropriate one. Each customer can also make a review on the products he/she has purchased from Magento store. Reading product reviews help people make the right choice.
Purchasing products in Magento store customers can send them to multiple shipping addresses within one transaction. It’s easy to shop at Magento online stores so they bring good profits to Magento store owners. It’s also easy to change currency and language while buying something at Magento store. It means international clients have nothing to worry about.
As everyone knows Magento is free to download so everyone who thinks of starting an online store can give Magento a try.
Comparing Magento stores
One would think what can cars’ online shop and cakes’ online shop have in common? Being the basement for both of these sites Magento proves that these sites can be similar in many ways and still look in a unique and original way.
The first thing which comes in mind when we visit these sites is a similar placement of functional areas. The deeper we go into these stores the more common things we can find. Both online shops has offer Newsletter subscription. While Billetgrillpro.com offers it at the homepage Thecakery.com.au offers it in the left side bar. Both sites have site maps, and Add to compare option. This option allows you to compare several products you like in order to see their descriptions and manufacturers and make the right choice. It helps customers find the right product without visiting the other sites. Checkout procedure is the same in both online shops.
There are also some differences between the two shops. The store owners have chosen completely different color schemes. Billetgrillpro.com uses product images of the bigger size than Thecakery.com.au does. Billetgrillpro.com has a wish list which can be found in the main navigation menu. It means every customer can leave his/her message and order the products he/she would prefer to find at this site while visiting it next time. It seems to be a great way of communicating with potential customers and being attentive to their needs and wishes. Billetgrillpro.com also offers Live Support.
Billetgrillpro.com and Thecakery.com.au sell different products but both of them are successful examples of Magento online stores.