magestore.com magento extension onestepcheckout

Magento One Step Checkout extension makes all checkout steps appear together in a single page for customers to fill in their information and modify any step at once.

  • Auto-update later steps when there’re changes in former steps
  • Enable giftwrap and short survey in checkout page
  • Add discount code, gift message, comments right in checkout page
  • Allow changing button style and checkout page layout
Label Snow Effect
Buy this extension to get Extension for Christmas Decoration as a free gift. Offer valid until November 30th, 2013.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

5 tips to improve Ecommerce Payment Process

Magento one step checkout - Payment methods
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Image credit: philipchircop.com
It usually happens to many online stores (including your store)  that their customers abandon shopping carts because of red tape and lack of payment security  information. So, making checkout process as easy and transparent as possible is essential for increasing conversions and sales.
Here are some quick tips about to improve payment process for your ecommerce website.

1. Provide flexible Payment Options

A study by CyberSource Corp. found that websites providing 4 or more payment methods other than credit cards had a sales conversion rate 12 % higher than those offering just one option. So, it is highly suggested that you accept payment in many ways  ranging from COD to bank transfer, Paypal, Braintree, credit cards, debit cards, etc.
However, it is not necessary to accept all payment methods, you need to research your target audience and find out which payment methods preferred among the majority and implement only these methods to your store.
Besides, like retail giants – Amazon.com or Ebay.com – they allow payment in over 100 currencies, it will be much better if you can accept payment in different currencies, at least two in category, your national one and an international one.
Shortly, diversifying your payment methods is one way to make your customers ready to process to checkout.
Magento one step checkout extension - international payment methods

2. Allow Guest checkout

Many consumers are not ready to register or have to fill in usernames and passwords on online ecommerce website. Some others do not intend to let you know their emails for fear of being flooded with promotional emails.
The above issues are usually reasonable, and you should find comfortable ways to keep your visitors to the rest of the checkout process. A research by Invesp in September 2013 shows that 64% of the top 200 ecommerce websites allow anonymous/guest checkout. So, try being open for onsite visitors to encourage them finish their shopping cart.


One Step Checkout Magento - Guest Checkout
However, in the long term, encouraging your customers to register an account and checkout as a member will help your customer relationship management and give you ways to serve them better. Let them understand their rights when becoming a member in your community.

3. Require Essential Information Only

As mentioned above, forcing customers to fill out more fields than necessary for making a purchase may put a bad effect on your conversion.
A report published by Forrester found that 11% of U.S. adults abandoned an online purchase because they either didn’t want to register or the site was asking for too much information. Not only does it prolong the purchasing process but also disturbs people when having to type more, like a long accommodation or a long email address.
In the case of payment process, just the card number, the expiry date and the security code are enough. If you absolutely need the extra information, such as a phone number, make sure to include an explanation for why it’s required.

4. Have Clear Calls to Action

Don’t let your customers have to guess what to do next. If you don’t have any suggestion, you make the suggestion for them to leave out.
Therefore, when one adds an item to her card, make it clear they can “Continue to checkout” or “Continue Shopping.” The trick is to make it specific and avoid being ambiguous. Keep your website design visually actionable for users. Donʼt be afraid to design big shiny buttons that really stand out. Make it easy for the eye  to tell your primary CTA apart from the rest of your page.
One Step Checkout extension magento - checkout cta button

5. Give Security Assurance signals

The last tip is about SECURITY. Online purchasers take serious attitude to your compromise to keep their information safe from hackers, esp. financial data or the bank account number.
A survey by eConsultancy found that 58% of respondents dropped out of the checkout page due to concerns about payment security. Thus, remember to always showcase the security measures you have in place. For example, you comply with the standards of the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC). This is the first thing to gain trust from your customers’ right after their buying actions and ensure the next deals in future.
one step checkout extension - security assurance signals

Do you some other tips to enhance the effectiveness of ecommerce payment systems?
Great to receive your comments.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

5 Tips to make the Most from Store Layout with Magento Extensions

Welcome back Magento lovers,
For our Magento Blog this week, Ecommerce Tips section is all about Magento Page Layout! How to optimize it, what Magento extensions should be used (especially some are free Magento extensions) and more! The advices explained in this article should be considered as guidelines that need to be followed from the beginning of store’s design and through development phase. They are based on the experiences of the shoppers, shop owners and developers.

1. HOME PAGE

Moderate the number of products shown – you should show featured products, selected products, new arrivals in an eye-catching way. Using a slideshow is a good way to save your site’s space and get customers go deep inside the store.
Recommendation: Magento Banner slider extensionMagento Feature Product extension (both of them are free extensions)
Effective categorization – Be succinct as much as possible with only top-level categories presented. Smart product classification help reduce “Thinking time” of customers and easily navigate them to buying decision
Recommendation: Magento Featured Category extension (free Magento extension)
 Attractive menu - create professional magento navigation Menu easily without technical knowledge. Your customers can view and access products and categories just by hovering over the menu.
RecommendationMagento Mega Menu (Paid magento extension)
magento blog: free magento extensions for home page layout
E-commerce website homepage layout

2. SMART SEARCH

Adding a search bar near the head of your page makes it easier to use, search and gives the shoppers more control when they know specifically what they are looking for. It is crucial that the search box stays visible all the time on the site for several reasons. Unless you have a secret reason for hiding the search box, always iterate this feature as much as possible and advanced search in the sidebar for those who know exactly what their looking for.
Recommendation: Magento Product Instant Search extension (free Magento extension)
magento blog: free magento extension for search bar layout
E-commerce store Search bar layout

3. THE PRODUCT PAGE

Good description of a product is the first impression lead to conversion, so make that one a success. You’d better tip it to everyone’s favor with shopper’s purchase of exactly the right product and you making that sale on the spot.
It’s said “A picture is worth a thousand words”! Image is everything so try to put enough valuable images of the product as you can. Besides there are some additional recommendations you should follow that can be easily overlooked during the site planning:
  • Price – Make it clearly visible, don’t try to “minimize” it visually
  • Add to Cart button – Make it as clear as possible : big, bright and very visible but of course, don’t overdo it. This one should be used instead of the “Add to Wish list” button because it doesn’t stay in the way of user’s purchasing decision.
  • Payment – Provide as many payment options necessary: Paypal, Google Checkout, all major Credit Cards, money orders etc. Magento has lots of payment gateways built-in for that so use them as many you need.
  • Sharing – Allow the users to send this product to the ones that can actually buy it. You can try Magento Social Recommend extension to allow your clients to get discount by sharing the purchased product on their Facebook page.
magento blog: magento extension for product page layout
Product page layout
Highly recommended for the product page would be of course “Recommended products”. Hey, I like it when the salesperson does his job and finds something interesting for me. Do you? Magento has that built-in also as “Related products” placed cunningly in the sidebar and sits patiently there while you examine the product and decide in the next second to look what your “Online salesman” believes is related to that product.

4. THE CHECKOUT PAGE

Keep it short and simple
Since we started this journey through Magento store process, we’ve come a long way and now it’s only fair that this checkout business feels fast, secure and with my shipping options presented well and understandable. This is where Magento One step checkout extension comes in, built with that in mind and ready for action, so use it.
magento blog: magento one step checkout layout
one step checkout layout

5. FACEBOOK CONNECT

Don’t require registration before the purchase except if it is “really” necessary for some reason. Rather provide some new and now widely acceptable ways of connecting through social networks’ account. This provides comfort, ease of use and friendly approach for the shopper and by default relieves her/him of those tedious tasks of reentering the same data again, registering for a new account etc. Yes, it is good as it sounds and you should get on that train right now, try Magento facebook login for start.
magento blog: magento facebook login layout
Facebook login layout
Besides Facebook, Magento developers have invented many tools to make login easier and faster by integrating other social networks such as twitter, LinkedIn, Google etc. This is possible when you use Magento Social Login extensionon your site.
magento blog: magento social login layout
social login layout
Well far from it, please leave your comments about your views, as a shop owner or a shopper, and it will definitely help everyone’s shopping experience. See you next time in Magestore Magento Blog !

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Top 5 Magento Extensions for Adding Shopping Cart

 Magento gift wrapMagento is an open source web application for ecommerce, shopping cart sites. It is a feature–rich, ecommerce platform that can be highly customized to suit the needs of any kind and size of business and can be managed easily. With over 150,000 online retailers, it is the most favored platform for small and large business alike and even corporations such as Samsung and Harvey Nichols.
Extensions are great tools in enhancing the functionality of Magento. They also help in facilitating the web interface with other 3rd party applications. They help your ecommerce business to prosper, resulting in higher profits. Magento development teams are well versed and proficient in developing relevant extensions tailor made for your specific business needs. Extensions add a great degree of functionality and make the business more systematic and organized.
Extensions play a vital role in building a successful Magento based shopping cart applications with rich features. Some of the top shopping cart applications are:
  • Magento Quick View: Helps you to quickly view and learn about the product in detail without actually visiting the actual product page. All the information about the product pops up in a fancy box. Using AJAX, it lets you add the required quantity of the product to the cart, eliminating the need for the customers to navigate back and forth during shopping. It displays the updated information of the cart status like the number of items added, and the value of the items etc. It also lets you share the product information on social media sites like face book, twitter etc.
  • Magento Gift Wrap: Helps your customers get their gift purchases an impressive and stunning look with the amazing wrapping options. It lets your customers to choose their gift boxes, gift cards, wrap able products and send message.
  • Magento AJAX cart: Helps reduce time in navigating back and forth during the shopping process, as items can be added to the cart or removed from the cart without having to click the update button. Every addition or deletion of items automatically refreshes the cart. It also helps in customization of the pop up window whenever a change is made to the cart by adding or removing an item from it. You can display cross sell items along with widgets and images, this helps in increasing your sales apart from customer loyalty.
  • Magento One Step Checkout: Helps you to reduce the standard Magento six step checkouts to a One step process. With the dynamic AJAX prices and totals of items are automatically updated once the shipping method is selected. It makes the process very customer friendly and easy to use and they have to fill in the shipping address only once as against six times in the previous method.
  • Magento Store Pickup: acts as a magento shipping extension that lets customers choose a specific store from your chain of stores to pick up products during checkout
Extensions are the vital tools in Magento development, adding rich features and enabling interfaces. Developers need to follow guidelines for pricing, installing, naming, approval, use of Magento logs in extensions, enterprise extensions, and paid extensions. 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

TOP 6 MAGENTO EXTENSIONS TO HELP BOOST HOLIDAY SALES [INFOGRAPHIC]

As any other ecommerce store owner, you are putting many efforts to boost your sales and revenues before the end of the year. Important holiday occasions are coming near taking with them fruitful opportunities to encourage customer to put their money out of pocket.
Listen, your competitors are seeing the same opportunities as you, and if you don’t do something different, your can never make out of the holidays.
But don’t worry, I am going to suggest you some nice additions to your Magento store for holiday sales so you can give your customer better shopping experience, then they’ll win, you’ll win.
Still in doubt? Take a look to this infographic and gather some ideas.
6 Magento Extensions to boost holiday sales
Top Magento extension to boost holiday sales in 2013 Infographic
Have you got familiar with all these 6 extensions? I will explain more about how these extensions will help you:
1. Gift Card extension: Your Customers can send gift cards/codes of different values and prices to their friends or save for their future uses. The card itself is a type of viral content which helps spread your brand image.
2. Daily Deal extension: Occasional deals where you allow Customers to get discount for specific products in a limited time will be a memorable experience to your customers, particularly suitable for holidays or events. Yeah, it is a tool for inventory settlement too.
3. Promotional gift extension: Almost everyone loves free gifts, I love, you love and your customers love, too. So why don’t give them the chance to receive free gifts when shopping on your website? And make your customer clear about the gifts they are going to receive.
4. Gift Wrap extension: During holidays and events, people send a lot of gifts and presents to their families, relatives, colleagues and friends. Don’t let them go anywhere else for the gift wrap. With the extension, you can serve them well right from your Magento store.
5. Lucky Draw extension: You know that sweep-staking is a very effective tactics to drive traffic, new visitors and leads to your website. And you can hold simple lucky draw contests on your store with almost no extra effort with the extension.
6. Product Labels extension: Give your store some make-up work by product labels. You can place them to some of your strategic or seasonal products to improve sales volume on these products.

You may see that these extension are not only necessary for holidays, you can get them now or later. But now it is very near to important holidays, so decide quick or your competitors would grasp the chances before you.



Which extensions would you like for your store?

Comparison of 5 best magento one step checkout extensions


Have you ever been shopping online?
Definitely, the answer is “yes” because e-commerce has been developing strongly at this time.
However, have you experienced that there is a product which you are ready to buy, but you’re so upset about its checkout. Too long and too annoyed!
In recent times, there are many providers selling “One step Checkout extension”, which can equipped you with quick and comfortable checkout. All checkout information such as billing address, shipping, payment method will all appear together for customers to fill in information of any step any time.
Although you know a lot of advantages of one step checkout, you still have trouble: there are too many providers of One step checkout. So what’s your choice? We know your concern, so we decide to write A comparison of 5 most popular Magento checkout extensions to bring you a better overview about the magento checkout extensions segment.
We collected information and give the comparison among magento One step checkout extensions of 5 providers whose one step checkout extensions are the most popular in Magento marketplace: Magestore, onestepcheckout.com, Mage-world, Go Mage and OS quick checkout. The differences are shown in table below (click on the image for full-size display).
Comparison of magento checkout extensions
Comparison of popular magento checkout extensions
According to this research, it’s easily for you to realize  some key points of differences of features:
1. Fasten Checkout
Only OS quick checkout hasn’t integrated Geo IP
Only Magestore supports placing order in Admin using 1 step checkout method (useful for offline selling): Web POS.
2. Payment methods Supported
Besides common payment methods (Check/Money, Credit card, Paypal), Magestore andOnestepcheckout.com support more payment methods like Paypal pro, Sage Pay, Authorize
3. Extra functions
Magestore and Onestepcheckout.com are direct competitors in terms of many common extra functions added to Checkout page, while OS quick checkout has lost its advantage in this.
4. Policies
Onestepcheckout.com doesn’t issue refund and you have to pay if request Support
Magestore and OS quick checkout have better Customer service policy with free lifetime update and support
5. Product Price
Mageworld and OS quick checkout set lower prices with less additional features
Onestepcheckout.com and Magestore are providing the same number of extra features, however Magestore’s price is as half of Onestepcheckout.com
As this result, we highly recommend that Magestore can cover all functions of Magento one step checkout extension with affordable price. However, you can base on your store’s requirement to find the best one for you. Hope this helpful for you!
To understand more about all of these functions, you can find information here:

 OSC – Magestore OSC – OSC.com OSC – Mage – World
 OSC – Go Mage OSC – OS quick checkout

Magento One Step Checkout tutorial: Giving the Magento Checkout a Facelift

I recently started a task to give a Magento check out a little bit of a facelift. Specifically, one of our clients wanted the shipping address and shipping method to be in the first step of the checkout. Then have the billing address and payment method as second step and finally have the review & checkout. On top of that, they also wanted the multi-shipping to have same setup.
So far, I have completed the single address section. The shipping section was a bit of a challenge because the shipping preference comes after shipping address on the one page checkout.
The solution was using an ajax call to update the shipping preference as the user changes the shipping address. There were also some major changes on how the gift message works to fit the design. I ended up scraped the default gift handler in prototype js and redesigned it in jQuery.
The billing address and payment were easier to merge. I only had to combine the onepage checkout’s save billing and save payment function together.
The review did not have to change much. The progress blocks, which is usually updated as you complete the steps, is merged as part of the review.
Last but not least, many steps to code changes are also required in op_checkout.js, such as copying the shipping address to the billing address and the steps for rearrangement.
Here are some screenshots of the custom checkout steps:


You can see more about Magento One Step Checkout Extension at http://magentoonestepcheckout.net/