Joomla Development Features to Boost Your E-commerce Site

Leave a reply

Joomla logo

Joomla is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) available right now. Developed by Open Source Matters, Inc, and a free, open-source system, it is estimated to power approximately 3% of the web’s e-commerce sites currently. Among other benefits, Joomla offers fantastic options for customizing e-commerce websites, so if you are looking to sell online, or you already are, here are just a collection of the great site development features that Joomla currently offers:

Great themes, that are easy to install

Joomla templates are incredibly easy to install, involving a simple two-step process. First up, find the template that you would like to use, and download it. From here, all you need is the extension manager offered by Joomla to upload the template you have chosen.

As well as being easy to install, Joomla offers some superb options. The ‘Splash’ option is perhaps the most generic, in that it’s suitable for any kind of e-commerce store, and has impressive visuals. It’s fully customizable too. ‘Yummy’, on the other hand, is more geared towards restaurants and other food-related e-commerce sites, as the name obviously suggests. The template that you download includes fully customizable menu templates and reservation forms, which are obviously incredibly critical to restaurant businesses.

‘Yummy’ also comes with blog and gallery templates, allowing you to post all kinds of content related to your e-commerce business,” adds Betsy Robinson, a tech writer at Writinity and LastMinuteWriting.

‘Trendz’, as the name perhaps suggests, is more linked to fashion, so if you have an e-commerce store selling clothing and fashion products, this could be the Joomla template option for you. As well as the standard customizable features which are shared by all Joomla templates, the incredible array of layouts and navigable menu options make it easy for potential customers to move around your site and view your offerings on any kind of sites. These options also allow you to display different ranges, seasons and types of wear in a number of different ways which are always easy to move between, charming users in the process,” enthuses Barbara Novak, a marketer at DraftBeyond and Researchpapersuk.

Joomla’s array of extensions

On top of these classic themes that Joomla offers are any number of extensions which you can apply to perform a host of different tasks which may be relevant to the type of e-commerce store that you want to have up and running. Here are some of the best examples of Joomla extensions which can complement your online store:

 

paGO Commerce

Designed and developed for developers, marketers, and integrators. For developers paGO Commerce is easy to deploy and extend, paGO Commerce plays well with others. Plus it’s modular, so you can grow with no hacks or workarounds. While it is great for developers is also a magic machine for Marketers. paGO Commerce has the built-in marketing tools you need to sell to your mobile, global buyers. Sell to them on any device, wherever they go. Can’t forget our integrators where paGO Commerce’s core platform is rock-solid, PCI compliant, high-performance software you can build a lucrative service offering around.

EShop

One of the inherent benefits of EShop is the advanced search options that it provides to your users. If those users are looking for something quite niche, and your site provides that, then it’s important that the search options allow users to customize their search in a way that their query gets as close to your specific offerings as possible, otherwise relevancy is lost, and you will see a higher bounce rate.

Other benefits of EShop are the visuals and layouts, which provide users with a clear picture of what is in their cart at all times (a key frustration that customers state with e-commerce sites). Another great additional feature of EShop is the alerts it gives when a product becomes available, if of course it isn’t when the user first looks for it. If that product is listed as ‘out of stock’, then as soon as it comes in, they will receive a push notification, which is great for getting users back to your site. EShop is also supportive of 15 different languages too.

VirtueMart

This incredibly popular Joomla extension allows a number of different options for your e-commerce store, starting with the ability to easily categorize and present products, which makes your online store responsive and easily navigable. It also allows you to set up specific shopper groups, whereby you can tailor promotional activities and prices to groups that you create, such as customers from a particular business that you are partnered with, or shoppers from a specific country. These incredible B2B and B2C options stand VirtueMart features out from the crowd in terms of e-commerce platform offerings.

VirtueMart has push notification options and cart pop-ups, and allows a from control over inventory management, ensuring you are able to keep close tabs on stock and what’s being ordered at all times. This helps protect against dissatisfied customers who are unable to get the products they want in the timeframe required, and is another integral feature of this particular Joomla extension, which also takes advantage of proven SEM techniques such as keyword and meta tag optimization.

DigiCom

As the name would suggest, this particular Joomla extension is a great option for the retail of digital products, and in a welcome advance, allows you to cherry pick the add-ons you are looking for, streamlining the options available and getting rid of unnecessary code. The drag-and-drop features are most welcome, and the DigiCom extension offers a full array of payment options to users, including PayPal, Bitcoin and 2Checkout, as well as the regular credit card options.

Joomla security extensions

In terms of security, Joomla also steps up to the mark, There are a host of options for you to select from, but two of the most popular options are Admin Tools Professional, which would cover your site against the most common types of cyber threats, and enables you to blacklist and block troublesome IPs. KeyCAPTCHA is another popular extension, and is one that most web users are familiar with at this stage, as it asks users to complete a task to prove they are not a spamming bot, for example. There are many more options which delve deeper into the types of modern cyber threats, and help to protect the integrity of your e-commerce site.

Summary

There is a very good reason why Joomla has cornered 3% of the market, and is growing. As well as being incredibly easy to install and set up, the huge variety of extension offerings cover your every need, allowing you to cherry pick the kinds of features you want based on what you are selling and the kind of e-commerce site you are looking for. Avoid being generic, and create something unique and specific to your needs with Joomla.

Professional writer, marketing, management and recruitment expert Ashley Halsey can be found contributing her business insights and marketing expertise at LuckyAssignments and GumEssays.

 

5 Signs It’s Time to Hire a Managed IT Service for Your Business

Leave a reply

it services

As technology grows and expands, so does the threat of cyberattacks. In 2017 alone, there was a 600% increase in cyberattacks. While anyone can be a victim of a cyberattack, 43% of them were against small businesses. These two statistics would frighten any business owner who uses technology alongside their work.

Unfortunately, using strong passwords, keeping up with software updates, and keeping an eye on employees isn’t enough to prevent being a victim of a cybercrime. If you want to keep your company as safe as humanly possible, hiring the best IT team is essential.

Here are five reasons you should rely on a managed IT service versus hiring IT employees in-house. Continue reading →

How to Put Together an Effective PHP Developer Resume

Leave a reply

PHP Developer developing PHP code

You may be a fantastic PHP developer, but if you are not able to communicate that through your resume, you may be missing a trick. Make sure your resume reflects your abilities by following these simple steps:

Start with a summary

A developing trend is to begin your resume with what some people would call a personal profile, and what others would call an executive summary. It doesn’t matter what you call it, what matters is what this brief paragraph (or two) says about you. Think of a great opening line which really sums up who you are professionally, and try to shoehorn in your most relevant experience (to the jobs you want to apply for) and greatest career achievements. State clearly what you are looking for too.

“The reality is, busy hiring managers often do not take the time to progress beyond the summary paragraph at the top of a resume, so if you don’t make any impact here, the rest of your resume will remain unread, and the job will pass you by,” warns Peter Strachan, a resume proofreader at Academized. Continue reading →

7 Questions You Should Ask Yourself before Designing a Website

Leave a reply

7 Questions You Should Ask Yourself before Designing a Website

Designing a website for your business is becoming very crucial these days. If you do not have an online presence you are nowhere in the competition. You have to be visible to your customers all the time. Only then you can think of having great profits, line of customers and lots more. But before you start to build any website for your business here are some important points that you should keep in mind for building an effective and fruitful website. Continue reading →

How to Establish Your Company’s Place on the Internet

Leave a reply

internet code

The brick-and-mortar store, they say, is less important than the pixels of your website, and the follow count on your social media channels. Companies across industries and geographies are discovering that it’s in the digital realm that they can find their competitive edge in the modern era – and that means that you, too, should consider your various locations on the world wide web. This article focuses on only those that are most important to your business; helping you establish yourself as a presence across some of the most-visited platforms in the world. Continue reading →

How to Build More Traffic and Profit into Your WordPress Blog

Leave a reply

boost traffic

Running a WordPress blog has been increasingly becoming a widely chosen profession for the millennial generation. Basically, everybody wants to be a blogger; and with over 2 million blog posts being written every day, it becomes very complicated for new blogs to filter the noise and stand out.

The competition is glaring because a successful blog performs well in terms of traffic as well as monetization. But, how can a blog accomplish the two? What are the tips that successful bloggers follow to drive insane amount of traffic to their online resources?

How can inexperienced WordPress bloggers build more traffic and yield more profit from the blogs they are running? Let’s find out. Continue reading →

Top 3 e-commerce Website Software Development Technologies

Leave a reply

Top 3 e-commerce website software development technologies

Today’s e-commerce technologies have now evolved to such a level where enterprises barely require building their e-commerce websites or applications from scratch. They are readymade ecommerce web software development technologies and, developers rely on them to make their work ultra-convenient and implement a project in minimum turnaround time.

Also, apart from fully supporting the web, these modern technologies are fully mobile optimized. It means that they are ready for mobile platforms too.

This post introduces the three most popular web software development technologies for e-commerce platforms. Let us learn about them and also go through their advantages. Continue reading →

How To Localize Your WordPress Site: Best Tips

Leave a reply

localize your wordpress site

English is the global language, but it’s not the most spoken language in the world.

In fact, the most spoken native language is Mandarin Chinese with about 1.3 billion native speakers. The second language is Spanish with about 460 million native speakers. And English is the third most spoken language with about 380 million native speakers.

So if you want to make your WordPress site accessible for users from all over the world, you should translate and localize it. You should provide non-English speakers with an opportunity to browse pages in their native language.

In this article, you will find the best tips on how to localize your website and do it fast and easily. Continue reading →

4 Ways You Can Use Tech to Increase Customer Satisfaction

Leave a reply

Level of quality service, satisfaction, customer loyalty concept. Knob in highest excellent position.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a seasoned business professional, customer satisfaction is going to be at the heart of everything you do. Even if you have a great product or service to offer, it means nothing if your customers are unhappy and therefore rate your business badly. Dissatisfaction in customers leads to loss of sales, bad reviews, the possibility of refunds and an overall negative impact on your business.

That is why it’s crucial to keep those customers happy – and here’s how technology can help you to do that.

Use Online Training Courses

You can learn more about better management of your business and increasing customer satisfaction through online enrollment courses and further training. If you’re looking to hone your current skills, or if you’re just starting out in business and would like to learn as much as you can about business optimization and a better connection with your customers, online courses are a great way to do that. Programs such as Lean Six Sigma White Belt can help you to better understand the voice of the customer, and do business more efficiently.

Social Media

Everybody uses social media, which means any business without at least one social media platform is falling behind. Social media is a simple and quick way to communicate with your customers – and best of all, other potential consumers will see you doing so. If you resolve something quickly and efficiently for the world to see, it promotes good customer service and a good business reputation.

Ensure that you’re encouraging conversations via social media, and make sure that you have the option of contact through social media for any customer service queries or feedback.

Online Surveys

One helpful way of determining where you’re going right and wrong with customer satisfaction is through a survey. Customers are more likely to complete a survey online than they are physically or through the post. Offering the opportunity for customers to take a quick survey will be very beneficial for analyzing feedback and therefore working to do better.

You could program a survey prompt to pop up after a customer has placed an order with you (if you run an eCommerce website) or you could have a survey option on your website, through social media or through a customer mailing list.

Device Optimization

You should ensure that your website and business functions work quickly and efficiently, no matter the device. Nothing can increase customer frustration more than a slow website, or pages failing to load when customers are browsing – especially if it is an eCommerce website they are using.

Most internet browsing and website interaction is now done via mobile, which means you should certainly make sure that your website is optimized to work on a mobile device as well as a desktop. Consider mobile interaction when you are designing your website if you are starting a business from scratch and check how certain elements will translate onto mobile devices.

 

Everything You Wish to Learn About IoT-Based Predictive Maintenance

Leave a reply

It has been years since manufacturers have been employing a time-based approach for equipment maintenance. There was a time when the age of the machinery was taken into consideration to plan for maintenance routine. The simple way to calculate it by considering the fact that the older the equipment, the more frequent maintenance procedures need to be executed. However, according to a study conducted by the ARC group, across the globe, only 18% of types of equipment have failed due to its age. On the other hand, 82% fail on a random basis. This goes to prove that the time-based approach is not the right way to go ahead. The final take is a piece of equipment that gets maintained despite its actual requirement.

To get rid of ineffective maintenance routines and costs that accumulate with it, manufacturers can leverage the Industrial IoT solutions in combination with data science. In the forthcoming sections of this write-up, we will look at the various ways IoT-based predictive maintenance can prove to be effective in increasing the efficiency of the manufacturing process. Continue reading →

4 Project Management Challenges Dev Teams Have to Face and How to Tackle Them

Leave a reply

Business people discussing presentation together: experienced female project manager pointing at laptop screen while explaining information to young man

Project management is a challenge. Software development project management is even more of a challenge, whether you develop new software applications, work on infrastructure related projects, or maintain web based solutions. However, the challenge isn’t insurmountable, and there are things you can do to manage these issues better. Here are four project management challenges dev teams have to face and how to tackle them. Continue reading →

7 Tech Tips for New Startups

Leave a reply

Brainstorming startup ideas on a window

The going can get tough as a startup, and there are sure to be a few challenging days ahead, but it is important that you know how to use technology to your advantage in the early stages of your business venture, because this can help you to overcome many common issues and find some success early on. Many entrepreneurs are not familiar with how they can use tech, which is understandable because it seemingly advances every day. Here are a few ways that you should be using technology when you launch your company, which could make all the difference. Continue reading →