GetShopped – WordPress E-Commerce Plugin

GetShopped is a free WordPress plugin for adding e-commerce capabilities into WordPress-powered websites.

It is a very easy-to-setup plugin which can work with any standards compliant WordPress theme (and WordPress MU).
The plugin offers a flexible pricing structure for products with features like:
flexible coupon/discount pricing rules

• Product specific sales
• Quantity discounts
• Free shipping options
• Multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts
• Supports multiple payment providers like Google Checkout, Paypal & Payment Express.

GetShopped makes it possible to complete the shopping process quickly with a one-page-checkout & optionally, guest checkouts is supported.
It is easy to manage orders with the help of a powerful admin interface, print invoices, packing slips & more.
The plugin also offers lots of other features from comments to new/featured product widgets.
More Info: http://getshopped.org/
Demo: http://getshopped.org/showcase/

Plugin Quick Shop

Quick Shop supports any WordPress that has the Sidebar Widgets installed, really. It adds a SideBar widget that shows the user what they currently have in the cart and allows them to remove the items, not to mention a TinyMCE button to easily allow you to add products to your posts/pages.
Also, you will need to make your own CSS for this.

Features:

• Inventory listing tied in to TinyMCE
• Integrates automatically with CFormsII (and uses CFormsII API so you can edit it easily yourself)
• Full range of formatting for widget layout in Admin -> Options -> Quick Shop
• Shopping cart Widget
• Checkout page
• Ability to create different product options in a drop-down
• WordPress MU compatible

One of my clients required a quick and dirty shopping cart for WordPress. The background:

1. They had more than one product per post
2. They only wanted orders to be sent via email
3. They only needed EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer – like Direct Debit or Internet Banking)

Thus, Quick Shop was born thanks to the excellent way in which the WordPress Plugin API is set up.

List of possible future features:

• AJAX implementation
• Internationalization
• Inventory quantities

Please be aware that I’ll only be updating this if I need to or if I’m paid to. Feel free to come on board and contribute!

Plugin WP e-Commerce

The WP e-Commerce shopping cart plugin for WordPress is an elegant easy to use fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling your products, services, and or fees online.

WP e-Commerce is a Web 2.0 application designed with usability, aesthetics, and presentation in mind.

Perfect for:

• Bands & Record Labels
• Clothing Companies
• Crafters & Artists
• Books, DVDs & MP3 files

The WordPress e-Commerce plugin is a state-of-the-art e-Commerce platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards and usability. It is both free and priceless at the same time.
WP e-Commerce makes it easy for you to accept payments online. WP e-Commerce integrates with Google Checkout, Paypal, Authorize.net, Payment Express and many other trusted payment processors.

1. Upload the folder ‘wp-e-commerce’ to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

Updating

Simply copy the new files across and replace the old files saving saving ones you’ve modified. If you have product images uploaded then do not overwrite the product_images folder or images folder. If you have downloadable products for sale do not overwrite the files folder.

When updating it is important that you do not overwrite the entire images folder. Instead you should copy over the contents of the new images folder into the existing images folder on your server – saving all the exiting product images you may have already uploaded.

If you experience database errors try de-activating and re-activating your plugin.

Some popular Open-source ecommerce programs

We did what’s known in the world of the Internet as a “classic treasure hunt” usability test: we tried to find all of the above vital information as quickly as possible from the top OSC providers. The results are timed, and the sites with the most information found in the least amount of time are deemed to be the best.

A summary of each Web site in this classic web treasure hunt is as follows:

Open-Source Ecommerce Adoption Obstacles

Open-source ecommerce (OSC) programs are wonderful in theory: cheap or even free money -making programs ready for the taking. So why isn’t everyone an Internet millionaire?

The answer is that many obstacles prevent potential OSC users from learning about these programs — obstacles that no proprietary program would experience. Most OSC programs are created by volunteer programmers, whose interests lie in areas other than marketing and product communications.

There’s an old joke that assembly instructions are so awful because they pick the least -needed person from the manufacturing floor to write them. In the open-source world, if no volunteer wants to write Web site information about the product, they don’t bother to pick anyone at all. There could be a dynamite product that could change the world, but only the developers would know about it.

How to choose the Domain Name (part 2)

4. Hyphenated Names?

Should you get a hyphenated name? There are a few things to consider here:

a. Disadvantage: It’s easy to forget the hyphens when typing a name. Many users are used to typing things like freecpluspluscompilers.com but not free-c-plus-plus-compilers.com. They’ll probably leave out the hyphens and wind up at your competitor’s site.

b. Disadvantage: When people recommend your site to their friends verbally, having hyphens in your domain name leads to more potential errors than when the name does not contain hyphens. For example, how do you think your visitors will refer to your site if it is named “acme-books-and-videos.com”? They might say, “I visited Acme Book and Videos dot com yesterday. It was fabulous.” Their friends, remembering that comment later, might type into their browsers “acmebooksandvideos.com”. Oops.

How to choose the Domain Name (part 1)

O be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
- Shakespeare

Before you rush out and choose your domain name or name your website, you might want to consider the following points:

1. Your Domain Name Should Be Your Website Name

Naming your site after your domain may seem obvious to some of you, but you’ll be surprised to learn that not every website is named after the domain name even when the webmaster owns that domain name.

osCommerce An E-Commerce Solution

E-commerce is one of the most successful and effective business strategies used by most companies as an extension of their business using the Internet.  And it  has emerged to be the strongest form of  Internet Marketing strategy. Web design and ecommerce has become a vital component of the Information Technology industry.  Shopping cart solution is the most important aspect of e-commerce for it is the tool used to manage online transactions such as order processing and reporting.

osCommerce is an open source shopping cart e-commerce solution that contains both front-end and and an administration tool back-end which can be easily installed and configured over a web- based installation procedure. And it runs on  PHP and MySQL servers.  And because it is an open source solution it is being distributed at no cost. osCommerce provides the basic functionality that every online businesses needs. And beyond its basic functionality, osCommerce can be customised by installing additional modules or custom code to meet your specific business needs.

osCommerce is the basis for both Zen Cart and CRE Loaded e-commerce solutions, thus making it more simple and having less features compared to both.  osCommerce runs well though and can meet almost all the basic needs of any online business. osCommerce is back-end functionality for Administrators and front- end functionality for its customer.

The following are the features of osCommerce:

- Automatic online based installation and upgrade procedure

-Support dynamic pages

- Administration or back- end functionality

-Customer or Front- end functionality

-Product Functionality

- Accepts numerous offline and online payment processing

- Shipping Functionality

- Flexible tax implementation

osCommerce is a simple shopping cart solution that can meet your basic e-commerce needs, it is not a shrink- wrapped application for those who needed to be spoon- fed nor it is difficult as to have it from scratch. Although osCommerce is equipped with the basic functionality of a shopping cart solution it also has some shortcomings and extensibility. One of the advantages of   applications is the nature of their development process for it allows other users to contribute codes to improve and enhance the system. And osCommerce is not an exception for there are over 2,000 user contributions available. This is critical in creating solutions for loopholes of the systems and fixes some serious issues on payment gateways.

However on the security viewpoint, default installation of osCommerce should not be used in a production environment without being customised. Why is that so? Because there is no admin login authentication protection which is usually available on most authentication systems. Such situation can make your business vulnerable to malicious users.  However, there are modules available to fix such issues. osCommerce is ideal for start up business that engage in order processing.

UK SEO Agency supports and manages ecommerce systems such as osCommerce. And we provide web design and development embedded with ecommerce solutions that are tailored to your business needs.

Source: ukseoagency.co.uk

Affiliate Marketing – the concept

Affiliate marketing involves allowing a third party to market your product for you leaving you to concentrate on other aspects of your business and only having to pay them for referrals that create a click, registration or, most commonly, a sale. Referrals to your site are usually made through a link on the affiliates site and when this link is clicked by a visitor, it is recorded by your system as being from the affiliate and so any sales that are subsequently made can be documented. As this way of marketing functions around a ‘pay for performance’ model, your return on investment is predictable.
Choosing a system

When choosing an affiliate system you can either build your own, buy one or use a service provider. Building your own obviously takes time and expertise but enables you complete control over the process. Buying a programme offers the same control but with the added cost. Building and buying systems both need ongoing upkeep and so it is often a good idea to use a service provider who do all this for you. Not only do they have all the systems needed in place but they will already have a database of affiliates to promote your products on. A service provider will take a cut of commission and most require a set up cost ranging from £500-£2000, however they will eliminate costs such as ongoing administration that you would have incurred had you bought or built a system yourself. One of the largest service providers is Commission Junkie who offer a ‘global network of publishers, educational resources, and sophisticated reporting tools’.

One of the most important aspects of the affiliate system is the payment model. The most common type of commission is a percentage of the total sale amount the affiliate generates. Also, adding bonuses and incentives, such as offering a larger commission percentage for reaching a certain amount of monthly sales, can attract larger affiliates partners.

Recruiting your affiliates

Once your affiliate program is in place you must promote it to attract affiliates. This can be done like a launch of any new product – create a press release, advertise on your own website, spread the word on social media sites. If you are with a service provider, they will also be promoting your programme.

You also need to decide which affiliates you wish to target. Their audience needs to fit with your own, otherwise the amount of referrals you receive will be limited. When considering Eliot Turner we must choose affiliates that are likely to have visitors with the same interests as we expect our customers to have rather than just building a database of random affiliates, e.g. websites associated with similar or related products. It is not a good idea to target a website that sells competitive products but instead look for potential affiliates that are more interested in communication than eCommerce, for example, fashion blogs would be ideal for Eliot Turner.

Once you have recruited your affiliates it is important to work together with them to generate more leads. You need to update them on new offers or products which can be done with a monthly newsletter. Otherwise, your affiliates won’t have an awful lot to work with and won’t generate the sales you want.

Risks

Affiliate marketing may seem a perfect solution however there are obviously some risks associated. You are no longer in control of your own marketing and are allowing a third party to decide how your company is being represented. Affiliates may use marketing methods you are not comfortable with, for example, being too intrusive. Also, there is always the risk of fraud which can affect the merchant, customer and affiliate. Customers can be diverted to a duplicate site preventing the merchant from receiving potential customers and often when the affiliates commission is on a cost per click basis, both affiliates and competitors have been known to commit click fraud whereby repeatedly clicking on a link that pays out can drain the merchant of money. Keeping careful track your system and making sure it has fraud detection will help you discover any unusual behaviour.

That aside, an affiliate programme can really boost sales if done correctly, and if it doesn’t, you won’t have to pay! This is one online programme that must be part of your marketing plan.
Source: ecommerceexperiment.com

The Latest Criminal Schemes in E-commerce

Sebbe Jones, manager of fraud and disputes at 2Checkout, details the latest criminal techniques using online payment transactions.
E-commerce fraud costs retailers approximately $4 billion each year, according to the most recent results of an annual survey conducted by Cybersource, a provider of electronic payment and risk management services. Sebbe Jones, manager of fraud and disputes at 2Checkout, is in the business of keeping e-commerce fraud at bay.

2Checkout, an international online payment service, is a reseller for small-and-medium-sized businesses. The company has more than 20,000 active suppliers and handles more than 200,000 transactions a month. Merchants come to 2Checkout to handle the financial life of their transaction. Naturally, criminals hoping to defraud people out of their money and credit card information also attempt to use the system for financial gain. Jones outlines how 2Checkout monitors fraudulent activity, and details some of the latest scams he sees on the job.

CSO: You provide online payment services for vendors. Where does the interest in preventing fraud come in to play?
Sebbe Jones: Once we start accepting transactions, we are legally the reseller of that product. Because we are legally the reseller, we are the merchant of record. It’s our merchant account and if the charge backs are over one percent, it is our merchant account on record for that and we could receive fines from Visa or MasterCard. So we have to make sure our fraud rate is down. We have a fraud department and we also have a risk department. We have two or three departments that make sure our vendors are doing what they are supposed to doing; providing service. We keep an eye out on terrorist activities, such as money laundering, or putting fraudulent credit cards through an account. So we really have multiple departments to watch every door that there is.

Tell me about the system you use at 2Checkout for identifying possible fraud.
We use 41st Parameters’ Fraud Net. We put 100 percent all of our orders through Fraud Net. There are about 300 or so rules turned on that all orders go through Fraud Net. It will take all of that data, and score each order with a points system and we at 2Checkout use that points system.

Based on those points, there are orders that go into ‘reject’ bucket and a ‘suspect’ bucket and then even a ‘approve and note’ bucket. If an order is rejected, it means the system is flagging it, saying ‘This looks bad. Take a look at this.’ Anything in the reject bucket we manually review 100 percent of that.
Then there is the suspect bucket; these are a little bit more interesting cases where the system is saying ‘Maybe. This might be suspect and this is why.’ The order scored poorly in our algorithms.

If the scoring on each order goes at or above 2,000 points, that will kick into manual review. Our team of analysts will go through and make a determination on whether or not to allow, reject or put on hold until we can get further verification on the order.

What are the points based on?
There are about 300 algorithms turned on. It can go anywhere from they didn’t capitalize first and last name or the billing address. Also let’s say they put their name as Fred Derf. It will fire on easy keys. Things like that. Rules that add more weight is the CVV code on the back of card failed, or the AVS code failed.

More substantial rules include the IP address. We have a list of high -risk countries because we are global. Places like Nigeria, Ghana, Vietnam. While we get a lot of business from there, we also get a lot of fraud from there. So we review every order that comes from there; we review the billing address or IP address or where the credit card is coming from. Or let’s say the browsers language is configured to Vietnamese. Any of these things will make an order get flagged for review.

What are the more common types of fraud you deal with?
We are global, so we see a lot of different kinds of fraud. We’ll see international frauders, whether in Ghana or Nigeria, or further east, like Vietnam, Malaysia, Turkey, trying to fraud credit cards out of the U.S. The U.S. has many more credit cards out there. Someone from third-world country like Nigeria can’t very well steal from his neighbors because his neighbors are just as poor as he is. So we see a lot of fraud coming from third-world countries where they are trying to defraud someone from a country with more money and commerce. Usually they are trying to buy an intangible service, like an immediate download or maybe a membership, a hosting service. We see that a lot.

We also see scenarios where a presumed vendor will open an account and start getting some orders in. Often times we find if a frauder gets that first one or two orders in and stops there, they may be successful. But the greedier he becomes, and starts getting three, five, ten or more orders in, we are going to catch him. That’s when we can usually connect it with other places within 2Checkout.
Often times a vendor will sign up for an account and start placing orders into the account using fraudulent credit cards. If that frauder is really good, he knows how to mask his IP. Let’s say all orders show as all U.K. or U.S. He will make the IP address match up to the billing address of that order. So this looks legitimate to us and we will start passing those first few orders. But after he gets a few orders in, he’ll place an order that may connect to another order. That is when we will investigate a little bit deeper into the account and these orders and start checking the PC print; which basically is device identification.

We try and ID the device of each one of these sales. And often times we find the device placing all of these different sales is the same device. We then try and liken it up to the vendor. And that is when we often times will find that it’s a possibility of money laundering. Last week we had a case where we were able to connect this vendor to an OFAC SND (Office of Foreign Asset Control’s Specially Designated Nationals List). It is a list of names and aliases of known terrorists. We were able to link this vendor to that list and get them shut down before ever paying him.

What about counterfeiting or stolen items? Is that an issue you see often?
Yes, absolutely. That falls under our risk department. We are reviewing every account and reviewing the products and services they are selling. We see a lot of copyright issues; whether it’s music or movies and people trying to sell movies or music. Or a vendor trying to sell Coach handbags where they don’t have the approval of Coach, or Louis Vuitton is another big one. We do have a prohibited products list that contains things that a we can’t sell because we dont have ownership of it or because in the past we have had fraud experiences.

We had a case a few years ago where a guy was selling computers for what appeared to be a good price. We contacted the customers and found that what was arriving was not computers. Inside the box was ripped up phone books. The vendor kept insisting on payment because the products had been shipped. But fortunately we were able to get in touch with the customers first and, of course, stop payment and refund their money.
What is the biggest thorn in your side?
I always feel frauders are going to be one step ahead of the merchants. Some of our best tools that we had five years ago really aren’t anymore. So now common sense tells me the tools I have today will be out of date in a few years and we hope we can have something new when the time comes.

In dealing with disputes probably the biggest thorn in my side recently is friendly fraud. That plays out in a couple of different scenarios. For instance, a customer placed an order and then saw the charge on their statement and said ‘I don’t want this.’ But instead of contacting their bank and saying ‘Hey, I did place this order, but I don’t like it,’ they claim fraud. Or someone else in their household places the order and they claim fraud. But bottom line is they have to be treated as fraud when in all actuality it really isn’t fraud. The credit card companies, so far, haven’t really provided merchants an avenue to challenge those types of things successfully.

Also, I worry about people from terrorist groups trying to defraud us, because not only does that hurt my company, it hurts all of us. Fraud is bad enough, but when you are frauding to gain money for your evil empire, that makes it all the more worse.

Source: csoonline.com/