(Infographic) If you don’t get Magento mobile apps, then..

Magento is one of the most common e-commerce open sources of the world. But it holds a big weakness in mobile commerce business as its mobile solution is not sufficient. There are 2 popular mobile solutions: responsive design and mobile app. Magento offers responsive design (since version 1.9) but no complete solution to mobile app yet. Actually, Magento once introduced Magento Mobile, which was an automatic app builder platform. But it is said that the project almost cancelled as its last update was since 2012.

Personally I think this is big disadvantage for Magento merchants because responsive design is becoming as must-have for any online stores. Whereas stores from other e-commerce platforms such as Shoptify has already enjoyed benefits that mobile apps bring. So if you have a Magento store, let’s see what you miss if you don’t have Magento mobile apps for your store.

Source: SimiCart Blog

7even reasons to build Magento Mobile Apps with SimiCart (Infographic)

The world we are now living changes every day. From the day invented the first telephone, we now have 4.5 billion smartphone users globally. As more and more people using mobile devices, we are changing the way we shop, too. Whether it’s on smartphones, smartwatches or tablets, we can now browse and buy just about anything we want anywhere, anytime.

For retailers, this presents an enormous challenge as their customers are expecting a consistant shopping experience all across offline stores, conventional E-commerce websites and all devices. That’s why mobile commerce is more than just another channel – it connects all the dots together. This applies to all Magento retailors also. Extending the Magento-based E-commerce website into a mobile app is a must with any retailor who wants to succeed in M-commerce. Like the title said, SimiCart ideally is the best solution to your M-commerce strategy. Please, find out the 7even reasons with this following infographic.

Native App vs. Responsive Website – which one is better choice?

E-commerce is now suffering from the conquest of mobile commerce. Apparently, customers no longer stick to their PCs or laptops but turn to their smart phones or tablets. This shift forced the store owners to come up with new ideas to catch this trend.  Responsive website or mobile store app, that is the most common confusion of store owners. Here is some information you should consider before making choices.

What are differences between mobile store apps and responsive websites?

Nearly 90% of you cannot realize what is mobile store app and responsive design website based on their looks which are quite similar on handheld mobile devices.  However, in depth, they are totally different.

Mobile website can be understood as web pages designed for mobile devices, not only for large screen (PC screen). It also consists of browser-based HTML pages that are linked together and accessed over the Internet.

Mobile applications, differently, are not web pages designed for mobile devices. Exactly, they are mobile software which can be downloaded and installed on smart phones or tablets. Since they are not responsive web page, these apps cannot be opened on mobile browser. Instead, they run on mobile operating systems like iOS, Android, Windows Phone …  and their interface is mobile optimized.

Confusing between two? Let’s see their Pros and Cons:

	Native app	Mobile Website
Pros	- Faster access from mobile screen. – Optimized for mobile devices with more interactive user interface- Allow easy access to the phone’s features such as the address book, camera… – Enhance user experience : looks, feels, browsing…- Engage more customers and keep longer and more frequent user interaction time -Increase customer return rate, conversion rate. – Safer because it is reviewed and approved by application store administrators.-Lag less when user browse, scroll.- Take advantage of mobile features like locating and personalizing.	- Responsive designed for mobile devices – Reach people from search engines- No limitation on platforms.- Not need to be approved by application store.- No need to download or install. – Takes small data storage.
Cons	- Cannot run on browsers and reach people from search engines.- Require developing for each platform.- Need to be approved to appear on application stores.- Need to be downloaded and installed.- Take a more storage on mobile devices.	- Slower access from browser- Limited access to the phone’s capabilities- Limited user experience- Limited user interaction time – Less convenience to browse

“…85% of respondents  preferred a mobile app than a mobile website.”

This number was revealed by Compuware in 2013 when they carried out a survey of 3,500 consumers. This number speaks louder than any evidence.  Although mobile website is considered to be more important, mobile apps seem to be more preferable from customers’ perpective. Therefore, it is quite necessary to have a mobile store app on your own.

If you are worried about the cost and time to get an app like that, SimiCart can help you out. It’s the easiest way to build a Magento mobile apps for your online store at only $299 one time only.

Source: SimiCart Blog

Magento Products

In Magento you can add products to your store manually one by one, or many products at once.

Add a single product to Magento

To add one product you have to follow these steps:

1. Login to your admin area.
2. Choose Catalog -> Magento Products -> Add products
3. On the next screen you have to choose your Product setting such as Attribute Set and Product Type. Click on Continue.
4. The New Product form will appear. Here you have to fill out the required information such as Name, SKU, Weight, Status, Tax Class, Visibility.
5. Click Create New Attribute. You can add the price and description of the item. Don’t forget to click Save and Continue Editing.
6. You can add addition information if required.
7. Add an image for the product.
8. Click Save.

Add many products in Magento at once

If you wan to add many products at one you have to export first a files with one product so you have a sample structure for the products you want to add. You have to fill in the required information – separated by commas, new line for each new products, and upload it back in Magento.

1. Go to Catalog -> Manage Categories and create the categories you wish to have.
2. Click Save category.
3. Add manually a product in each category and export the categories. Click Go to System -> Import/Export -> Profiles and choose Export all products.
4. Select Run profile.
5. When you are ready, you can use the exported file as a template.
6. Fill in the required information such as product name, price, description etc.
7. Go to your admin area.
8. Choose System -> Import/Export -> Profiles.
9. Click on Import All Products.
10. Choose CSV/tab separated as data format type and choose the .csv file you want to use.
11. Click Save and Continue Edit.
12. Then go to Run Profile, select your cvs file in the dropdown menu.

You are ready.

Magento Installation

Some web hosts provide professional Magento installation as paid or free additional service to their magento hostingpackage, or have Auto-Installers in their Control Panels. If your web hosts does not provide any of these options, or you want to install Magento manually in order to customize its settings, please read the following short manual.

• To install Magento you will have to download the latest stable Magento version from the official Magento website. You can download the full installation file package from magentocommerce.com/download . It usually comes as a zip file, so you will have to unzip it first, or upload it and unzip it on the server.
• You can upload the files via FTP to your hosting account. You can choose between the public_html folder and a sub folder, if you do not wish Magento to appear directly on your home page.
• When the package is uploaded, you will have to extract it if you haven’t done that yet, and change its file permissions (set to 755) according to the requirements listed on magentocommerce.com
• You need to create a new MySql database and new user for your future store. To do that, login to the Control Panel of your hosting account and use the MySQL databases management tool.
• Attach the user and the database together.
• Run the Magento Install Wizard. You will have to point your browser to the URL of your website – your home page or the folder you have chosen to install Magento in. Follow the instructions of the wizard.

• Fill out your database connection information – data base name, user name and password.

• Setup your administrator user. Choose an encryption key, or leave this field blank – Magento will generate it for you. Be sure to write it down, since you will need it for password encryption and other operations later on.
• That’s it! You are done.

Related: Magento Mobile Apps, Mobile Apps Builder

Magento Requirements

In order to be able to install and run Magento without issues on the magento hosting provider of your choice, there are some system requirements you should consider. Please make sure to check if your future host meets these requirements before buying a hosting account with it! You can also take a look at our selection of tested Magento hosting providers.

• The Operating System should be Linux x86 or x86-64
• Web Servers: Apache 1.3.x, Apache 2.0.x, Apache 2.2.x
• PHP 5.2, Safe_mode off, Memory_limit no less than 256Mb (preferably 512)
• Required extensions: PDO_MySQL, simplexml, mcrypt, hash, GD, DOM, iconv, curl, SOAP (if Webservices API is to be used)
• MySQL:
  • 4.1.20 or newer
  • InnoDB storage engine

• SSL: If https is used to work in the admin, SSL certificate should be valid
• Server setup:
  • Run scheduled jobs (crontab) with PHP 5
  • Override options in .htaccess files

Magento and PCI Compliance

If you sell products online you will have to deal with the credit card data of your customers. PCI compliance is related to the storage of this data and its security. It is a standard set by credit card companies in order to prevent or at least reduce credit card fraud in the industry. To comply with this standard can be very costly and time consuming. Not to comply with it can lead to fines in case of stollen credit cards’ data.

If you as an online merchant using Magento want to achieve PCI compliance, here’s what you need to know.

There are four different tiers for PCI Compliance, connected with an annual review by a Qualified Security Assessor, and a quarterly scan by a Approved Scanning Vendor of different scope.

• Tier 1: You have more than 6 million transactions per year
• Tier 2: Your stored transactions per year are betweet 1 and 6 million
• Tier 3: In case you have less than 1 million transactions during the year
• Tier 4: If you have less than 20.000 transactions a year

Here are the requirements for the PCI Compliance

• You have to maintain a firewall in order to protect the card holder data
• Do not use default system user and password or other security parameters
• Protect the card holder data
• Data transmissions should be encrypted
• Up-to-date antivirus software
• Systems and applications security
• Restricted access to card holder data
• Unique ID for each person with computer access
• Monitor regularly the access to your network resources
• Test regularly the security systems and processes
• Policy for information security

If you have the Magento Professional or Enterprise Edition and you process payments yourself, that the full payment application is considered as a custom application and it has to fulfill the requirements mentioned above. Since this is a very time consuming and costly process, and in case you only use the Magento Community Edition, there are a few other options to be PCI compliant. Here are the other options in detail:

1. You can use a third party payment methods, for example PayPal express.
   If you choose this option you won’t have to be PCI compliant yourself, because you don’t have to store credit card information on your server. In this case you have to consider that your customers will be redirected to the site of the payment processor and will have to leave your website, which might be inconvinient and interrupt the buying process.
2. You can use a SaaS PCI compliant payment application.
   You can use for example the CRE Secure which is PCI compliant. The customer is taken to another website (URL changes), but the form may be customized to look consistent with your store.
3. You can use the Magento Payment Bridge – which is PA DSS compliant.
   It is available free of charge with Enterprise and Professional Editions of Magento and requires an upgrade from Community Edition.  In case you decide to go this way, there are technical requirements for PCI compliant hosting (website and database).  This is the best option from the three since it provides a seamless user experience but also the most expensive one.

A comparison of Mobile Shopping App and Responsive Design

If you are a storeowner who are wondering whether to build a mobile shopping app or to choose responsive design, this article will help you deal with that issue.

This post shows an infographic about the pros and cons of mobile shopping app and responsive design website with 10 questions. After answering these questions, you will feel it easier to choose a suitable one.

Simply, we bring you “Magento in a mobile app” that…

• Best synchronized with your Magento store: product types, shipping, price, tax
• Create your unique customized mobile app by easily adding preferred theme and plugins
• Utilize maximum mobile features: Push notifications, Store locator, Instant Contact, etc
• It’s easy to build Magento mobile apps with SimiCart

SimiCart is a Magento mobile app builder platform, which will automatically build a native app for your online business with the information you provide. Within 3 mins, not 30 days or 3 months as normal, you can have a powerful mobile shopping app with optimized mobile UI.
Only local images are allowed.

Customize mobile shopping apps with plugins

SimiCart is developed on plugin mechanism, which increases the ability to customize your Magento mobile app. Like Lego game, you can build your app by matching it with plugins that suit your online business most. Don’t worry that yours will be another cloned app. It’s made for your webstore only.
Only local images are allowed.

Specialized for mobile shopping app

SimiCart is integrated with Magento- the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. Every button, link, notification or payment system.. on your shopping app is designed to promise your customers a fantastic buying experience with you right on their mobile or tablet.
Only local images are allowed.

The best choice for Magento merchants

Many differences that make SimiCart your wisest choice:

It’s specially designed for Magento stores where products, tax, shipping… can be supported.
It’s directly connected with your server system, thus raising the access speed and data security.
It runs smoothly and provides more user-friendly interface.
It can be built with any language and currency.

Source: SimiCart Blog