Yearly Archives: 2013

Best ways to speed up your Magento e-commerce webstore

December 15, 2013 - Magento tips & tricks

There are several reasons why speed is very important for websites. First of all visitors. They can become dissatisfied with slow performance and loose trust to your website. The second reason is web search ranking. Google is using site speed as a part of the whole process. These are obvious things and we are not going to talk about them. Instead we will talk about all possible tips and tricks to speed up your Magento performance.

Don’t forget to check our new guide:

Magento Performance Ultimate Guide

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E-Commerce: Upgrading to 3.0

November 25, 2013 - E-Commerce

E-сommerce is gradually updating to version 3.0. What does it mean? What were the previous versions? And what are the features of the new one? In this post, we will try give the answers to these questions. The formation of e-commerce can be conditionally divided into three stages. The process itself is still unfinished, and e-commerce is going to get a lot of new forms and updates in the next couple of years. Some of them are obvious (like appearance of gamification and integration into mobile devices) while others are still unpredictable, but we can state with the confidence that all this changes are key elements of e-commerce 3.0 and further versions. For the better understanding of the stage as a particular and the phenomena as a whole, let’s start with versions 1.0 and 2.0.

What is “Game”?

November 25, 2013 - E-Commerce

Games have become an integral part of human culture. They are often distinct from work or art, but this distinction is rather conditional as you can see professional players of different games or video games which gave a rise to different art directions like pixel art or 8-bit music.Key roles performed by games are psychological, educational or simulational. The major components are goals, tools, rules, interaction and challenge. The combination of tools and rules affects the way you interact with a game environment trying to achieve a goal. As for the challenge there are two kinds of games: with multiple players and single-player games. In the first case challenge appears within the group of players or between several teams. In the second – between the player and element of the environment, time, chance or one’s own skills.

What is E-Commerce in end of 2013

November 25, 2013 - E-Commerce

Today you hear a lot about electronic commerce (or just E-Commerce) and even use this term in your everyday conversations, but do you know its full meaning? Chances that you know only a part of it are high, so get ready for the deeper study – in this post you will find information about the essence of e-commerce.

Magento product import from scratch (detailed guide, tips, tricks, errors & solutions, tools)

November 25, 2013 - Magento tips & tricks

In this article we describe and clarify one of the most advanced tasks in Magento store management – products import. Below, you will find the structure of a csv file with the description of every column, and detailed information about product attributes related to import. We’ll describe products import within the default Magento DataFlow profile. Enjoy!

And don’t forget to check The Best Improved Import/Export Magento Extensions!

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What is Gamification?

November 18, 2013 - E-Commerce

Gamification is a new trend which has its roots far back in history. Over the centuries, the role of games in teaching children was very important. This process had a plethora of forms, but it is hard to imagine that its essence will change. The term “gamification” first appeared in 2002. The authorship belongs to Nick Pelling – a British-born computer programmer and inventor. But what is gamification actually? It is the use of design techniques, game mechanics, and other attributes in non-game contexts in order to drive game-like player behavior. Besides mechanics and design techniques, the other game attributes include gaming psychology, scripts and storytelling, social activities and other aspects of games. In their turn, social activities consist of public statuses, titles, leaderboards and other similar stuff. The term “non-game contexts” includes education, customer engagement, work, volunteerism, fitness and health, community participation, E-Commerce, etc. In its turn “game-like player behavior” implies such things as interaction, engagement, competition, learning, collaboration, addiction, awareness, etc.

Gamification in Magento

November 18, 2013 - E-Commerce

Gamification is a new trend with the long history. The role of games in teaching children was always very important, but the term “gamification” first appeared only in 2002. It means the use of game mechanics, design techniques, and other attributes in non-game environment in order to drive game-like player behavior. Besides mechanics and design techniques, the other game attributes are: gaming psychology, social activities, scripts and storytelling, and other aspects of games. In their turn, social activities consist of titles, leaderboards, public statuses, and other similar stuff. The term “non-game environment” includes customer engagement, work, e-commerce, volunteerism, education, fitness and health, community participation, etc. In its turn “game-like player behavior” implies such things as competition, interaction, engagement, learning, addiction, collaboration, awareness, etc.

Fast registration – Magento extension review

August 31, 2013 - Our extensions

We are pleased to introduce the Magento extension (module) from Firebear Studio – “Fast Registration” which allows customers to register on Magento store just with E-Mail and Password (or event just E-Mail). By default Magento has five required fields on “Create New Customer Account” page: First name, Last name, Email Address, Password and Confirm password. It is really confused and not user friendly at all. Customers spend a lot of time creating an account on a store and only after all the information is filled start shopping. The modern practice shows, that the use of just login(E-Mail) & password positively affects customers behaviour. So now you can apply this feature on you own Magento store, providing your customers with the registration just with login & password!

Improved Import for Magento 1- extension manual

August 25, 2013 - Our extensions

Improved Import extension enhance the ability of default Magento import process with adding the most requested by Magento community import features! All this features works with default Magento Dataflow import/export from .csv files. We provide detaileda manual and .csv samples for make you life easy! This extension can be very helpful for product migration from another E-Commerce systems to Magento and also on data migration between Magento stores. Extension can be also used for update already exist products with multiple images, additional images from URL, custom options and tier prices!

On this post you can find official manual for Improved Import extension – detailed instruction for use each feature, how create correct .csv file for import, description of extension settings and other tips about Magento import process.

If you are new in Magento product import process as well – check our post Magento product import from scratch