Summary of iwebshop services

IWebshop specialise in creating web shops for businesses of all sizes, from new start-ups to large retail outfits. We develop using the highly regarded zencart ecommerce system.

All our shop and web hosting packages give you complete control of your website. Manage your website using the feature packed cpanel. We have servers located both in the UK and USA using fast and reliable LINUX Servers.

If you dont have your own products, we have setup a special package to allow you to sell items from a dropshipper, without holding your own stock.

Standard Shop

The Standard Shop is the entry level ecommerce system. Allows you to get your shop online, configured and populated with your products.

Professional Shop

The professional Shop is the search engine optimisation ecommerce package. Allows you to get your shop online and configured to your specification, and set up to maximise marketing and for search engine optimisation. The professional Shop has many more features than the standard shop.

Dropshipping Starter Pack

If you do not have your own products to sell, then our Dropshipping starter pack is designed to get your shop up an running and puts you in contact with a wide range of UK and International dropshippers to enable you to sell products online, without having stock.

This package includes well over 130+ dropshippers willing to provide you with your goods to sell.

The dropshipper starter package inlcudes implementation of an easy populate system that allows you to import supplier product data file to add/update your products quickly into your shop.

Additional Optional Services to the Shop Packages:

Customised Template

If you require us to create a customised template for your site, professionally made, then we can do that based on any brief you give us.

Logo and Header

If you require us to create a logo and header for your site, professionally made, then we can do that based on any brief you give us.

Update Your Products Automatically

Updating your products can be a pain, and a very time consuming one. Constantly having to check if your products are in stock, what new products there are, price changes etc. The administration for making sure your shop products are up to date can be a nightmare, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of products. An impossible task to be done accurately and quickly.

The majority of suppliers can provide a data feed containing their products. For zencart shop owners this can be a life saver. However, what you find is that the data feed is not compatible with importing into Zen Cart so manual amendments have to be made to ensure the file can be imported. Whats more, you have to look for new and amended products where you have to manually upload the images.

RapidSSL Certificate

For every ecommerce website, a dedicated SSL Secure certificate is advised. It gives your site a professional touch and makes your customers feel secure.

The Certificate includes a dedicated IP address. At this time, we only install dedicated SSL certificates to websites hosted with iwebshop.

Stable, 128/256 bit single root install SSL certificates ideal for lite ecommerce.

If you intend using the SSL Certificate to allow you to take credit cards online for your shop, then we will install any relevant module to your shop (Zen cart shops only). For instance, PROTX Direct, Paypal Web Payments Pro.

Shop Maintenance

Whether iwebshop has created and launched your online shop, or another developer, we can maintain your shop, saving you hours of time. We can appreciate that you want to spend your time running your shop and not updating the shop.

Migrate your Hosting

We have a free migration service, for those looking to move hosting to us. Whether your unhappy with the support you recieve from your current host, or want to go with a cheaper or alternative hosting solution then we are available to move your site to us for free.

We have servers located in the UK and USA, which you choose your preferred location when ordering. We have recently increased our server numbers and reduced account numbers on each server to ensure effecient and cost effective hosting.

Zen Cart Optimisation Pack

The zen cart optimisation pack, is designed for those zen cart users who would like to maximise their Search Engine Optimisation of their site and products.

iwebshop will first backup your files and database (files that would be over-written only), then install the addons which you require. We will install the newest verison of the addons required and determined by the zen cart version you are using.

Install Zencart Addon

iwebshop can install the majority of addons to your zen cart shop. Please specify in the text box which addon you would like us to install.

iwebshop will first backup your files and database (files that would be over-written only), then install the addons which you require. We will install the newest verison of the addons required and determined by the zen cart version you are using.

Once your order is recieved we will contact you for further details to access your site and database.

We are currently running a special promotion, enter the coupon code DSF at checkout to recieve a 17.5% Discount.

WebShop Pricelist

I found this cool zencart addon, which might be good for search engines as well as a handy summary list for your customers.

You can see it in action here:

Webshop Pricelist

Professional Ecommerce Shop

We are currently working on yet another new updated professional shop: http://www.iwebshop.co.uk/professional-shop-p-22.html

You can see its current full feature list here: http://www.iwebshop.co.uk/demonstration-shops-c-47.html

One of the things that will be added is the ‘Big Royal Mail module’. Which allows many different types of delivery to parts of the UK and abroad.

There will be a few more modules to enhance the site, and we are looking for suggestions of what to add. So please if there is an addon you would like to see implemented then please post here or email us through this site.

Google Adwords Campaign

Although business has been good, ever since iwebshop started, we are starting our first adwords campaign this coming monday. Its going to be interesting!

Tomorrow we will be going over our main landing pages, and make sure they are optimised for the campaign.

Dropshippers UK List

Dropshippers UK List

If you dont have your own products to sell, whether that be for your online shop or to sell on ebay, iwebshop has put together a list of 120 sources for you to dropship their products.

iwebshop have put together a UK Dropshippers list (well over 120 different dropshippers) covering a wide range of UK dropshippers, which is continually updated. Categories covered:

You can purchase the Dropshippers UK List here: http://www.iwebshop.co.uk/dropshippers-uk-list-p-56.html

Online Retailers Forum

iwebshop is currently nearing completion of a new forum called the online retailers forum.

The online retailers forum will bring together retailers all over the world to one portal and forums. The site will cover many areas of ecommerce and business, not just in the UK but throughout the world.

The online retailers forum will have free and paid membership.

Watch this space for news!

SEO Tools

Recently I have come across a couple of SEO tools, one from a SEO guy im following on twitter and another spending some time on google.

The first one is a program, which has a free limited version, to find blogs on a specific subject. The free version shows up to 50 blogs in that given category.

Fast Blog Finder

Saves masses of time finding blogs, although google can be pretty good its not as quick to find them all in the same subject matter. Simply download, install and search your subject and it instantly populates 50 (with free version) information on blogs showing things like whether there is a do or no follow, number of backlinks etc.

The other tool i found is:

PPC Web Spy

Have a watch of their video to find out what its all about. In a nutshell it installs an addon to firefox, so that when you do a search at google it gives buttons to show the keywords and lots of other information on the paid placements (sponsored links and PPC links).

SEO Zencart Package

We have put together several freely available zencart modules, to create our SEO Zencart Package. The pack is designed to maximise your SEO ability.

http://www.iwebshop.co.uk/seo-zencart-package-p-57.html

You can either download the pack and install and configure yourselves, or we can install and configure for you, at a small charge.

The pack includes:

Google XML Sitemap – for submitting sitemap

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

Now and again simply in your shop admin panel go into Tools – Google XML Sitemap
and then carry out step 1 and then step 2 in that order. Best time to do it is
when you have added products or made changes to the site.

Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Where you can look at the traffic to your site. You can also see traffic stats
in your cpanel web hosting account.

http://www.google.com/base/

This is where you submit your products so they can appear in google base searches.
To submit, simply use the shop admin panel – Tools -> Google Base Feeder and carry
out 2 steps:

Create Product Feed
Upload Product Feed

Best time to do it is when you have added products or made changes to the site.

iwebshop are currently running a 20% discount on all services up to the end of Feb 09. Details at http://www.iwebshop.co.uk

Zen Cart v2.0.0 : Coming Soon

The new eagerly awaited version of zen cart is about to appear in the next few weeks (beta). iwebshop are counting the days to get their mits of this new version. Here is the details:

Speed
As mentioned in previous Roadmap posts, an emphasis has been placed on improving performance by various methods, especially reducing the number of database queries required for processing pages.

Code
For the programmers among us, you’ll be happy to know that the code has been largely converted to a much more efficient OOP structure, which will ultimately end up making future growth much simpler.

Templating
Templating is much simpler, in that the complicated PHP blocks that used to make them so hard to read or follow or customize have been removed.
Stylesheets are leaner. And there are some very easy-to-use admin-side layout controls to make setting your desired layouts *much* simpler.

Overrides
The same override system exists for templates and language files, meaning that those already familiar with that part of the directory structure will find it easy to continue using.

Languages
UTF-8 support is now native, and the more complicated language files have been simplified and split off into their own for easier management.

Written for PHP 5
Zen Cart 2.0 takes advantage of features specific to PHP 5.2 and MySQL 4.1, thus, those are the new minimum requirements for your hosting service to provide in order to run it. CURL is also highly recommended.

And More
See below for more detailed information on what’s new and improved in 2.0!

New/Enhanced/Improved:
Abbreviated summary of enhancements, new features, and other improvements in v2.0:

• Template system improvements
  • product listings consolidated to share display logic, making it easier to display different views of information in a consistent format
  • more control via the admin
  • simpler and more advanced and versatile stylesheets, with dynamic CSS used where needed … can be overridden easily if needed
  • procedural code and other function calls removed from templates
  • jQuery support added
  • sideboxes have been renamed as “content boxes”
  • centerboxes are now “listing boxes” and can be rearranged much more intuitively via the admin, and the layout is now controlled by CSS, as is most of the template
  • language-defines are now accessible in templates as $paLanguageXXXXX variables
  • javascript onload scripts are now handled with a simple .ini file to control behavior
  • and more
• New class-based structure
  • significantly reduced query counts
  • easy access to product properties
  • support for product types
  • most procedural functions converted to shared classes to reduce redundancy
• Stock/sku support
  • stock can be set for attribute combinations
  • ajax suppport for stock display
  • sku can be set for attribute combinations
  • ajax support for sku display
  • individual reorder levels can be set per attribute/sku combination, and a global setting can optionally override
• New DB abstraction layer
  • uses lightweight drivers based on abstract class
  • easier to add new drivers
  • Added innodb db driver
  • transaction support for MySQL databases using innodb
• Data Access Objects
  • centralise all queries
  • easier to override for different db drivers
  • use of variable binding for increased security
  • allows for future changes to db abstraction layer/use of ORMs
• New mail engine – the more reliable and contemporary and RFC-compliant swiftmail v3 project has been integrated with Zen Cart
• New installs based on UTF-8 by default.
  • (As such, all language-file edits and sql-file edits should be done with an editor that can save the files in UTF-8-without-BOM encoding format.)
• Language files have had some alterations. They no longer directly “include” other files. Each contains only define() statements. Some content has been split off into separate files.
• Language files now contain a “locale.php” file, in which locale-specific settings can be made, apart from the rest of the language files. This makes some translation simpler for certain locales, as well as changing of DOB format, etc.
• System now attempts to assist in setting config files to read-only status if they are found to be writable, to help minimize some confusion on permissions settings
• Group-pricing facility expanded to allow future growth to additonal group handling
• customers_info table merged into customers table for simpler data-mgmt and less problems with incomplete imports when people guess at table-names when doing ad-hoc extracts of their database
• Session handling improvements
• Spider-detection improvements, and more known spiders detected (also now allows for mixed-case specifications in spiders.txt)
• Hit-counter improvements (no longer tracks spiders as page hits)
• Automatic re-optimize of table data when deleting products etc using admin UI
• HTMLarea replaced by FCKeditor
• Improvements to included product-type filters
• Improvements for more accurate language-detection when set in browser-detect mode
• Improvements to prevent errors in whos-online data display when file-based sessions are in use
• Lengthening of several table fields to accommodate longer (esp multibyte) data
• Has been subjected to a Security audit (prior to official release)
• Search improvements
• Improvements to prevent certain error messages that could occur if an added language was defined but its files weren’t present on the server.
• Payment and Shipping module code standardized. Now allows prefixes to be set for submitting order numbers to gateways. Also allows module updates to happen more easily, without having to uninstall and reinstall in order to obtain new settings
• Core gateway payment modules allow use of a store-identifier-prefix so multiple stores can be more easily identified when sharing a single merchant account.
• Improvements to data made available to affiliate tracking systems on checkout_success
• Order Data now separates first-name and last-name, as well as storing telephone numbers for each address
• Now even more detailed information is stored with each order, making it easier to reconstruct an order as at the original point in time when it was created. It’s now less dependent on original product details being present in the database.
• Attribute data is now stored with orders in such a way as to retrieve the data so that it always shows up in the same order in which it was added to the order initially. This prevents some confusion which used to occur when multiple rows of text attributes were added but showed in mixed order.
• Configuration simplification: configure.php file contents abbreviated. Commonly-untouched components moved to common_paths.php file, which loads after configure.php and is thus overridable by defines in configure.php
• Session name (”zenid”) now definable in configure.php file. Same with zenAdminId in admin.
• Credit Class system bugfixes and improvements
• Application program logging and improved error handling
• New “/logs/” folder added for storing debug logs from the store in general, or from modules that communicate with external servers etc.

New Functionality

• New email templating system — makes it easy to visually configure how both text and HTML emails will appear
• Country status – can now set countries to active/inactive instead of deleting unused countries
• Admin can change customer password from admin side
• Visitor cart can be set to be discarded, or restored upon next login
• Prevents credit card slamming & login slamming
• New fields added for product data (can now specify short-descriptions for product listings, an “is-new” date, expiry-date, allow-backorder flag, product dimensions, display-weight, etc)
• New fields added to customer record, including some user-definable fields, mobile-phone number, etc
• Salutation support added, with choices editable via admin interface
• Regulations: when customer agrees to TOS and/or Privacy Policy details, that fact is stored in the order/customer record respectively
• Newsletter handling split off from customer record into dedicated tables, and added ability to handle multiple newsletter choices
• About-Us page added
• Contact-Us page now optionally allows entry of subject and telephone number.
• Site-wide Order number prefix/suffix can now be set (for display purposes only – does not change the existing method of storing order numbers sequentially)
• Database backup re-integrated back into the Admin->Tools menu
• Shopping Cart class is no longer session-bound. It’s a separate object in the zcRegistry.
• Download system now allows notifier hook to allow intercept if alternate handling is required. This can allow for other protocols and even alterations to download content before delivery.
• Metatag generator improvements. Custom metatag data no longer stored in separate tables, thus minimizing queries and simplifying some synchronization problems.
• “Home” link improvements. Now includes session ID if needed, and its format can be more easily changed by setting the desired parameter in the zen_href_home_page_link() function call if really needed
• New options allow additional email addresses to be set for “bounce” and “system alerts” purposes.
• Store Manager now has additional database cleanup options including the ability to purge certain sets of temporary data to improve performance and managing high-traffic tables

REMOVALS:
NOTE: The following components have been removed from the core, in favor of being treated as addons instead:
- Offline Credit Card payment module removed from core, in favor of addon
- NoChex payment module removed from core, in favor of addon
- phpBB class removed from core, in favor of addon

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS
NOTE: Zen Cart v2.0.0 has the following MINIMUM requirements:
- REQUIRES PHP 5.2 or newer
- REQUIRES MySQL 4.1 or newer
- CURL support not “required”, but VERY highly recommended

Update Your Products Automatically

Updating your products can be a pain, and a very time consuming one. Constantly having to check if your products are in stock, what new products there are, price changes etc. The administration for making sure your shop products are up to date can be a nightmare, especially if you have hundreds or thousands of products. An impossible task to be done accurately and quickly.

The majority of suppliers can provide a data feed containing their products. For zencart shop owners this can be a life saver. However, what you find is that the data feed is not compatible with importing into Zen Cart so manual amendments have to be made to ensure the file can be imported. Whats more, you have to look for new and amended products where you have to manually upload the images.

iwebshop has come up with a solution to this.

iwebshop will create a zencart module specific to your suppliers data file, to ease the workload of updating your products. Features, may include:

• Automatically take your suppliers data file and rearranges it into a format compatible for importing into zencart.
• Automatically import the new data feed into your zencart shop, updating/adding products.
• Automatically copies the product images from the suppliers website to your hosting space.

Once the addon is implemented, cron jobs are used to run these tasks. Saving you time and money!

For further details on this service, please click here