Community Forums

by **mrbill** » Wed Sep 19, 2012 8:15 am

I'm looking at all the extensions out there and wondering where to start. The extension shop doesn't help you decide

What are your top 10 extensions for creating a world class ecommerce site? I'm thinking a checkout extensions will be there. What else?

Lets leave templates out of this for the moment - just functionality, and also leave out niche extensions which make YOUR site do what you want. Think in the generic.

We know what the world class sites are out there - what do you add to OC to make it closer to the experiences there?

Thanks in advance.

by **labeshops** » Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:19 pm

Problem is there is no generic. Every store is going to be different depending on what kind of products you are selling and your particular design tastes.

The only ones I can say are must haves are any that do general improvements like speed up the store, improving seo (like a blog, social addons, etc), product feeds, and so on. Though even those you could debate as being must haves as Daniel adds those sort of tweaks into the core code with each release. And vqmod should be built into opencart imo.

Otherwise, it's what is important for your store and the way you work.

For me, my must haves have been:

Options Boost
Product Filtering (by color, size, price, etc)
Google Product Feeds (though not so much now that Google has changed the service)
Blog manager

by **mrbill** » Wed Sep 19, 2012 12:40 pm

Thanks for the reply. I'm surprised you don't list something like a quick checkout mod.

by **MarketInSG** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:44 am

A Quick Checkout mod is possible, but it all comes down to you. I developed one here, http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=7382, but I don't use it on my own store. Reason - I don't run a business where there are the same customers coming back to me over and over daily to purchase stuffs, so speed for checkout is not necessary.

Speed wise is recommended, which is the Page Cache extension. Slow websites piss people off.

Another great extension (free), would be the advance news system I had develop. Quite useful to keep others up to date of the latest happenings on your own online store.

by **Axansh** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 6:22 am

Hi,

Top 10 extensions for any particular store are depend on store's target customers , products , country and etc.

But in General SEO ,page speed,your country payment/shipping method module,integration with mailchimp are very useful extensions.

We have developed an extension for SEO - to make it easy for seller.

This module helps you with optimizing the url's of all your website pages , categories , products , manufacturers , information pages .

you can also optimize the titles , meta tag keywords , meta tag descriptions of all the links , categories , products , manufacturers , information pages .

If you add new links or catalog data - they can be optimised as well .

All optimizations can be done for multiple languages .

Image names can also be optimized .

For fast results , less data entry - you can use auto generate facility .

by **labeshops** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:28 pm

mrbill wrote:Thanks for the reply. I'm surprised you don't list something like a quick checkout mod.

I don't think it's necessary. The default opencart checkout is shorter and simpler than the old software (cubecart) I had for 10+ years and my regular customers love everything about opencart - they find it tons easier to use and browse.

You really have to consider your budget and think about things Daniel has in the roadmap or might add to future versions. I have found with other software many times modules (especially ones that prove popular) get incorporated into future core releases so how necessary is it for you right now? If it's not absolutely vital or solves a problem your customers have or helps you dramatically increase sales, wait and see. You might find a core release adds or improves on that feature. Or find another way to do it that means you really don't need that mod (there are 2 or 3 I bought in the beginning that I now don't use at all).

Also, the more I work with opencart, the more I find I can tweak things myself so often a mod isn't needed. I've done a lot of changes in the back end to more closely match my personal work flow for example. Knowing how to do these sort of things myself makes it a lot easier to customize it exactly as I want it. And quite frankly, I'm pretty sure I could condense the checkout myself if I wanted to. Just do not see a need right now.

But again, every store is different which is why a list like this is so hard to create.

by **mrbill** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 1:05 pm

Many thanks for your response! I am on CubeCart 3 right now busy doing a port of the site and data to opencart.

A quick test has shown that the online shopping cart migration services does work for V3 - including usernames and passwords: http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/

I have ported most of everything else over too (done by hand - not too many products and it was a good opportunity to refresh everything). I just wanted to get everything right the first time - and if that means getting all the right mods in from the beginning - all the better as it allows me to test before I go live.

Unfortunately, CubeCart is dying on its feet

Opencart looks like the way forward - and the price is right too!

by **labeshops** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 1:12 pm

mrbill wrote:Many thanks for your response! I am on CubeCart 3 right now busy doing a port of the site and data to opencart.

A quick test has shown that the online shopping cart migration services does work for V3 - including usernames and passwords: http://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/

I have ported most of everything else over too (done by hand - not too many products and it was a good opportunity to refresh everything). I just wanted to get everything right the first time - and if that means getting all the right mods in from the beginning - all the better as it allows me to test before I go live.

Unfortunately, CubeCart is dying on its feet Opencart looks like the way forward - and the price is right too!

Yup, I moved from Cubecart 3 too, though didn't port any of the data - just started fresh. It gave repeat customers a chance to choose if they wanted an account or not since opencart doesn't require it for checkout. Also gave me a chance to re-evaluate my vendors, drop a few, etc and enter everything fresh. I'm up to have 3400 products back in - only about 97,000 left to go! lol But adding products & design work is the most fun part for me, so not too bad

I agree cubecart seems to be shooting themselves in the foot but for me, multistores were what sold me on opencart. Adding thousands of products to 1 database once sure beats having to enter products several times into 10+ cart installations.

by **mrbill** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 1:33 pm

Ok - stupid question - how do you make OpenCart to not require an account for checkout?

by **mrbill** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 2:18 pm

Never mind - I found it

by **philbydevil** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 1:03 pm

In no particular order:

One Page Checkout - I would have to say that a one page checkout is a must, even if it's just for design reasons... I used the default checkout for ages, and had good sales, but now have Q's Uber Checkout set up and it's just much nicer looking and much easier to complete (less clicks). There are several one page checkouts to choose from... I also like the look of ajax one in the extension store.

Product Page shipping estimator - again, less clicks.

Product Page contact form (installing this one soon) - less clicks again.

Checkout Question by http://www.getclearthinking.com (http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=2733) - saves me $$$ every year by finding out exactly which advertising is working.

vQmod - all of them... not really, but there are so many great, free vQmods out there, and it just makes installing mods/extensions so much easier. And vQmod Manager - http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=2969 - makes vQmods even easier!

HTML Email - http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=2221. The default store emails are pretty bland... got to look professional.

Package Tracking - http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=4433. Customers want to know where their order is.... and it's integrated with HTML Email.

News for OpenCart - http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=4725. Very versatile. This will help immensely with SEO if you keep on adding relevant content...

Filter product by category (admin) - http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... ion_id=719. A must!

And yes, once you've been playing around with OC for a while, it is quite easy to make minor modifications and tweaks yourself, without much coding experience.

by **mrbill** » Sat Sep 22, 2012 3:21 pm

Awesome, thank you for that informative post!

The quick checkout I was looking at was:

http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=4811

It seems that there is an option for extending the checkout process too including a checkout question. Kills two birds with one stone for $25.

Which specific checkout are you using?

by **philbydevil** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 12:40 am

I use Uber Checkout - http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=6683

But, the Clear Thinking Checkout Question doesn't always work properly, so I'm thinking of changing soon (I'min the process of upgrading to the latest version of OC). I like the look of the one you linked to.

Uber is nice and easy, you don't really have to set much up yourself, but it does lack some options that I would like - like changing product quantities at checkout, etc.

by **philbydevil** » Mon Oct 22, 2012 1:07 am

After upgrading to 1.5.4.1, I have now changed over to Simple Checkout: http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=4811

Deeman offers great support and was able to get Checkout Question working with his extension.

Simple Checkout is much more customizable than Uber Checkout.

by **mrbill** » Mon Oct 22, 2012 6:18 am

Which checkout question? Did you use the cusomisation in his module for the checkout question, or did you use another checkout question mod?

by **philbydevil** » Mon Oct 22, 2012 6:41 am

I used the Checkout Question module by Get Clear Thinking. Link is in my first post.

It has much better reporting built in.

by **MarketInSG** » Mon Oct 22, 2012 12:31 pm

I don't remember clear thinking has a checkout mod.

by **philbydevil** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:13 am

The Clear Thinking checkout mod is "Checkout Question" (not a one-page checkout).

by **MarketInSG** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 8:41 am

I think most of the checkout mods has 'checkout question' now. So most of them packaged into an all in one package

by **philbydevil** » Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:50 am

Can't speak for the other checkout mods, but the Clear Thinking Checkout Question has great reporting. I could have added a question through Simple Checkout but I don't think there was any reporting (and I had purchased Johnathan's mod a couple of years ago anyway).