Could your shopping cart be more profitable ?
Does your business need shopping cart customization?
My name is Scott Wilson, and I'm That Software Guy.
Right now I'm working with
Zen Cart, an open source shopping cart program
that you can use to build an online store. Welcome to my world!
Questions? New to Zen Cart?
Quantity Discounts/Better Together Interoperability with CCGV for osCommerce 2.2
(07/2009)
If you use
Quantity Discounts for osCommerce or
Better Together for osCommerce
with osCommerce 2.2, and you also use
the
CCGV (Coupon Code/Gift Voucher) Contribution, you may have seen errors
on the checkout payment page.
The fixes have been posted:
here for Quantity Discounts, and
here for Better Together.
Checkout Candy for osCommerce 3.0
(06/2009)
If you use
Better Together for osCommerce 3.0,
you can present your upsell offers on the shopping cart and
shipping pages using
Checkout Candy for osCommerce 3.0.
osCommerce 2.2/3.0 Better Together Offers on Listing Pages
(06/2009)
The
Better Together Offers on Listing Pages
extension is now available for osCommerce 2.2 and 3.0.
This extension displays your Better Together offers on
listing pages such as
Category Listings, Search Results, and Manufacturers.
It makes the
Better Together Marketing Text even more visible.
Better Together mod ported to osCommerce 3.0
(06/2009)
My
Better Together for osCommerce contribution now works with osCommerce 3.0.
Quantity Discounts mod ported to osCommerce 3.0
(06/2009)
My
Quantity Discounts for osCommerce contribution now works with osCommerce 3.0.
This was the first Order Total module ported to osCommerce 3.0.
osCommerce mods on display
(05/2009)
You can now see all 4 of my osCommerce mods on
That Software Guy's osCommerce demo cart.
Checkout Candy for osCommerce
(05/2009)
If you use
Better Together for osCommerce,
you can present your upsell offers on the shopping cart and
shipping pages using
Checkout Candy for osCommerce.
Discount Preview for osCommerce
(05/2009)
Do you use osCommerce?
If you use
Quantity Discounts for osCommerce or
Better Together for osCommerce,
you can make your discounts more attractive and visible by using
Discount Preview for osCommerce.
Quantity Discounts for osCommerce
(05/2009)
More tasty mods for osCommerce users. Here's
Quantity Discounts for osCommerce.
Update to Super Orders
(05/2009)
I have submitted a fix for a longstanding bug in Super Orders where
the customer would not get notified when an order update was performed,
even though the "notify customer" checkbox was checked.
It's now in the
Zen Cart Downloads area.
Better Together for osCommerce
(05/2009)
Are you an osCommerce user who would love to use my mods?
Get started. Go grab
Better Together for osCommerce.
Order Copy
(05/2009)
Does your Zen Cart based store get a lot of repeat orders
that are identical or very similar?
Make it easy for your customers to set up a re-order with one
click using
Order Copy.
Beanstream Updates Now Available
(04/2009)
The
Beanstream Payment Module updates have been posted and are
now available.
Beanstream Updates
(03/2009)
The Zen Cart guys asked me to make some enhancements to the
Beanstream Payment Module.
I added dual currency support ($US and $CDN). It should
be posted soon.
Patch February
(02/2009)
Minor patches released this month for
Combination Discounts,
Big Chooser,
Big Spender,
Spender AutoCoupon and
Chooser AutoCoupon.
No showstoppers, just little nits.
Combination Discounts Offers on Listing Pages
(02/2009)
The
Combination Discounts Offers on Listing Pages Zen Cart extension is now available.
This extension displays your Combination Discounts offers on
listing pages such as All Products, New Products, Manufacturer
Pages and Search Results. It makes the
Combination Discounts Marketing Text even more visible.
Better Together Offers on Listing Pages
(02/2009)
The
Better Together Offers on Listing Pages Zen Cart extension is now available.
This extension displays your Better Together offers on
listing pages such as All Products, New Products, Manufacturer
Pages and Search Results. It makes the
Better Together Marketing Text even more visible.
Save For Later
(01/2009)
The
Save For Later Zen Cart contribution is now available.
Save For Later allows shoppers in your store to set aside items
so that they're not included in the current checkout but are still
visible and easily retrieved. It is modelled after the function
of the same name on Amazon.com (so you know it converts well).
Better Together Admin Panel Updates
(01/2009)
The
Better Together Admin Panel has been upgraded with a
feature called "Set Inactive," that allows you to temporarily disable
discounts instead of deleting them.
The upgrade fee to get this feature
is $10 for prior purchasers of Better Together Admin.
Combination Discounts Admin Panel
(12/2008)
As promised, the
Combination Discounts Admin Panel is now ready for sale.
Updates to Gift Wrapping at Checkout
(12/2008)
My
Zen Cart Gift Wrapping at Checkout
mod (2.6_138 version, aligned with Zen Cart 1.3.8a)
has been updated to display the gift wrapping settings on
the packing slip. Merry Christmas!
Admin Panel for Combination Discounts
(12/2008)
I have challenged myself to build an admin panel for my
Zen Cart Combination Discounts
module before the end of the year. (You can see the original announcement
on Twitter from two weeks ago.) Stay tuned for more details.
Discount Marketing Text when Linked Products are used in Zen Cart
(11/2008)
If your Zen Cart uses linked products and you
discount by category using one of my mods
Better Together,
Combination Discounts,
Big Chooser or
Big Spender,
you will see
misleading marketing text messages when you view a linked item
in a discounted category.
My
Zen Cart Category Issues page discusses how to resolve
this problem.
More Boilerplate Tips
(11/2008)
A Zen Cart user asked me how he would go about inserting a
product name into one of the
boilerplate files
for Zen Cart product descriptions. I updated the tip to
include instructions for doing this.
Creating a Facebook Page
(10/2008)
That Software Guy is
now on Facebook.
I'm going to write a series of blog posts about
creating a Facebook
page for your business, and hopefully build some
Zen Cart - Facebook glueware.
Keep an eye on
That Software Guy on Facebook to learn more.
Automatic Coupon Generation in Zen Cart
(10/2008)
My AutoCoupon modules have now been released with
versions for Zen Cart 1.3.7 and 1.3.8.
See the documentation on
Spender AutoCoupon and
Chooser AutoCoupon
for details.
Coupon Extensions in Zen Cart
(10/2008)
Want to know how to make a Big Spender offer dependent on a coupon?
Or how to create a coupon with Spender AutoCoupon that is required
for a Big Chooser discount?
Please see my
Zen Cart Coupon Extensions page for an explanation of my extensions to the built-in Zen Cart
coupon mechanisms.
Automatic Coupon Generation in Zen Cart closer to General Availability
(09/2008)
My AutoCoupon modules are now in limited availability.
The documentation on
Spender AutoCoupon and
Chooser AutoCoupon
has been finalized.
Right now, these modules are available for Zen Cart 1.3.8 only, but
I will be
preparing back-ports for 1.3.7.
Zen Cart - Wishpot Integration
(09/2008)
Wishpot is a new service
that allows you to maintain a wishlist (or registry).
I have integrated it into Zen Cart so that you can display the
"Add to Wishpot" button on your product info page.
You can see the details in my
Zen Cart Wishpot Integration page.
Bug in Big Chooser
(09/2008)
Big Chooser
versions prior to 1.2.0a had a defect in handling
certain set_constraint and set_choice_constraint parameters which
is described in
this blog post.
Better Together 2.0 Released!
(09/2008)
Better Together 2.0 is now available. The new features in this version are:
- The addition of add_cat_to_prod linkages.
- Automatic cart sort by price. This means that discounts which use add_cat_to_cat, add_prod_to_cat or add_cat_to_cat will automatically discount the least expensive item that matches the second id.
Related changes to other parts of the Better Together family:
- Users of the Better Together Admin Panel will require version 2.0 of
that software to create add_cat_to_prod linkages; the upgrade fee
is $10. Prior versions will continue to work but will be unable to create add_cat_to_prod linkages.
- Users of the Buy Both Now will require version 2.0 of
that software to create add_cat_to_prod linkages; the upgrade fee
is $10. Prior versions will continue to work but will be unable to create add_cat_to_prod linkages.
- Users of
the Better Together Promotional Page must download a new copy from my site
here.
- Users of
Discount Preview and
Checkout Candy
do not require any additional changes.
Upgrades to Zen Cart - MailChimp interface
(08/2008)
If you use my Zen Cart contributions
MailChimp Newsletter Sidebox or
Newsletter Discounts,
please upgrade; new versions have been released that use the latest API.
Discounting by Manufacturer in Zen Cart
(08/2008)
I have released version 1.2.0 of both
Big Chooser
and
Big Spender,
which allow
discounting by manufacturer. "MANUF" will work the same
way that CAT, PROD, PRICE and MINPRICE do now. For existing
Big Spender or Big Chooser customers, the upgrade price is
only $10 for this great new feature.
Automatic Coupon Generation in Zen Cart
(08/2008)
I'm working on modules that will allow you to automatically create
coupons based on the cart contents or order total.
They're called
Spender AutoCoupon and
Chooser AutoCoupon
(the syntax they use is derived from Big Spender and Big Chooser).
They'll be ready for purchase in the early fall, but you can
see how they will work now.
Gift Wrap at Checkout and PayPal IPN
(07/2008)
A bug was reported in processing orders using PayPal IPN in carts using
the
Gift Wrap at Checkout.
The fix is documented
here.
Better Together Admin and PayPal IPN
(07/2008)
A bug was reported in processing orders using PayPal IPN in carts using
the
Better Together Admin Panel.
The fix is documented
here.
FoxyCart: A Bolt-on Shopping Cart
(07/2008)
This month I spoke to the founders of
FoxyCart, an ingenious
system which allows you to add e-commerce to an existing website.
You can
read the FoxyCart interview here.
Well, I took up their challenge and
converted an existing site
to a shopping cart, and sure enough, it was quite straightforward.
Here's the result.
I look forward to doing my first real project with FoxyCart!
Boilerplate HTML in Product Descriptions
(06/2008)
A question came up on the Zen Cart forum about including HTML Files
in the product description.
When I first worked on this problem a couple of years ago, the
person who needed it just needed a few sentences here and there,
so I developed
a tip describing adding
boilerplate strings to the product description.
But this person wanted to replace the entire product description
with an HTML file, so I developed
a tip describing including
HTML files to the product description.
This is particularly useful if there
is boilerplate text you want to include in a number of products,
but the text is more than just a sentence or two.
Better Together Roadmap
(06/2008)
What's next for
Better Together?
- add_cat_to_prod() will be added.
The semantics of "category" will be changed so you can use a top level category or a category with subcategories instead of just one with products underneath it.
(This is how Big Chooser, Big Spender and
Combination Discounts work.)
This change will affect add_prod_to_cat, add_twoforone_cat, and add_cat_to_cat (as well as the new add_cat_to_prod linkage, if that is available at the time). (I later decided against doing this. It reduces the usability of Better Together Admin.)
If you are using other related software
(
Promotional Pages,
Buy Both Now,
Discount Preview,
Checkout Candy,
Better Together Admin),
you may need to upgrade; you will be advised at that time what to do, and everything will be available at once so upgrading won't break your site.
Look for these changes in the third quarter of this year.
Better Together Admin Panel
(06/2008)
The
Better Together
contribution has been well received by the Zen Cart community, but
a persistent complaint is that you have to edit a file to set
up discounts. Well, no more - the
Better Together Admin Panel
is now generally available. You can do all the usual linkages:
- product to product
- category to category
- product to category
- two for one (products)
- two for one (categories)
and because it uses AJAX, getting the product and category lists is
super fast. Show your support for Better Together - get the
Better Together Admin Panel
today!
Blog Integration
(06/2008)
Looking to add fresh content to your Zen Cart site? Take a look
at my
Blog Integration contribution.
It can take your blog (or any RSS feed) and display it on a page
in your Zen Cart shop.
Newsletter Discount Updates
(06/2008)
The
Newsletter Discount contribution has been updated to use
the new
MailChimp API.
In addition, two user exits have been added to the contribution
to allow the exclusion of products or categories from the
discounting computation.
Zen Cart Hosting Recommendations
(06/2008)
The question of which host to choose
comes up often enough that I thought I'd write a
blog post with
my Zen Cart Hosting Recommendations.
