Category: Uncategorized

Like many people, I got out of the blog habit when Google killed Google Reader, but I recently started using Reader (with Feedbin) so that I could enjoy blogs once again. Here’s what I’m reading these days:

• Coding Horror
• EcommerceBytes
• Farnam Street
• Gates Notes
• James Altucher
• Krebs on Security
• Making Sense with Sam Harris
• Search Engine Land
• Seth Godin’s Blog
• Slate Star Codex
• Startup Revolution

What are you reading?

My Zen Cart mods Quick Quantity Update and Quick Status Update have been updated to support Zen Cart 1.5.6.

There’s a new release of Zen Cart – but why should you upgrade?  I’ll review some of the key reasons in this post.

• Compatibility with PHP 7.2 and 7.3: PHP is constantly changing, and as new versions are introduced, older ones fall by the wayside.  This means they no longer receive bug fixes or even security patches for issues which are discovered by researchers and hackers.  If you look at the PHP supported versions page, you’ll see that versions prior to PHP7 won’t even receive security patches after January 2019.  To stay secure, you must update your PHP, which means you must update your Zen Cart software.
• All security patches released in Zen Cart 1.5.5 and before included: if your Zen Cart hasn’t been actively maintained, you may have missed the PHPMailer security patch, the Trustwave patch, or any of the other Zen Cart security patches which has been released in the last few years.  Upgrading to Zen Cart 1.5.6 gets you all those patches without any extra work.
• All prior bugfixes from ZenCart 1.5.5 and below are included: how many times have you struggled with an issue, only to find that it has been resolved in a newer release? Upgrading means you’re using the latest fixes.
•  Improved admin appearance: the Zen Cart 1.5.6 admin is much easier on the eyes than the older versions.  Works great on mobile too!  

I have really enjoyed learning phpMyFAQ, and I have used it to create my own eCommerce FAQ.  It works well out of the box, and is easy to customize to your own requirements.  I’m hoping to do more FAQ projects, which I will announce here as they come online.

When I created Buy Both Now and Buy The Set for Zen Cart, I never took account of the possibility that templates would use the CSS buttons feature, which is available in Admin->Configuration->Layout Settings.

I have updated the help for these mods to show how they can be adopted to use CSS buttons too.  It’s easy – for Buy Both Now, just modify

includes/functions/extra_functions/checkbbn_pi.php

and change

$bbn_string_end = '<input type="image" src="' . $button . '" alt="Buy both now" title="Buy both now" /></form>'; 

to

$bbn_string_end = "  " . zen_image_submit($image, "Buy Both Now") . "</form>"; 

and similarly, for Buy the Set, just modify

includes/functions/extra_functions/checkbts_pi.php

and change

$bts_string_end = '<input type="image" src="' . $button . '" alt="Buy the set" title="Buy the set" /></form>'; 

to

$bts_string_end = "  " . zen_image_submit($image, "Buy the set") . "</form>"; 

I just created a new WordPress plugin called Zen Cart Product Display.  Giving it a try right now with OpenCart Discount Chooser:

OpenCart Discount Chooser
$45.00

Discount Chooser simplifies the process of creating discounts based on items in the cart. You can create buy one, get one at a discount, buy two get one at a discount, or buy get a choice of at a discount. Item specification may be done by category or by product.

If you want offers involving more than just two items, Discount Chooser is a better option for your OpenCart based store than Better Together. An example of this would be "buy two, get one free."

If you are willing to send multiple newsletters every month (I think the minimum cadence should be monthly), and you want to do some market segmentation, you may want to try this technique.   It assumes you have already installed my Mailchimp Integration for Zen Cart.

1. Login to Mailchimp and click the Lists menu at the top.  Then on the right, click the Stats dropdown and select Signup forms.
2. Click the Select button on Embedded Forms.
3. Under Manage Contacts, click Groups.
4. Click the Create Groups button, and add Checkboxes and Radio buttons as need be.  You can add many Groups, so don’t be afraid to partition your questions.
5. Click Signup Forms and Embedded Forms again.  The code for the form shown in the preview is right below the preview window.  Copy this code and paste it into a new page (or sidebox) on your site.

You can read more about creating groups on the Mailchimp Getting Started with Groups page.

So after a while you’ll (hopefully!) have some newsletter signups, with people identifying as being part of one group or another. How do you utilize this data?

1. Select Campaigns, name the campaign and make it a regular campaign.
2. You will be prompted to select Recipients.  Select Group or New Segment.
3. Use the query-by-example form to select the target group for your campaign.

You can read more about this on the Mailchimp Sending to Groups page.

As a convincer, see the email signup form we are using on keylessentrylocks.com:

There was a bug in the subscriber check in the discount logic which has just been fixed; please update to version 4.0b, which is available in the Zen Cart downloads area.   Links and documentation are on the Zen Cart Newsletter Discount Help page.