Magento Quick Checkout: Simplifying the Process

Magento Quick Checkout allows businesses to simplify their checkout process.

There are instances where the consumers stop their purchase altogether because of how complex the checkout process is. Merchants miss out on potential sales due to the complications.

The standard Magento checkout has six steps:

Some consumers find the process to be so long that they abandon the shopping cart and choose another online store that sells the same product.

If they do continue with the purchase, they are less likely to return the order.

A long checkout process gives the consumer more time to think about the purchase. If the purchase was due to a spur of the moment decision, then the sale is most likely to be lost because they were given time to reevaluate whether they should buy the item or not.

Some consumers also have slow Internet connections and their checkout process might be interrupted Instead of continuing with the checkout, they forego it outright.

Magento Quick Checkout to the Rescue

The Magento Quick Checkout simplifies the process by removing the redundant questions and combines all the steps into a single step. The user just needs to select the Billing Address and Input the name, address and contact numbers.

The payment method is also found in the same page. It only requires the user to select the card type, and fill up the credit card details. It supports all the payment gateways used by Magento that gives consumers more payment options. These include credit cards, PayPal, Moneybookers, and a lot more.

The checkout page also shows an overview of the items to be purchased. Once all the personal details are filled up, the last step is to click the “Place Order” button.

Business will increase their sales when they implement the Quick Checkout. It decreases the number of users who quit during the checkout process. It provides a better customer experience, which makes users come back and use the online shop again.

Magento Quick Checkout is one of the modules that can improve the sales of the online business. It gives buyers a simple platform to complete their purchase from the online shop. The business will experience an increase in conversion rate after implementing Quick Checkout.

With Magento Quick Checkout, consumers can easily place an order and will result to more reutrning customers. It is the perfect solution for e-commerce sites that are looking to streamline their checkout process.

Magento Whitepaper – What’s the Purpose?

Any working Joe is likely familiar with the term, “whitepaper.” A Magento whitepaper is a technical document that’s published by the seller, which explains a certain technology in order to educate consumers.

A Magento whitepaper is commonly used to describe the theory behind a new technology of computer methodology.

The terminology used may be somewhat technical, but the goal of a white paper is usually to describe the technology or product in terms most people can understand. It explains the company’s position relative to the product and is not typically “fair and balanced.”

This Magento whitepaper documents the exceptional performance that can be achieved by properly optimizing and configuring Magento Enterprise Edition. The resulting optimization not only can contribute to higher conversion rates and support for greater numbers of customers and orders per day, it can also lead to improved hardware efficiency and overall cost savings.

There are, essentially, three main types of commercial Magento whitepapers:

: Describes the technical and/or business benefits of a certain vendor’s offering, either a product, service, or methodology. This type of white paper is best used to supplement a product launch, argue a business case, or support a technical evaluation at the bottom of the sales funnel.

: Presents a set of tips, questions, or points about a certain business issue. This type is best used to get attention with new or provocative views, or cast aspersions on competitors, especially by using FUD.

: Recommends a new, improved solution to a nagging business problem. This type is best used to generate leads at the top of the sales funnel, build mind share, or inform and persuade stakeholders.

You can see an example of the whitepaper being sold on the Magento website.

“This white paper documents the exceptional performance that can be achieved by properly optimizing and configuring Magento Enterprise Edition. The resulting optimization not only can contribute to higher conversion rates and support for greater numbers of customers and orders per day, it can also lead to improved hardware efficiency and overall cost savings.”

Magento has recently announced that Magento Community Edition 1.9.1 is available for download. It offers merchants a new set of features that help create compelling shopping experience across all devices.

Magento Community Edition 1.9.1 includes the following new features:

• Configurable swatches enable merchants to show off a range of product attributes, such as colors, fabrics, or sizes, using a visual approach that is easy for shoppers to consume. Swatches can be used on product detail, category, and search result pages, and in layered navigation to help boost conversion rates. And, when shoppers click on a swatch, the product image automatically updates, giving them quick access to details needed to proceed with their purchase.

• An enhanced responsive design reference theme offers merchants a dramatically faster way to create mobile-optimized sites. The theme now includes new functionality, such as responsive default email templates, so customers can read order confirmation and account registration emails on any device. Additionally, it supports downloadable products, order histories, multi-address checkout, and more.

• Better site performance and security, now that Magento Community Edition 1.9.1 works with MySQL 5.6 and PHP 5.5. MySQL 5.6 offers merchants improved site speed and scalability, reduced memory usage, and enhanced debugging tools, while PHP 5.5 provides security improvements and ensures merchants have continued access to PHP code updates.

• Support for Google Universal Analytics, the new standard for Google Analytics, provides merchants with deeper customer insights and access to ongoing feature updates that will only be available on this new platform.

• Over 70 enhancements, many made by members of the active Magento community, help improve a wide range of features.

Get Started with Magento Community Edition 1.9.1 Today

To learn more about Magento Community Edition 1.9.1 and how it can help merchants create more compelling shopping experiences, review the release notes provided in the Magento Knowledge Base. To start using this new version, visit the Magento Community Edition download page.

How many customer did purchase your products? How many product were purchased in a week? Those are the questions that a merchant always want to know the answers because it is critical for him to make plan for his marketing strategy. With our Magento Sales Report, you can have total professianl reports with visual charts and tables.

Magento Reports – Features

“Sales by Customer Groups” report allows you to see total orders and total cost of each customer group. So, you can have right solutions to focus on lead customers and increase sales and orders. Customer groups report will be shown as follows:

“Sales by Coupon code” report will show all coupon codes with a table list of information (number of orders, items, subtotal, tax, shipping, discount, total, invoices, refund…). So, you can know what coupon codes are effective and you will be able to create appropriate campaigns for the next run.

It allows you to select “custom date range” options available in dropdown-boxes such as: Today, Yesterday, Last 7 days, Last week (Sunday – Saturday)….

Magento Reports Extension allows you to select reports from date to date you want and it also allows you to filter the report by order status. Two features are available on all types of report. Presently it’s providing eight report options for you to select as follows:

Advanced Reports allows reporting data to be displayed by:

Advanced Reports contains numerous pre-defined “reporting period” ranges, including:

For each report you can customize:

At one of our previous meetups, we were asked by an attendee if there was a place where he could take Magento courses. Well, look no further for anyone who’s interested… Magento’s own website has a page on Magento training which explains what some of the options are for furthering your Magento education.

Magento Classes at the U

Magento U provides relevant training courses to help you maximize your Magento implementation. Courses are created and delivered by Magento experts, and include practical, hands-on exercises so you can immediately put into practice what you have learned.

Instructor-Led Classroom

Take advantage of focused, uninterrupted time learning Magento in a classroom setting at one of our training locations near you. Engage with other students and learn from their experiences. Receive a copy of all course materials.

Instructor-Led Online

Remain productive at the office while enhancing your Magento skills. Delivered through an easy to use online training web-conferencing tool, our Instructor-Led Online courses enable students to interact real-time with the instructor.

On-Demand Online

Learn anywhere, anytime with our OnDemand video courses. Our best courses delivered to you whenever you want them.

Courses

Some of the courses include Quick Start to Magento Customization, Fundamentals of Magento Development, and Magento Checkout series. You can view all of them in the catalog.

Experienced Magento professionals can validate their real-world skills by earning a Magento Certification. Magento Certification Exams are geared toward professionals who want to differentiate themselves from the competition with the ultimate Magento credential. You can learn about getting your Magento certification on this page.

Magento is one of the most popular open source e-commerce CMS platformers on the market, with some of the major benefts including mobile visibility, all browser compatability, responsive and robust design and way more.

Magento also has tons of amazing themes for you to install, with templates related to cafes, restaurants, and hotels.

Here are the 10 best Magento themes we’ve gathered for your hotel, cafe and restaurant business sites.

Coffee Store – Creative Premium Magento Theme

Coffee store Magento theme could be the ideal one for your cafe website. This theme provides you with a lot of maintenance features, among which site management, marketing and promotions, payment, checkout and shipping management features are the most important.

The creative and the unique design of the theme helps you get the most attention from the traffic. The simple yet stylish design of the template makes it one of its kinds. The theme supports English, French, Spanish and Russian language. The theme installation and the set up instructions come along with the theme.

Japanese Cuisine – Magento Theme for cafes and restaurant websites

Japanese cuisine Magento theme is an ideal cafe and restaurant websites that has a unique design which effectively attract the eyeballs of your target customers. However this design of the template can be easily customized.

With facilities such as useful shop maintenance features, marketing and promotion tools,responsive slider, customer service features and a lot more. The browser compatibility feature of this theme ensures that your website looks equally appealing, no matter which browser is used to open the site.

Coffee store – Premium Magento Theme for Cafe and Restaurant Websites

This theme could also be the right option for your cafe website. With the fluid layout, drag and drop facility the template has gained quite a lot of importance. However this template has so other features as well. This theme supports several language as well including English, French, Spanish and Russian.

With cloud zoom, HTML 5 facilities this theme has gained prominence. The responsive retina displayis however, another facility that helps you gain greater number of traffic in your website.

Tea Time – Fully Responsive Premium Magento Cafe Theme

Tea Cafe’s are quite cool and extremely trendy these days. More the demand of the tea cafe’s are increasing, several Magento themes are also coming forward. However, among the Tea cafe Magento themes, this theme deserves special mention. The refreshing images with the appropriate colour themes create an elegant look.

You can also add the subsidiary menu and newsletter subscription form at the bottom. CSS3, HTML5, JQuery, Semantic code, Valid coding options are available with the template. Alongside, you also get cloud zoom and social icons which adds an extra plus to this theme.

Coffee Cafe – Best Magento Theme suitable for Cafe websites

For coffee cafes this template could be just appropriate. The warm brown colour and the uncommon yet stylish fonts give it a glamorous look altogether. This design can be successively used for coffee, tea and other beverages websites.

To make the navigation visual, drop down menu is supplied with images which further enhance the look of the website. The smart slider and three promo banners speak about your quality products louder than any words.

The Coffee Store – Premium Magento Cafe Theme

With the elegant and simple design of this theme, you can easily take your online cafe business to the peak. The easy payment options, customer support, marketing and online promotion tools give you a reason to choose this template for your website.

My Coffee Store – Great Magento Cafe Commerce Theme for Coffee Store websites

With a great look and design this theme will make your online restaurant website unique in the thousands of the websites running over the internet.

With the powerful admin panel you can easily customize what ever section you want with out having much technical skills. By seeing the home page of this theme the visitors will feel the richness of your restaurant.

Balosa – innovative Magento commerce theme for restaurant websites

This theme is one of the most scrumptious, delicious web templates built for Magento e-commerce. This theme is supported by MT slideshow so you can show most attractive photos of the food items.

This theme is also comes with attractive features like mega menu, Thumbnail scroller, and some product sliders.With this theme you can make your online restaurant website very innovative and can gain more traffic to your website.

EM 24/7 – Premium Magento Cafe Theme for Hotels and Restaurants

This is one of the best Magento theme which is available for the hotel and restaurant business websites. It is having a nice slider on the home page on which you can show your delicious food item photos. This theme is built on top of the 960 grid system, so your website will be compatible with the most of the web browsers.

Also HTML5 and CSS3 has been used to develop this theme. Its having a nice feature of placing the sliders where ever you want to place from the available types of sliders. This theme is also compatible with the most of the extensions available on the web.

EM Royal Hotel – Magento Theme for hotel and Lodge websites

EM Royal hotel Magento Theme comes with three sub themes included with 20+ transitions slideshow. All blocks are customized including product catalogue pages, checkout progress.

This template has cross browser support and can be opened by using any browser. In addition, this template is SEO orient in design and development. Well structured and commented HTML and CSS for easy customization. The user also gets a full user guide documentation to help you install and utilize the theme.

A while back, we posted an article about Magento slowdown. Did you want to hear more
tips about how you can speed up your Magento store? Well, we have them below.

There are several methods that can be applied by one to enhance Magento performace and other PHP-based CMS systems.

These methods start from settings within Magento and goes all the way to server/hosting settings.

Speed Up Magento Stores: A Quick Guide

Reduce the size of file transfer between browser & web server

A useful approach to escalating Magento-store performance significantly is by lessening the size of the file transfer between browser and web server.

Minify Javascript and CSS:

Compressing the JavaScript and CSS can set aside many bytes of data and reduces downloading, parsing and execution time.

There are many online tools are available to minify JavaScript and CSS such as jscompress.com, minifyjavascript.com csscompressor.com, minifycss.com.

Optimize images by resizing them:

Select a suitable image file format and compress the images using image compressor to lessen the bandwidth between browser and web server.

These are several image compression tools offered online, such as imageoptimizer.net, hjpeg-optimizer.com, JPEGMini.com, etc.

Enablze GZIP compression

You can curb the number of bytes sent over the entwork considerably using GZIP compression that cut down the size of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files sent over the network by up to 70% and reduces download time terrifically.

Combine images using CSS sprites

With the help of CSS sprites, number of images can be brought down by combining them into as few files as possible. It will be reduce the server requests and will bring down the number of bytes downloaded by a webpage.

Expires Headers or Cache control headers

By using the expire headers or cache control ehaders, the number of HTTP requests and its size can be reduced to faster page load.

Enable Apache KeepAlives

While using shared hosting web servers and browsers may close connections so it is significant to enable the Apache KeepAlives to enhance the communication between server and browser.

Imagine Commerce 2015 Early Rate Discounts Ending December 31

Imagine is the world’s premier eCommerce conference, and will bring together more than 2,000 Magento merchants, partners and developers from over 40 countries at the Wynn Las Vegas from April 20-22 for three days of networking, collaboration, cutting-edge sessions and, of course, imagination.

The conference’s early rate of $1,095 ends on December 31, 2014. Don’t miss out—register now! (On January 1, 2015, registration rates increase to $1,295).

Sponsorship for Imagine Commerce 2015 are available at a 10% discount until December 31, 2014. Please explore our many sponsorship opportunities now to take advantage of the discounted rates.

Registration will open in winter 2014.

Join the Imagine Community for special promotions and conference updates.

Magento Bill Me Later is a PayPal service that gives your customers quick access to financing—at no credit risk to you.

As a PayPal merchant, your customers may already have access to Bill Me Later financing, but they may not know it.

By promoting Bill Me Later on your site with payPal-hosted banners, you’ll remind customers that they have more buying power while they’re shopping.

Advantages of Magento Bill Me Later

Up to 43% of Bill me Later sales are incremental, and you can increase average order sizes by up to 75% or more.

Payments show up in your PayPal account within minutes, regardless of when your customers pay.

You won’t get charged extra for Bill Me Later. You’ll only pay PayPal’s standard transaction fee.

PayPal’s hosted banners tell your customers about their extra buying power before checkout. More buying power can motivate them to make larger purchases at your store.

Unlike other short-term discounts, Bill Me Later financing is available on eligible purchases whenever customers pay with PayPal. Your US consumers can keep coming back to spend more.

Does your competition offer financing? Giving your customers financing means you can become their store of choice. Everyone likes flexibility.

You don’t have to worry about credit risk, handling customer billing or payment collection.

More on PayPal Bill Me Later

Bill Me Later is a PayPal service that allows customers to buy an item and pay for it at a later time. Usage of the Bill Me Later service is subject to credit approval, which is done at signup.

PayPal claims that the service is a faster method to get through checkout and is accepted by thousands of online stores. PayPal also offers perks like free shipping to those that sign up. You will need a PayPal account and a social security number in order to be considered eligible for the service.