How to setup a winning website for your webdesign business

If you have ever asked for quotations for a new website or a website revamp project, you would know that each web design company has its own way of providing you with a proposal. If the website company you have approached is very well established and reputed, it can get away with providing you with just a one page breakdown of what it will cost you to get a website designed by them. However, the market is changing rapidly and more and more players are now fighting for a piece of the pie.  So even the big boys have started paying special attention to the customers now.

If you happen to be a freelancer or a new start-up web design company, you will have to fight very hard to get business (especially your first). Gone those days when you could just tell a customer that you would do it for pennies or even for fun (at your own cost) so that they would award you the project. Customers have become much more savvy at playing the website game with all the resources available freely over the www. So as a newcomer, you would need to ensure that you make a good first impression. This always means extra work but it will definitely pay off when you start getting business.

Normally a webdesign project starts with a customer calling you up or submitting an enquiry through your website.  Being a web design company, it is a given that you have a good corporate website. However a good website does not mean that it has too be very fancy as most of your target market will be looking at simple, easy to read, user friendly and search engine friendly websites. A customer will not appreciate you bombarding him/her with pages and pages of information on how good you are. You need to be tasteful enough to design your website so that the customers realise this fact on their own.

Here's how to do it:

Design a tasteful website with a colour scheme and graphics which would indicate to the customer that you know what you are doing. If you really don't know how to do this then you need to do a bit of research and look for competitor websites. Have a look at their websites and try to note down which aspects you liked about them. Ensure you note down which aspects you didn't like as well so that you can avoid the same mistakes. It helps to look at the websites from a perspective of a potential customer. This is called 'benchmarking'.

Once you have a good idea of how you are going to design your site, do a few mockups using a graphics editor such as photoshop. Don't just do a single design and stick to it. Take the time to do a few with different graphics, colour schemes, layouts etc. Show it to a few people who are frequent users of the web. This way you will get feedback from different perspectives. It will definitely help when you tweak the site to cater to as many people as possible.

Use light backgrounds with dark fonts as much as possible. Also make sure you stick to the fonts, font colours and font sizes used in industry as standards. There are many guides available online on fonts and colour schemes for websites. Take the time to have a look at them keeping in mind that a lot of research has gone into the design of these guidelines. Do pay attention to the layout of your website as well knowing that people read a website left to right top to bottom. So the most important location of your website would be the top left hand corner. As a rule of thumb, the first 20% of your website will determine 80% of its success.

Invest time in searching for graphics which best explains what you do and what your company is about. Each graphic needs to reinforce your company ethos to a potential customer. Avoid using fancy animations and videos which will take time to download and will distract the customer. Remember that you only have about 30 seconds to catch the attention of the customer. If your site takes more than 10 seconds to download, 70% of your potential customers will move on. Invest some money in professionally done graphics. There are many sites which sell professionally done graphics and images. These will make your website look more professional.

The "sitemap" or the sections of your website are important. For a webdesign company, generally you should stick to around 5 to 6 main sections. These will include:

1. Home: where you give a brief overview of what your company is about, what you have done, who your customers are, what you can do and what you are doing now. This is the first page, and mostly the only page a potential customer will go through in detail. So make sure it sells your company in a nutshell.   
2. About us: where you have the description of your company.
3. Products and Services: what you can do for the customer
4. Our Clients: product portfolio
5. Contact us: contact information and an online enquiry form who the customers who would prefer you to call them back.

As your company grows and when you have more things to say like Corporate Social responsibility (CSR), testimonials etc. you can add a few more pages. However don't cram these in at first. Stick to your core business and sell hard but sell smart. If you are not very good at writing content, it pays to get a professional writer who knows what he/she is doing. This will enhance the professionalism of your site as well as improve search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO plays a major role in the success of your company. I will discuss this in detail in my next article "Webdesign projects: success through SEO". You will also need to remember that a well thought through website can only get you an enquiry. It will not get you the sale. My article on "Webdesign projects: doing your homework" will discuss how to go about selling your company to the potential customer. The article "Webdesign projects: writing a winning proposal" will guide you on how to make your proposal document your best sales person.



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Transfering a domain from Register.com to Godaddy.com

If you have been tasked with setting up a website for a client, the first thing you would do is get the domain names registered. If the customer already has a domain name, it is best if you get it transferred over to your preferred domain and hosting service provider as it becomes extremely easy to manage the whole process from your single dashboard rather than fiddling with countless dashboards everywhere. Two of the more user friendly domain and hosting management systems I've used are offered by www.fasthosts.co.uk (UK based service provider) and www.godaddy.com (US based service provider). For this particular project I have chosen Godaddy.com.

Here's how to transfer your domain from register.com to Godaddy.com

1. Ensure that the account holder contact information at register.com are up-to-date. This is crucial for initiating the transfer. You will need to update the e-mail address (very important) of the account holder before the transfer request is sent. If the account holder still has access to the e-mail address on record with registre.com, you can update the new address through the register.com control panel. This will result in a verification e-mail being sent to the original e-mail address on record. Once the verification is complete, the new e-mail address is put on record. If the account holder does not have access to the original e-mail address on record, the change will not take place.

If this is the case you will need to call up register.com.
Toll free in the U.S. and Canada: 877-731-4441
Outside the U.S. and Canada: 902-749-5918

Alternatively you can use a fax request. Details are available at http://help.register.com/cgi-bin/register_help.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1811 .

Once you have completed the form, you can fax it to:
Toll free in the U.S. and Canada: (866) 285-5268
Outside the U.S. and Canada: +1 (902) 749-5429

register.com will then update your contact information.

2. Now you need to unlock the domain for transfer. For this click on the domain name you want to transfer in the Domains/Services section of the register.com My Services section. You can unlock your domain by following the instruction in the ENABLE/DISABLE DOMAIN LOCK section. When unlocked it will show "Domain lock is currently: Disabled".

3. Now you need to update the Administrative Contact information for this domain. This is the person who will get the e-mails regarding the domain transfer process once it has been initiated. If you are managing the domain on someones behalf, then it would be a good idea to update the Administrative Contact information with your information. This will make life much easier as you will not have to go back and forth to the domain owner asking for e-mails. To change the Administrative Contact info, follow the steps in the DOMAIN CONTACTS (WHOIS CONTACTS) section.

4. Once all of the above steps are complete, you can request a transfer. You can follow the steps in Obtain Auth Info Code to request the transfer. Once your information is verified, register.com will send the details on how to get the authorisation code to the domain owner's e-mail address. Follow the instructions to receive the authorisation code. This is needed to authorise the transfer from godaddy.com. If you don't receive the auth info code from register.com, you will need to call them up. They will arrange for the auth info code to be e-mailed to the domain owner.

5. With the auth info code, you can now move onto conducting the transfer at godaddy.com.

6. Login to your godaddy account. If you don't have an account you will need to create one. Once you are in, go into Domains > Transfer Domain. Type in the domain you wish to transfer and press go. You can then Checkout the domain for transfer.

7. Follow the instructions and pay for the incoming domain name. Once this has been done you will need to initiate the transfer.

8. Go into Domain Manager. Click on the Pending Transfers link. You will now see the domain you wish to transfer.  Click on the domain name and the process will be initiated.

9. Godaddy.com will send out an e-mail to the Administrative Contact updated in Step 3. The e-mail will include a Transaction ID and Security Code. Once you have this information, go into Domain Manager. click on the Pending Transfers link. Now click on the Authorization button to authorise the process.

10. When prompted, input the Transaction ID, Security Code (Step 9) and the Auth Info Code (Step 4). If all is well the transfer process would have successfully started.

11. Once the process starts, it's a bit of a waiting game. Godaddy will e-mail register.com and will request the release of the domain. Register.com will then release the domain. If all is well, you will see the domain in your godaddy account in a day or so. If register.com does not respond to godaddy within 5 days, the domain will be added to your account automatically. If there is a problem with the transfer godaddy.com will e-mail and inform you on how to proceed.

If all goes well, you will have the domain name transferred onto you godaddy account. Now you just need to setup the hosting package and start working on the website.



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How to speedup your Windows 7 netbook

If you've read my previous post on "How to get around the netbook trap", you would know that there are plenty of software applications which can be successfully run on a low power netbook. However as the number of applications on your netbook grows, the performance (especially speed) of your computer will decrease exponentially. This is mostly due to cumbersome processes running in the background. Even though we don't pay much attention to these background processes on a normal laptop or desktop, when it comes to netbooks it is critical that we disable any background process which is not required for the day-to-day stuff you would do on it. If you use your netbook for skype or facebook (which I'm sure you do), you would notice that your calls drop all the time or that your video is patchy or that your photo uploads fail. This happens partly due to slow internet connection speeds and partly due to not enough resources being available to complete the process.

What is the solution? Do a bit of housekeeping on your netbook.
Here's how you do it.

Right click on the task bar of your netbook and click on "Start task manager"

In the Task manager window, select the "Services" tab which will list out all the services currently running

Click on the "Services..." button at the bottom to open up the service manager

Browse through the list of services and see whether there are any that you can identify from the name. The ones you would need to pay attention to would be the services which start up automatically. These would indicate "Automatic" for startup on boot or "Automatic (Delayed Start)" for startup after bootup. One of the services which would slow your netbook down would be the SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) service which starts up the SQL express database server. This might get installed with some of the software applications you might have installed. The other resource heavy process would be the Microsoft .NET Framework. This is a platform which allows .NET applications to run. You will need to be cautious when disabling this as it would mean that some applications might not run. However you can always turn it on manually when required. This will give you better control of you netbook. There might be other processes which are redundant. Just have a browse and see what you can live without. You can always turn them back on if needed.

To disable a process, right click on the process you want to disable and select "Properties"

Select "Disabled" from the "Startup type:" drop down. Click on the "Stop" button to stop the service running on your netbook. Since you have disabled the service it will not run automatically the next time you boot up your netbook.

Click "OK" to continue. The process would now be shown as disabled

Now that you have stopped all the unnecessary background services, your netbook should become faster. However it is a good idea to keep an eye on the resource usage to see if any rogue processes are eating up your resources. You can add a resource monitor to your desktop to do this.

Here's how to do it

Right click on the desktop and select "Gadgets"

Double click on the "CPU Meter" gadget. This will add the resource monitor to your desktop.

Now you will be able to see what is going on with your CPU and Memory usage at any given time.

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Why take your business online?

What do customers look for in the current market?

 Post global economic slowdown, the focus of consumers has shifted from cheap to cheap and good. Thus the quality of a product has become as important as the price. The modern day expectations of a consumer can be summarized as follows.

·        The product must be tailored to the customers’ exact needs and wants

·        The quality of the product must be high

·        The price of the product must be competitive

·        Turnaround times must be very short

·        Superior customers service has to be offered at all levels

So why take your business online?

With the consumers becoming more and more demanding and the competition in the market growing with the entry of new players, businesses have to identify ways of surviving if not thriving in this environment. One way to stay one step ahead of the game is to take your business online.

The following are some of the key motivators for taking a business online:

To reach a wider market: with business being conducted virtually over the internet, geographical barriers become insignificant. Also since the WWW is an open marketplace every one has an equal opportunity at attracting business. 

To reduce overheads and real estate costs: a virtual setup reduces the amount of physical space you would require to run your business. Anyone can startup a company form their garage as many .com startups did back in the day. This is holds true even today. Also as most of the operations are streamlined with proven processes defined for e-businesses, the layers of fat within an organisation can be trimmed down to a bare minimum. This results in the reduction of overheads on each front.  

To increase productivity (Open 24x7): Traditionally your shop window would be closed after dark or during weekends. However your online shop window would be available to the consumer at any time anywhere.

To re-engineer processes: the modern day market dictates the evolution of processes on an ongoing basis. However some businesses find this constant change difficult to mange or cope with due to the rigid processes put in place. Taking your business online is one way of changing the age old processes and putting in more flexible processes which are more sensitive to market change and can be evolved at a much faster pace.    

As an HR strategy: one of the keys to surviving the current market is to find the best employees. As the need for streamlined operations become more urgent, the hunt for the most efficient and effective staff is on. Traditionally you would be handicapped as your staff would most probably be located close to your operation. However this is overcome in the virtual environment as the best talent form all over the world can work for you as virtual employees without much change to your current processes. It could also be cheaper to hire someone form a different part of the world compared to hiring from your own surroundings.

By necessity: many companies and businesses were forced to wrap up their operations during the economic slowdown. However some companies opted to reduce their overheads, streamline their operations and go online. Taking a business online and operating out of a smaller office would definitely be one option to consider before closing down.

For flexibility: after considering all of the points mentioned above, it goes without saying that taking a business online offers a lot of flexibility with respect to operations, sales and marketing.

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What is e-business?

One of the major buzz words of the last decade of the 20^th century was “e-commerce”. With the rise of mega online stores like Amazon.com, online auctions such as ebay, credit cards, plastic money and payment gateways such as paypal the consumerism of the masses was taken to a whole different playing field. For the first time in history, people could buy stuff form the comfort of their homes or while having lunch in their work places. According to Wikipedia e-commerce

“…focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with individuals, groups and other businesses.”

 [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_business  (06/01/2011)]

This roughly means that e-commerce concentrated on getting the orders and the payments from the customers into a business. All other operations we conducted as usual in the old fashioned way.  

However, the 21st century and the rapid advancements in technology has given rise to a completely new paradigm which is known as e-business. Wikipedia defines it as:

“…the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business.”

 [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_business  (06/01/2011)]

With the rise of e-business, a complete business comprising of all the intricate operations can be taken online which results in the rise of virtual companies with virtual employees contributing from every corner of the globe. E-business has made geography insignificant when it comes to competing in the global market.

Why take your business online?

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Reusable Learning Objects: Designing and Archiving (from a technical perspective)

What are reusable learning objects (RLO)s?

·        A reusable learning object is a web-based (electronic) interactive chunk of e-learning designed to explain a stand-alone learning objective.

·        The fact that the learning object has been broken down to a low level of granularity facilitates its reuse in different learning and teaching situations.

·        (Ref: http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/rlos/index.php )

·        The reusability of any learning object depends mainly on the method of archiving and retrieval of that object.

What forms do learning objects come in?

A learning object can be any of the following

·        Animation

·        Interactive Simulation

·        Puzzle

·        Quiz

·        Game

·        Walkthrough

·        Etc…

Things to consider when designing a RLO (from a technical perspective)

Subject matter

Subject category

·        Science (e.g How a Sin wave works)

·        Technology (e.g Traversing a binary tree data structure)

·        Humanities/Education (e.g How to conduct a tutorial)

·        Business (e.g How to do a sales forecast using excel)

·        Etc…

Type of RLO to design

·        How a Sin wave works – Simulation

·        Traversing a binary tree data structure - Animation

·        How to conduct an effective tutorial – Quiz

·        How to do a sales forecast using excel - Walkthrough

Method of delivery

Method of archiving and retrieval

Technological platform for design

Method of delivery

The method of delivery is important to determine which technology to use for the design

Web based delivery

·        The learning object should be web friendly

·        Cross browser/ cross platform compatible

·        Should be able to embed into an HTML page

·        Should download fast

·        Should be secure

CD/DVD based delivery

·        Cross platform compatibility (Windows, Linux, MacOS)

·        Accessed using existing software technology

·        Use minimum hardware resources

·        High quality

Which technologies are available?

·        Flash animations

·        Flash with XML and action scripts

·        Java Script

·        Java Applets with Abstract Windows Toolkit (AWT) and Swing

·        .NET Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

·        Silverlight

·        Ajax

·        Third party e-learning development software

Why the Windows Presentation Foundation WPF?

·        Robust

·        Web/browser/windows based

·        Can achieve complex animations including 3D

·        Can incorporate complex programming for adding parameters

·        Free for academic use

·        Has a GUI

What is required for WPF

·        The WPF was a new feature of the Microsoft .NET 3.5 framework. This is available with the new Visual Studio 2010 (Free for academic purposes)

·        The WPF builds the code automatically when GUI changes are made and vice-versa.

·        Archiving can be problematic as the compete solution folder needs to be archived. This folder could be in the range of 1-5GB.

·        Easier to incorporate animations and calculations than Java Applets

·        For RLO development using WPF the following team members should be involved

o       Designer – To envision how the RLO should look like

o       Academics – To work out the mathematical model

o       Program Developer – To build the Applet

o       QA – To test the RLO for accuracy

o       IT Support – To archive the RLO

Why third party e-learning software?

·        Very customized for a particular type of RLO

·        Many platforms are available for presentation

·        Some of these software are Free for use

·        RLOs can be easily built

·        The RLO can be exported to a suitable platform for use

·        The RLO can be stored as project files for re-use

·        Examples: Animal / AlgAE / ProForm

What is required for third party e-learning software?

·        These platforms are very specialised and caters to a specific type of RLO

·        Some of the platforms are free whilst others charge a licensing fee

·        Specific training is required

·        Archiving is a bit problematic as there is no self contained package

·        For RLO development using third party software the following team members should be involved

o       Designer – To envision how the RLO should look like and to design the images/record voiceovers / design animations etc…

o       Academics – To provide theoretical input / test accuracy

o       IT Support – To archive the RLO

Why Java Applets?

·        Light weight

·        Web/browser based

·        Can achieve complex animations including 3D

·        Can incorporate programming for adding parameters

·        Can be stored as web pages on a website

·        Free and OpenSource

What is required for Java Applet Development

·        Java is a Free and Open Source programming platform by Sun Micro Systems

·        A Java Applet is build purely using Java Programming. There is no GUI for this.

·        Can be archived as a web page with supporting files

·        For RLO development using Java Applets the following team members should be involved

o       Designer – To envision how the RLO should look like

o       Academics – To work out the mathematical model

o       Program Developer – To build the Applet

o       QA – To test the RLO for accuracy

o       IT Support – To archive the RLO

Archiving and retrieval

References

www.rapidintake.com

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~dwa/Animations/index.html

http://www.cs.odu.edu/~zeil/animations.html

http://www.algoanim.info/Animal2/?q=taxonomy/term/10

http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/mukundan/dsal/appldsal.html

http://www.ngsir.netfirms.com/englishVersion.htm

http://www.educypedia.be/electronics/javacollectors.htm

http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph14e/

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Buying a Tablet: What are my options?

The transition from netbook to tablet happened so fast that some of us are still trying to figure all of it out. I bought my netbook (which prompted me to write the article "getting around the netbook trap") just 6 months ago and now it is already obsolete. Apple has made its mark on the IT landscape by introducing the iPad which is revolutionary piece of equipment. However some of us are not big fans of Apple as we are reluctant to pay premium for the fancy design and proprietary operating system. In that case what other options do we have?

The best choice would be to go for a tablet with the open source Android OS. The latest version is 3.0 Honeycomb which will be available later on in the year through higher power tablets such as the Motorola XOOM. However for now, Android 2.2 Foryo will have to do. Besides, any tablet you buy today will be made obsolete quite quickly when Android 3.0 becomes mainstream.

One of the popular choices for Android powered tablets is the Samsung Galaxy Tab. However, if you think about it, it costs more or less the same as an iPad which runs the proprietary ios operating system. So where did the saving on the free and open source Android OS go?

When iPad first came out, the market was flooded with iPad “clones” which looked like the iPad but didn’t function like the iPad due to the lack of a proper operating system. If you take a closer look at these “clones” they have similar hardware to an iPad but were much cheaper. i.e. most of the cost of the iPad can be attributed to its proprietary operating system. With the rising of Android, this is becoming less of a problem as it is free and open source. Anyone who can build a compatible piece of hardware can install the free Android OS on it. Therefore the price we pay for an Android powered tablet should be mostly due to the hardware. Again if you take a closer look at the Android powered tablets in the market, you will see that the hardware is similar. If this is the case then why do some of the tablets cost much more than others? One way of looking at it would be the “brand”. I mean why does a BMW cost more than a Toyota?

So if you are not really bothered about the “brand” and want a tablet to really get the job done, then a lot of more affordable options are available to you. However make sure you decide what you would use your tablet for before hunting for one. In my case, I just want to check my personal e-mails (not the office e-mail), skype my family and friends with video, occasionally browse a website, watch youtube and read bedtime stories to my daughter. I’ve decided that the OKPAD would be okey for me. It has all that I need and is just about RM550.00 (US$ 180 approximately). There are many others which you can choose from. For example APad, Superpad, Maylong M-150 (which is under US$100). Each of these tablets will have their own strengths and weaknesses. So make sure you buy one which suits your needs best.

Since the current tablets in the market will be soon obsolete just like any other new piece of technology out there, the best bet is to look for “throwaway technology”. This means that you can throw away your current piece of technology and upgrade at any time since you have not paid premium for it. Gone those days when a piece of technology lasted three generations. We are lucky if it lasts for three months these days. Besides if you just pay 25% of an expensive tablet for a tablet which does pretty much the same thing, you will have the savings from not buying the expensive product in your kitty for a quick upgrade. Think of the poor consumers who paid premium for a piece of technology which is already obsolete… Only the savvy consumer will have the last laugh. 

How to edit a .pdf for free

I just thought I would share the following tips on how to edit a .pdf using OpenSourse software available for free.

I'm sure most of you know that you can edit a .pdf using Adobe Acrobat Professional or Foxit Editor Pro which costs money to purchase. However did you know that you can edit a .pdf file using OpenOffice?

Here's how to do it.

1. Download and install OpenOffice (Free) from http://www.openoffice.org/

2. Open the application "Draw" in your OpenOffice suit

3. In order to edit .pdf in "Draw" you need to install a PDF import extension. Download this from http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/pdfimport . Again it's free

4. Go into Tools > Extension Manager of the Draw application

5. Click on add and point to the file you downloaded in step 3.

6. Now you can edit .pdf inside Draw

7. Open a .pdf file using File > Open to edit it

8. Save the project as .odg when you have finished editing your .pdf

9. Go into File > Export as PDF... to convert the document back to a .pdf

You can use this to fill in .pdf forms as well.

Hope this is of some use.



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How to icast yourself for free (internet broadcasting)

If you wish to icast what you are doing over the internet, here is one possible solution. Justin.tv will allow you to broadcast audio and video through the internet for free so that people can view it on your website, blog etc. You can even e-mail a link so that people can just click and watch you live online.

You can set a stream up in 3 easy steps. 

1. Visit www.justin.tv
2. Register
3. Go live

justin.tv is a free to use service and can icast audio and video instantly.

Have fun.




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How to organise your finances for free

As we are now moving into yet another festive season, it would be quite beneficial to keep on top of our finances. If you are as inapt as I am in terms of organising your monthly budget, then you would find a personal financial management software very useful. There are many packages out there which are either too complicated or too expensive for an average person (unless you have a degree in accounting ;D ). Although we can use excel for this purpose, you will end up with mistakes unless you are very careful with the formulae.   

Here is one possible solution:

Finance Explorer Portable is an Open Source portable application. This means you can use it for free and can carry it around in your USB pen-drive to be used on any PC you might be working on (home or office). Just plugin your pen-drive and use the application. This will allow you to maintain your records on the pen-drive whereas other applications would only work on the PC it was installed in.

Here's how to do it:

1. Download the application from http://portableapps.com/apps/office/finance_explorer_portable 
2. Save application onto your USB pen-drive
3. Run the application from your pen-drive using FinanceExplorerPortable_5.0.3_English.paf.exe
4. Provide your pen-drive as the installation directory
5. Open FinanceExplorerPortable folder in your pen drive
6. Double click on FinanceExplorerPortable.exe to run the application

How to setup your finances:

There will be some sample data in the application on first startup. To delete these, go into each section (e.g. bank, loan etc.), click on the row and use Edit -> Delete row from the top menu.

Click on the Home folder in the left hand side pane.

Using the Task window
1. Setup your bank accounts, credit cards etc.
2. Add monthly budget for a month of the year (you can use a "Group" name to indicate similar budgets. e.g. bills, income etc. This will make it easier when you input the transactions to your bank accounts)

Note: Things you pay out should be input with a negative sign (e.g. Bills  -100.00. I didn't know this at first...)

There are online tutorials available which you can access from the application. If all is well your Total Net Worth will be high.

Have fun.




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How to setup a ZenCart base e-commerce website (Part 2): Accepting online payment using PayPal (www.paypal.com)

If you have followed the instruction which were provided in Part 1 of this guide, then you would have your first online store up and running by now. However an online store is not much value if you don’t have the capability to accept online payments. The ZenCart online store has the capability of accepting most credit cards, cheque payment and paypal payments. However for online transactions we need to configure credit card and paypal payments.   

There are two ways of configuring your ZenCart for credit card payments.

1. Setup your own payment processing

This is ideal for large scale stores who have strong connections with local banks. When payment processing is setup locally on your ZenCart, you will retain all the credit card information about a customer in your own database. This information is then forwarded onto a payment gateway (an online interface which will allow you to forward transaction information) provided by the bank for processing. Having a payment gateway to a bank through your store can be quite costly. Also you would need to setup SSL security certificates for your website and take extra precautions to secure the site database. This is absolutely crucial as you will be holding a large amount of valuable and confidential credit card information of your customer. If a hacker gets into your database he/she could get all the credit card information of the customers for malicious activities. Therefore if you are a small operation, it’s best not to do your own payment processing.    

2. Use a third party payment processing agent such as PayPal

ZenCart has the flexibility to allow a third party payment processing service to process the payments. The latest versions of ZenCart supports several of these services. However PayPal is the most commonly used and the most trusted service used in the industry. Just like we can use PayPal to shop online without exposing our credit card number, we can also use pay pal to process payments. This way all the payment processing is done on the highly secure PayPal servers. Also you will not be retaining any of the customer credit card information in your database. All the necessary information will be kept safe by PayPal which is guarded by very tight PayPal security. Therefore the customer would feel much safer in terms of purchasing off of your website and you would feel more relived as you need not worry about any hacker threats or lawsuits.  

Will setup our paypal account and configure the ZenCart next.

1.0  Setting up a PayPal Business Account

Go to www.paypal.com and select the tab “Business”. Click on “Create an account”

Select your country and click on the “Get started” button of the account type which you want to create. For the ZenCart, you would need to select Business if you want to use PayPal with your ZenCart.

Fill up the registration form and press “Agree and Create Account” to setup your account.

If you already have a Personal or Premier account:

1. Login to you PayPal account

2. Click the Upgrade your Account link.

3. Click the Upgrade Now button.

4. Choose to upgrade to a Business account and follow instructions to complete the upgrade.

5. If you haven't already, add a bank account to become a Verified member. Follow the instructions on the PayPal site. (This process may take 2-3 business days.)

You need to verify your bank account number as this will be the account PayPal would use to deposit the monies it would collect from the customers.

Once you have created or upgraded to a Business account you need to do the following to get your payment API credentials. This information is put into your ZenCart so that it knows to which PayPal account the transaction information should be forwarded. 

There are three options for you to choose from with respect to online payment. The best-fit package would be “Website Payments Standard”. This allows you to use your PayPal account through ZenCart.

Note that there are costs involved for transactions although the setup of “Website Payments Standard” is free. PayPal will deduct a small commission from each of the sales you make. The latest rates are available at

 https://www.paypal.com/my/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees-outside   

1. Log in to your PayPal Business account.

2. Click the Profile subtab located in the top navigation area
   
   
3. Click the API Access link under the Account Information header.

4. Under the Setting up PayPal API Credentials and Permissions heading, click "Request API Credentials" link

5. Click the “Request API signature” radiobox then click “Agree & Submit” button.

6. Write down the values listed next to API Username and Password

7. Select the value listed next to Signature Hash, copy it, and save it to a file or some other location. This is your API Signature.

You now have all the necessary information required to configure your ZenCart to accept online payments. Next we will add all the API information into the ZenCart.   

2.0 Configuring API Signature on your ZenCart

Access the control panel of your online store

http://localhost/{yourstorename}/admin

Use the username and password you entered during the installation to access the admin panel.

Navigate to Modules > Payment on the top menu

You will see a list of available payment methods. As we are using paypal we would need to disable all the other methods. However you can maintain multiple payment methods.

The red bulb in front of a payment method indicates disabled. The green indicates enabled.

To disable a particular payment method, click on the method and a separate menu will pop up.

Click on “remove” to disable. This will not remove the module from the cart. It will only disable. You can enable it later on if you want.

Once you have disabled all the default payment methods, click on any of the following depending on the package you chose while registering with PayPal. The most appropriate package would be “PayPal IPN - Website Payments Standard”

Click on “PayPal IPN - Website Payments Standard”. Click on “Install” on the pop up menu.

Once installed it will display another menu which you have to configure.  

Use the following parameters to configure your ZenCart PayPal account.

Parameter	Value
Do you want to accept PayPal payments?	True
Business ID	Provide the exact same e-mail address you provided PayPal during your business registration.
PDT Token (Payment Data Transfer)	You can get this by login into your PayPal business account.
Transaction Currency	Set to Only USD. PayPal will do the conversion to MR
Payment Zone	Not applicable at this point. You can set this up later to your zone.
Set Pending Notification Status	Pending [1]
Set Order Status	Pending [1]
Sort order of display.	0
Page Style	Primary

The remaining are more advanced features. You need not worry about these at this point. You can always edit these later.

Press “Update” to finish.

Now you are ready to sell items online. Your customers can purchase items using credit cards and payment will be collected by PayPal and would be transferred onto your bank account.

When customers checkout items from your store, they will be taken to a PayPal page specific to your business. This page will have the default PayPal style. However you can login to your PayPal business account an create your own payment page by uploading logos/images and setting background colours. The best way to do this is to follow the theme of your website on your PayPal payment page as well. This will add consistency and customers will immediately know that the PayPal page is specific to your business.

Once the customer has made the payment, he/she will be brought back to your store. A receipt will be automatically e-mailed to the customer by PayPal and also the ZenCart. You will also receive an e-mail notifying that a customer has made a purchase.