Opencart how does it work

Click on any theme to learn more about it, see live demos, and check the compatibility with your version of OpenCart. Once you have decided on one, download it to your computer via the green button you need to create an account to do so. Unfortunately, installing themes in OpenCart is a little complicated as there are several different ways to do so depending on the theme.

The easiest is if it provides you with an installation file. For that, log back into your server via FTP and navigate to the directory that you installed your online shop software in. Then, in your unpacked theme file, you need to find what you need to upload. If your template provides files for different versions of OpenCart, take care to select the correct one. Then, upload the files and directories to your OpenCart installation, overwriting the existing folders. From the drop-down menu at the top, select Themes.

In the list that pops up, see if you find the theme you just uploaded. If so, click the green button to install it. Once that has happened, click the blue Edit button. In the theme options that show up, set the Status to Enabled and save at the top right. On the page that follows, under Theme Directory , pick the name of the newly installed theme, then save. Another important design element in OpenCart is the so-called layouts.

These are used to assign different content modules to pages of your eCommerce website. For that, you would click the blue button in the column that says Home. In the next screen, you find the possibility to assign modules to positions at the bottom. When you click on the drop-down menus, you can see that Content Top currently has a slideshow, featured products, and a carousel assigned to it. One thing you can do here is changing the order of the modules by assigning different ones to the existing positions.

You can also assign additional modules by using the empty drop-down menu, picking the module you want to use, and then clicking the blue plus button to assign it. By default, OpenCart shows the top categories of your store in it.

Here, you find a list of the product categories in your shop. Alternatively, if you are sure you will never ever sell this type of product again, you can also check it in the category list plus, its descendants , and then delete it with the red button in the upper right corner.

Either way, after all these steps, when you now reload the shop frontend, you will see the changed main menu. Unfortunately, for more complicated changes such as custom links or links to pages, you need to edit the theme file or use an extension. Extensions, as the name suggests, allow you to extend the features of your OpenCart store. This can be anything from connecting to Google Analytics over adding backend elements to payment and shipping providers.

The first thing we will talk about for this is the aforementioned modules. OpenCart comes with a number of core modules. Here, you find all the available options in your shop, as well as whether they are enabled or disabled. You can also modify them here. Here, you can easily see that you are able to change the content of the module from the homepage layout. Add more products, alter the number of products shown or the width and height of the module.

Save any changes and they will translate to the homepage. Not so hard to understand, right? The same is true for all other modules, be it slideshows, latest products, checkout buttons, etc. If you look around the extensions menu, you will see that you have many extensions already on your site. However, not all of them are active or available unless you install them. Doing so is very easy.

Nothing easier than that, simply click the green Install button. To change that, click the Edit button like before. In the following screen, you can then not only add the analytics code to actually use it but also change its status to Enabled. Save and you are done. If you no longer want to use Google Analytics, you can always click the red Uninstall button to go back to the beginning.

You have the possibility to extend the number of extensions on your site by installing more from the marketplace. This pretty much works the same way as installing themes only that you can use the installer as described. Use the button to filter-free and paid extensions, the drop-down menu on top to filter by a category, or type in a name.

To download extensions, the first thing you have to do is register your store. This gives you access to the API information through the eye icon on the right. If you plan on selling products on a subscription basis, then you can set up recurring payments based upon price, duration, and payment cycles. Finally, you have access to some of the most popular shipping methods out there.

If you want to run a successful e-commerce store, then you need to be concerned about how your store looks and performs across mobile devices and tablets. There are built-in SEO enhancements that let you modify your title, meta description, and insert keywords. There are also various extensions available through their marketplace that will help to take your SEO efforts even further. You can also connect your product feeds to Google Base, Google Sitemap, and OpenBay Pro, which will show you how the search engines view your products.

When you sign up for e-commerce software, an intuitive user-interface is key. They do provide a video tutorial with step-by-step instructions to guide you through the installation process.

You will install OpenCart from cPanel. The instructions above provide a simplified version of the installation process.

However, the template they provide is quite modern looking and responsive. Like other open source e-commerce builders, there are tons of add-ons and integrations from which to choose. There are currently over 13, extensions available. The full list of add-ons and integrations can be found here. Although they do offer a variety of extensions, most of them are paid.

There are other e-commerce builders out there that are equipped with more features, at a lower cost. When it comes to hosting your e-commerce store you have two options available. You can either host through their partner host, A2 Hosting, which provides a hosting environment optimized for OpenCart. For OpenCart to work correctly, your hosting environment needs to meet the following minimum requirements:.

OpenCart offers a few options for getting in touch with their team and solving any problems related to your site. If you require dedicated developer support for either building out your site, or just need a one time fix, then you might find their commercial support valuable.

OpenCart is completely free , open source software. This keeps your initial investment costs incredibly low. All you have to take care of is your domain name and hosting. Bullshit online shopping site. Hello, very nice and in depth review. Thank you. All three of these options are fully customizable and come with powerful feature sets already built-in. However, you will always have additional expenses to consider.

There is no free platform, but if you have a lot of technical ability already, you may find open source platforms to be very affordable. Tech support — useless. Cant troubleshoot problems. They are just spinning in circles without fixing a problem. Multicart options doesnt change status of orders coming from other multistores on the system — useless. Getting a refund for a bad non working plugin — useless.

So its a lottery when buying their plugins on their website. I switched. I got fed up. Its interesting that you recommend Shopify over Opencast. The main difference from my point of view is the monthly fees, not only to get started but for each and every extension that you add to Shopify. I like that Opencart has no cost for the basic package and that most of the extensions are a one time fee rather than a recurring cost. The fees also tend to be much lower than for comparable packages from Prestashop.

Since I wrote my last comment I have completed the transaction to Opencart. I paid one time fees for several extensions and on a few I encountered installation issues but in each case I received excellent support from the developer of the extension.

I will confess that I am a sophisticated computer user and I found little value in what Shopify was supplying for their very high monthly fees and additional monthly fees for add ons. Even so I think that a less sophisticated user could pay a one time fee to a consultant to set this up and avoid the repetitive monthly fees from Shopify. There are hundreds of themes to choose from some free and some for a fee like Shopify.

The developer made some changes and installed it for me at no charge. Bryan, Thanks very much for spending the time to add more comments. I have used several carts before that have a one time charge. I would just like something that works and doesnt cost a fortune! BTW your web looks great. Is that using opencart? Thank you for your comments. So I gave OpenCart a try and am pretty satisfied. It works for a new small business like mine. For me OpenCart is much easier to work with. I bought a template that has great support.

I feel like I have more control over the look and feel of my store without having to pay a someone a lot money to develop it for me. Sure Tesla is using Shopify, and when I am a solid money-making business like them I will consider it.

But for now OpenCart works. This is a nice article. Going to keep looking, hope you keep writing. An ecommerce solution that fails SEO from the word go.

Even scarier is that fact after an upgrade their developers are often left out with many extension writers unable to upgrade their own scripts.

And with the plans you also get LiteSpeed which is 3 times faster than any other cache. If you need more information about the plans, contact easily via Live Chat. OpenCart Marketplace — What is it? But in the OpenCart Marketplace, you get both paid and free plugins. OpenCart Marketplace — How does it Work?