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Mrs Sarah

Member Since 05 Jan 2018
Offline Last Active Mar 26 2018 09:55 AM
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WooCommerce 3.3 has arrived. Read on what’s new!

01 March 2018 - 07:00 AM

Since the time WooCommerce 3.0 was released on 4th April 2017, various WooCommerce users feel very happy because it brings an improved product gallery, multiple speed and performance improvements, the addition of CRUD classes and new CLI powered by the REST API as well.

Even so, the Developers at WooCommerce still do not stop the research to create more perfect products. For that reason, recently, WooCommerce 3.3 was initially launched on January 30, 2018. This promises to be a great version that makes everyone get excited to come with it.

Now, if you are curious to go to WooCommerce 3.3,

Don’t ignore our article “What’s new in WooCoommerce 3.3” to make the process as smooth as possible!

 

1. WooCommerce 3.3: Revamped Orders screen

First, let’s take a look at the previous version – WooCommerce 3.2!

what-new-in-woocommerce-3-order-screan.j

As a current user of  WooCommerce 3.2, it’s easy to realize these problems:

  • Action icons are nearly similar, differing mainly in color, causing confusion and difficult to understand for the user
  • Showing the address here seems pointless because you cannot execute the orders without knowing anything inside.
  • Some data is not really needed: payment method, shipping method, column of notes…

Compared to the WooCommerce 3.2 versions, we can immediately notice the impressed changes in WooCommerce 3.3:

  • The design of the Orders screen has been adjusted to help users view and manage orders more easily
  • Small, hard-to-see icons are replaced with larger, obvious buttons
  • Added the ability to view of items lines and details right on the Orders screen

what-new-in-woocommerce-3.3-dashboard-or

With this improvement, you can quickly get an overview all the information needed to process a new order without editing the order.

 

2. Shop display improvements: new stock status

In the Product setup page, you get a new option available called “Manage stock”.

Click on, and you can now manually update the number of stock available and give customers the option of putting an item on the backorder when out of stock (or stock levels run low).

what-new-in-woocommerce-3-Manage-Stock-O

Similar to the Update for the Orders screen, you now have a better overview of what’s happening with your Product.

what-new-in-woocommerce-3-stock-status.j

How did WooCommerce 3.3 offer improved and automated Backorders handling for products with managed stock?

With the new “Stock status” update, you can manage the level of availability of goods with three levels: In stock, On backorder, Out of stock. These states are also displayed in different colors for easy identification.

When your stock levels run critical, WooCommerce 3.3 will gracefully transition from “In stock” to “On backorder” or “Out of Stock”. If you add more product into stock, it will automatically go back to “In stock”.

 

3. Compatibility with Non-WooCommerce Themes

Want to find a theme for WooCommerce that declared WooCommerce support for the best results?

It seems too hard?

Don’t worry… if you use the latest version of WooCommerce – WooCommerce 3.3

With the upgrading the way renders on themes, now you should be able to use WooCommerce with almost any theme from WordPress.org

If you are looking to migrate to a new interface but still have concerns about compatibility with WooCommerce 3.3, please test it before downloading. If you’re not able to do it by yourself, it’d better to reach out to the theme developer for confirmation that it will work just fine.

 

4. Colums and rows setting

what-new-in-woocommerce-3-1024x450.jpg

Besides the better support for non-WooCommerce themes, you can now also customize the number of rows and columns displayed in the store. The size of the columns will automatically increase or decrease depending on your selection, so everything will be nicer and fill the available area. You can also preview how your store looks when changing settings.

 

5. New download logging features

WooCommerce 3.3 will include new logging download feature to track who downloads from your store.

When customers download products from your store, absolutely you can view and analyze download logs with a variety of built-in filters, including by order, by customer, by product and by item file.

  • The new WC_Customer_Download_Log class supports data storage to store records into a custom table in the database.
  • Modified how the generated download code no longer relies on the md5 hashes of the filename. This means that each download has a unique ID that can be tracked.
  • A new report lists the customer’s download list, along with information such as IP address.
  • Check the usage of the logon / download tracking functions to make them more robust.

 

6. WooCommerce 3.3 – Image size improvement

what-new-in-woocommerce-3.3-image-settin

With this super WooCommerce vesion, now you have the ability to customize the aspect ratio of product images.

With this new update, you can place a product image as a prototype image (no cropping), a classic square image, or a custom cropped image.

Moverover, version 3.3 also has a special improvement: On the fly thumbnail regeneration. In the past when you changed the image, your WordPress product will not actually resize the image and you have to install a plugin like Regenerate Thumbnails so that WordPress resizes images for you.

Luckily, when you come up with WooCommerce 3.3, image thumbnails will be automatically regenerated on-the-fly when new product images are uploaded.

 

7. Feature for Developer

If you belong to WordPress Developer, be sure not to skip the last item in this article. Here are 3 main features added specifically for you:

  • Enhanced with WebHooks: Deploy CRUD design templates for WebHooks and migrate them to custom tables for better performance.
  • All new sample data has a variety of products to introduce to testers and web developers.
  • Added ability for threads to define image size and store and row column numbers using ‘add_theme_support’.

 

Want to upgrade to WooCommerce 3.3 right now?

That’s all about “WooCommerce 3.3 has arrived. Read on what’s new!”. In case you want to upgrade your current version to WooCommerce 3.3 and bring your store to a new level, we’d suggest you use this migration tool. It helps you switch successfully without any technical skills.

What do you think of our article? Please let us know in the LitExtension Form!


BigCommerce vs Magento - Who has a better performance?

27 February 2018 - 01:37 AM

BigCommerce and Magento are two of the best and most popular eCommerce platforms in the world. Choose which one to increase your sales as well as reduce the cost of operations?

A lot of people would try to answer this as impartially as possible. So to help you select the right solution for your business, we will make a comparison between two platforms.

Let’s start right away with the topic “BigCommerce vs Magento 2018 – Who has a better performance”!

 

1. Open source and out – of – box Magento – open source platform
bigcommerce-vs-magento-open-source-1024x

As an open source platform, Magento allows its users to access source code, customize and modify it with ease. Besides, when using Magento, you have full control over the design and functionality. If you do not have an IT team, you can work with an out-source team or technology company to create your website. Just be aware that it can be pricey to maintain this type of cooperation.

 

BigCommerce?
bigcommerce-vs-magento-out-of-the-box-10

Different from Magento, BigCommerce is an out-of-the-box solution. It allows you to build a shopping cart based on available themes and customizable to suit your needs without the in-house IT developer. Also, you can use many useful extensions such as product reviews, marketing or recommendations because they are part of the core product. However, as out-of-box solution, you lose control of your website.

 

2. BigCommerce vs Magento – Pricing Magento

The biggest advantage of open source is that it’s completely free, so you don’t have to pay a dime to use it. Just need to download the Magento, contact any software company to buy domain name to be able to start building your website.

Expenses will arise when you want to buy themes, or use other extensions and plugins. You can refer to these costs below:

  • Magento Community Edition – CE: totally FREE. Need to pay for domain maintenance and hosting, about $ 10 – $ 100.
  • Magento Enterprise Edition – EE: Domain, hosting and license fee (about 20.000$/year). Need to hire a Developer: from $ 10 – $ 20 per hour.
  • Themes/Additional features: solid price point is around $50 to $100.

 

What about BigCommerce?

BigCommerce has 4 pricing plans: Standard, Plus, Pro and Enterprise.

bigcommerce-vs-magento-pricing-1-1024x37

This pricing policy aims to meet the needs of small to medium enterprises as well as big companies. Below is detailed information:

  • Standard Package – $29.95/mo: offers you all the basic features including unlimited products, unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth and accepts credit cards & PayPal.
  • BigCommerce Plus – $79.95/mo: provides all standard features plus: No transaction fees, real – time carrier shipping, best-in-class-payment providers, abandoned cart saver, omni-channel sales tools, advanced customer segmentation, checkout hosted on your domain, 1.5% transaction fee.
  • Pro plan – $249.95/mo: Includes a comprehensive set of features: Google customer reviews, Faceted search (product filtering) and Custom SSL
  • Enterprise – Call BigCommerce for a quote: includes all plus features and: Custom facets (product filtering), Unlimited API Calls, Premium account services, express routing, priority support, and strategic account management available.
  3. List of features

One of the most important reasons for your decision of choosing a platform or not, that is the number of features are provided. Below is a table comparing the core feature between BigCommerce and Magento, based on 5 criteria: Inventory management, a Number of themes and extensions, security, multi-store and SEO options.

BigCommerce-vs-magento-feature.jpg
  4. Ease of use

To be honest, it is quite hard to create an online store based on MagentoMagento is by no means a platform for beginners. So you should consider carefully, it’s better to hire an adept developer if you are limited to technical knowledge. Magento communities also provide a lot of documentations and supports should also be helpful for you in the process of finding out.

BigCommerce, on the other hand, is one of the simplest ways to manage and create your shopping cart. Going through the platform is almost intuitive and even if you have slight problems, you can always ask around in its forums or call up the support for advice.

  Don’t hesitate to share

BigCommerce and Magento – What is your choice? Please let me know by contacting us at LitExtension Form.

If you enjoyed this article, I would be really grateful if you could share it using the button below!


Release Of PrestaShop 1.6.1.18

12 February 2018 - 08:13 AM

PrestaShop 1.6.1.18 is now available. This maintenance release has seen 25 pull requests merged since version 1.6.1.17.
 
As usual, if you are currently running promotions leading to high traffic on your website, we recommend that you wait for the promotion to end before attempting any upgrade and technical change to your store.
 
We hope you enjoy this new release!
 
The changes
For a full list of changes, see the list of pull requests merged into the 1.6.1.x branch in this milestone
 
Here are some of the most notable changes that this version brings:
 
Hide the password in the confirmation email
Fix Stock cover report stock out calculation
Fix stock available after add product in order
Fix the update product web service
Fix the blank page when no currency defined in the shop
Fix the sorting problem with a descending order in the products filtering page
Fix AdminController’s processDeleteImage() redirect after URL
Update AdminModulesController.php
… and more again!
The PrestaShop 1.6.1.18 changelog is available.
 
Because version 1.6.1.18 is a “patch” update to the 1.6.1.x branch, upgrading from that branch will be as smooth as silk for everyone: features will work better, and modules & themes which worked fine on 1.6.1.0 will work just as well with 1.6.1.17.
 
This release had 18 contributors, both from PrestaShop and from the community at large.
 
@123monsite-regis
@axometeam
@Azouz-Jribi
@Casper-O
@ColonelMoutarde
@eternoendless
@gonssal
@GuillaumeGBzh
@hibatallahAouadni
@marksull
@matrixino
@Matt75
@mcdado
@MounirBoukhris
@okom3pom
@prestamodule
@RubenMartins
@vschoener
A huge “thank you!” to each of the 14 outside contributors, who gave their time and knowledge for the benefit of the whole PrestaShop community! You too can contribute to the next version!
 
Let’s go, upgrade your store(s)! Upgrading from 1.6.1.x is completely safe; upgrading from a standard 1.6.0.x version should work just as well. Those upgrading from version 1.5, 1.4 or even 1.3 should take their time and pay attention to their modules, their theme and their custom modifications!
 
Please do upgrade to this latest and greatest version of PrestaShop 1.6!
 
Download 1.6.1.18 now!
 
Migrate data here
 
In case you want to migrate data from Magento to Prestashop, you can refer to this tool 

Upgrade to Magento 2.2 and bring your store to a new level?

06 February 2018 - 05:10 AM

Magento is a corportate – level eCommerce platform tailored to web development professionals and large online store. Since the final version of Magento 2.2 was launched on September 26, 2017, a lot of users are curious to switch from their current versions to Magento 2.2.

Magento 2.2 provides a bunch of enhanced feature such as nice design, easy to customize as well as amazing functionality improvements.

Like many others, you believe that upgrading to Magento 2 will bring your store to a new level. Good for you! But where is the easiest and most effective way?

Do not skip the article below!

1. What’s new feature in Magento 2.2?

A lot of waiting, the new version of Magento – Magento 2.2, fulfills our expectations with great changes in features as well as speed.

In this article, Carmigration will share with you the most outstanding features of Magento 2.2 Enterprise Edition (EE) and Magento 2.2 Community Edition (CE)

Below is a quick summary:

Magento 2.2 EE Features

  • New B2B feature set;
  • Enhanced Reporting;
  • Better Fraud Protection
  • Improved Security
  • Enhanced Developer Experience;
  • Mass Upgraded Technology Stack
  • New Deployment Process
  • Better Performance: Improved Indexing, Cart, and Cache operations.

Magento 2.2 CE Features:

  • Improved Security
  • Enhanced Developer Experience;
  • Mass Upgraded Technology Stack
  • New Deployment Process;
  • Better Performance: Improved Indexing, Cart, and Cache operations

After that, you are looking for the easiest way how to upgrade to Magento 2.2 version?

Go on to the next heads!

2. Data can be migrated during the Magento 2.2 upgrade

During the upgrade, the migration of data from the older version to a new one is extremely important.

This is a complex and difficult process that no one can do exactly by hand. Typically, most of Magento users often use a Migration tool to convert data automatically.

Below is a list of the data can be converted during the upgrade:

WHAT DATA CAN POSSIBLY BE MIGRATED

PRODUCTS

  • SKU, Name, Description, Qty, Stock Status, Model, Weight …
  • Base Image, Additional Images
  • Base Price, Special Price
  • Assign to Product Categories
  • Options (Size; Weight, Color …)
  • Extra Fields ( Checkboxes, Dropdownlist, Radiobuttons)
  • Variants: can be grouped with related variants together to form a product
  • Meta Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords
  • Currencies

CATEGORIES

  • Name, Description, Base Image, Additional Images

CUSTOMERS

  • ID, Username, First Name, Last Name, Email, DOB, Address …
  • Customer Password (*)

ORDERS

  • ID, Order products, Product price, Qty, Date, Status, Discount price …

SEO URLs (*)

  • Migrate Products and Categories SEO URLs
  • Migrate 301 SEO URLs of categories and products

CUSTOM FIELDS (*)

  • Custom fields of Products, Categories, Customers and Orders

REVIEWS

  • Customers Name, Rating, Review, Status …

TAXES

  • Tax rules, Tax rates, Product tax classes …

MANUFACTURERS

  • Name

MULTI-LANGUAGES

3. How to perform the Magento 2.2 upgrade?

Maybe you know a lot of ways to complete your Magento 2.2 update, but as below, using migration tool for this task is the easiest and most efficient method. This tool allows you not only to transfer your eCommerce data to Magento 2.2 store automatedly, but also to upgrade your current store successfully with no programming skills!

mag2mag.jpg

Now, let’s get started! 

Step 1: Download Magento Migration tool

It’s very easy to find which tool is suitable, but this is Top 3 Best Magento migration tools I especially recommend for you. Check it now before it’s gone!

Top 3 Best Magento Migration Tools

Step 2: Back up your database

In this step, you should make sure you have a recent and clean backup. Besides, don’ forget to check the versions release notes to see what changes have been made.

Step 3: Perform full the Magento 2.2 upgrade

There is a lot of information that you must complete in this step which are source and target store information, language mapping, order status mapping, entities to migrate and other additional options.

Then, click “Start migration” button to launch of full the Magento 2.2. upgrade.

Step 4: Enjoy your new Magento store

How to migrate from AbanteCart to WooCommerce?

05 February 2018 - 10:13 AM

The essence of LitExtension products focuses on their friendliness to users, which means that every shopping cart owners, even who has little knowledge of technology, can follow guidance and migrate data from AbanteCart to Woocommerce easily. You are advised that need not to consult any other sources except this understandable step-by-step guide below.

1. Preparation

For AbanteCart Store:

  • Please ensure you have the right permission to upload files into your AbanteCart Store.
  • It must not block access from Woocommerce Store to the connector.
  • AbanteCart Store can operate normally during migration as it requires a very limited resource for the process.

For Woocommerce Store:

  • Woocommerce Store should be placed in a stable hosting or in localhost.
  • PHP Curl must be enabled.
  • PHP Fopen (allow_url_fopen) must be On.
  • It also must not block connection to AbanteCart Store.
  • Webserver (mostly apache) should have full permission to write on /wp-content/uploads/ folder.
  • It is strongly recommended to backup Woocommerce Store first.
2. Setup

2.1. Download Migration Tool
After downloading the product zip file from our Store, please extract it into a folder. The Plugin consists of two main parts: Woocommerce Data Migration Plugin (“lecartmigration” folder) and AbanteCart Connector (“woocommerce_connector” folder)

2.2. Woocommerce Data Migration Plugin Setup

Woocommerce Data Migration Plugin is a Woocommerce Plugin which acts like a hub at Woocommerce side to receive data and import it into Woocommerce database. It can be installed just like all other Woocommerce Plugins:

  • Using your FTP software, upload the folder “lecartmigration” to your /wp-content/plugins
  • Log in to your WordPress Admin panel.
  • Go to : Plugins
  • Find plugin “Cart Migration”
  • Click “Activate”

cartmigration.jpg

2.3 Install Connector for CubeCart 
Extract “woocommerce_connector” into AbanteCart root folder. After finished please make sure Connector can be reached at: http(s)://yourstore.com/woocommerce_connector/connector.php

woocommerce-connect-1-1.jpg

You will get a message “Connector Installed” once it is installed properly. If you have any problem reaching the link please ensure you have htaccess configured correctly and the file has execution permission. For security, please open connector.php, find this very first line:

define(‘LECM_TOKEN’, ‘123456’);

And change “123456” to another string, this will be used to enter to the Migration Form (Cart Token) and acts like “password” to prevent unauthorized data access to your CubeCart store.

woocommerce-connect-2.jpg

  3. Migration Plugins Setup

Migration Plugins are purchased and setup separately. They will provide additional functionalities to the tool. Normally plugins need to be customized and tweaked by LitExtension Team to fit customers requirements and will be sent to customers later on. There are a few types of plugin:

  • Products and Categories SEO Urls Plugin: helps migrate Products and Categories urls. Old urls will be saved in WooCommerce Store and will be maintained to keep all current SEO ranking you have built up for years.
  • Custom Fields Plugin: help migrate custom fields from AbanteCart Store to WooCommerce Store. This is useful in case customers have customized their store, for example: adding fields to database tables, and also want to migrate these fields into WooCommerce Store.
  • Customer Password Plugin: special plugin which adds the ability to read passwords encrypted by AbanteCart Store to WooCommerce. All passwords are migrated over and remains encrypted, customers can login to the new shop right away without the need of resetting passwords. To install, please Click Here or have a look at the read_me.txt in the Customer Password Plugin package

To install plugins, just copy plugin files into the instructed folder inside your Woocommerce store. New functionalities will be enabled.

4. Enter license key

License Key is an encoded string which comes with your download package. This key is required to activate your Migration Tool.

After purchasing the product, please login to our store and enter “My downloadable products” section. Here you will find download link and license key for the download package.

woocommerce-migration-tool-download.jpg

Login your Woocommerce Store backend, select Litextension > Settings, and copy and paste your license key here:

woocommerce-migration-configuration.jpg

5. Migration

Please login your Woocommerce Target Store backend, select Litextension > Cart Migration. The migration will go through 3 simple steps. Just hit “Next” when you finish one step to advance.

5.1 CubeCart Configuration

Fulfill information in the setup table:

abante.jpg

  • Cart Type: Choose ‘AbanteCart’
  • Cart URL: Your AbanteCart URL
  • Token: The token string which has been configured in connector.php

5.2 Migration Configuration

woocommerce-migration-configuration-1.jp

  • Languages Mapping: Pick the language to be mapped into Woocommerce default language.
  • Orders Status Mapping: Assign AbanteCart order statuses to proper Woocommerce Store order statuses.
  • Entities to Migrate: select all entities to migrate or just a part of them.

woocommerce-migration-3-2.jpg

Additional Options:

  • Migrate recent data: if you choose this option, it will migrate new data only. Supposed you have just finished a full migration from your current AbanteCart to Woocommerce, after that AbanteCart store is still live and continue getting new data, and you want to get your Woocommerce updated with the new data, select this feature to avoid starting over again.
  • Clear current data on Target Store before Migration: if you choose this option, all current products, categories, manufacturers, customers, orders, product reviews, taxes will be cleared.
  • Migrate categories and products SEO URLs: if you choose this option, old SEO urls of source will be preserved in Woocommerce Store, allowing you to maintain your Pagerank.
  • Transfer images in product descriptions to Target Store: download all images in product description into your store so that it won’t have to refer back to your AbanteCart or anywhere else for images.
5.3 Migration

The migration will take place automatically in this final step. In order for it to progress, you should not close your browser of remove AbanteCart Connector. Information shows in this step:

  • AbanteCart: AbanteCart base url you have entered in Step 1, this url will be registered with your license.
  • Entity limit: the limit associated with your license. To change this value, you need to upgrade/purchase another license code.
  • Tips slider: handly tips you should know
  • Migration progress: show current progress
  • Console: show debug information.
  • After the migration is completed, click on “Clear Transient” to finish.

1-9.png

That’s all about migration process which can be carried out yourselves. Technical knowledge and skills are not necessary to use LitExtension shopping cart migration tools. Hope that with this detailed guide and attached video, online store owners don’t hesitate to try our live demo and decide to use our AbanteCart to WooCommerce migration tool– optimized solution for your online business.

Source: blog.litextension.com