Buying online these days is not a question of whether the product or services you wish to buy is available online but which company offers the best price and a pleasant, stress free online shopping experience. This should however be tempered with the fact that ordering a book or CD online is a much easier proposition than ordering a made to measure Venetian blind.

When Leeds based blinds specialist with a long established bricks-and-mortar shop wanted to use ecommerce to reach more customers, the task of finding a shopping cart that ticks all the boxes in their requirements was difficult, until they came across Boss Cart Premium.

Ordering blinds online is more than just measurements of the obvious height and width, but other complex details such as whether the blind is “recess”, “exact” and a host of other variables customers need to choose to get correct quotations for the made to measure blinds. No ready made ecommerce application can cope with this requirement, not even Boss Cart Premium.

Out of the box, Boss Cart Premium was not able to meet the requirements of Multi Blinds, however, the team at Boss Cart created a module just for blinds that Multi blinds and other blind sellers will find useful, port it into Boss Cart Premium and the result was an online blinds shopping cart powered site that meets the requirements of Multi Blinds.

Today, Multi Blinds are one of the very few online blinds specialists with a shopping cart system you can use to order made to measure blinds effortlessly. They have a wide range of blinds ranking from Persian blinds, Venetian blinds, honeycomb blinds to much more exclusive blinds tailor-made to your specification.

eCommerce made possible by Boss Cart Premium

DJ (Disc Jockeys) are known for skill and dexterity at the turntable, their knowledge of dance floor and party psychology is legendary. DJs can turn a boring dance floor or a party to a lively, happy, boisterous place or a cool reflective one with the choice of music they play and their verbal dexterity. It is with this experience that the owners of HeyDJ.com, a specialist dance music retailer decided to start their own ecommerce shop.

HeyDJ team has been selling records and CDs on eBay for a few years before deciding to start an online store. Boss Cart Premium was chosen as the eshop to take them to the next level of their online strategy. After looking at the features of Boss Cart, Nick Byng of HeyDJ was quite pleased “all the features we wanted in our shop were already there, the only thing we wanted done was to have a custom template created exclusively for HeyDJ.com” Mr Byng said the HeyDJ team had been quoted several thousands of pounds by ecommerce shop vendors and developers for an online shopping cart system , before they found Boss Cart Premium.

Boss Cart design team leader, Mr Zoli Bagi , said of the custom template his team designed for HeyDJ.com “given what HeyDJ.com sells , we decided to create a funky template that is radically different to all the templates we have created in the past. Without being too overtly Web2.0 we created a wide search box to ensure maximum usability when visitors are searching, we used active vibrant colours to convey the mood HeyDJ is trying to get across to their visitors. The template was coded in xhtml format using external css file. Where possible png files were used as background images of the different layers. PNG gives maximum quality with quite small font size. The template includes a fly out vertical menu up that is three categories deep.

Testimonials from some of our client |  Need a bespoke shopping cart? contact us

1. Repeated order (buyers can now store orders they make regularly and just reorder at next visit with a single click.
2. Additional or enhanced payment gateways:
3. PayPal standard.
4. PayPal Express Checkout.
5. Google Checkout 3.
6. Extended configuration wizard.
7. 4. CCNow payment gateway.
8. Reward System.
9. Dutch payment Gateway ( Ideal ).
10. 7. HTML Catalogue Manager.
11. One product can be under three categories.
12. Additional Weight according to product attribute support.
13. Enhanced Predictive Search.
14. New default template.
15. Free download for digital goods.
16. Newsletter subscription and download of the email ids in xls format.

Boss Cart allows you to create a newsletter and send it to all the customers who have subscribed for newsletter. It also allows you to send it to your customers.

How newsletter subscription works

1. Visitors to your site enter their name and email id.

1. You create a newsletter

1. You see list of subscribers in the shopkeeper control panel.

1. You can select some or all and send the previously created newsletter.

1. The newsletter will be addressed to the individual subscriber.

1. You may also add new subscriber from shopkeeper control panel

1. You may export the newsletter subscription list in CSV format.

1. The subscribed users can unsubscribe using the link sent in the newsletter.

1. Fill the id column ( first column ) only if the product with that id needs to be edited. New product does not need id.

2. Code ( second column ) is mandatory. It is code of the product being added or edited. Duplicate value is not accepted. It will show error and the row and the rows after it wont be uploaded

3. Quantity ( third column ) is mandatry. Please enter a numeric value . It means the no of products in the stock

4. Master Category ( fourth column ) is mandatory . Enter the main category name here. If checkbox with label ‘ Insert New Categories form CSV ?? ‘ is checked new category will be created in database if the category with same name does not exist.

5. Category , Sub Category  ( fifth, sixth and seventh column ) is not mandatory. Enter the category in the hierarchy that the products rests on.

6. tax inclusion ( eighth column ) is mandatory. Insert ‘ No ‘ if the product is not taxable . ‘ Yes ‘ if it is taxable

7. vat inclusion ( ninth column ) is mandatory. Insert ‘ No ‘ if the product is not vat applicable ‘ Yes ‘ if it is vat applicable

8 free shipping ( tenth column ) is mandatory. Insert ‘ Yes ‘ if it is the products ships for free . No if the shipping charge is required

9 meta description ( eleventh column )   ( mandatory ) enter the meta description for the product

10 meta keyword ( twelth column )  ( mandatory ) enter the meta keyword for the product

11 name ( thirteenth column )  ( mandatory ) enter the name for the product .

12 Original Price ( fourteenth column ) ( mandatory ) enter the price of the product

13. Discounted Price ( fifteenth column ) ( optional ) enter the discounted price of the product (this price will be applicable as price of product if entered )

14. Product Weight ( sixteenth column ) ( optional ) enter the numeric value of the product weight. Do not include unit. unit will be the default unit that is applicable in the shop

15. Description ( seventeenth column ) (  mandatory ) Enter the product description.

16. Promoline ( eighteenth column ) ( mandatory ) Enter the promo line for the product.

17. Manufacturer ( nineteenth column ) ( mandatory ) Enter the product manufacturer name. If the manufacturer name is not present in the database new manufacturer will be added.

18. attribute 1, Value 1 , Unit 1 and so on ( optional ) . Enter the product specific attribute name , its value and its unit. Maximum 10 such attributes can be added.

19. image 1 to image 7 ( optional ) . Enter the product image names .

The names should not contain special characters.

The images with the same name should be uploaded to

images/products/productdetail directory ( size should be 800 X 600 )
images/products/thumbnails directory ( size should be 80 X 80 )
images/products/thumbnail2 directory ( size should be 296 X 300 )
images/products/thumbnail3 directory ( size should be 100 X 66 )

Other insturctions

1. Do not keep  ‘ , ‘ in the value . Keep [comma] in where it is needed.

2. Do not keep rows empty ( the rows below the empty row wont be uploaded )

Note: This instruction is applicable for Boss Cart Premium Version 1.5.8 .

1. Install the software
2. Log in to shopkeeper control panel
3. Click on ‘ Vocabulary ‘ >> ‘ Vocabulary ‘
4. Search for word bosscart .
5. You will get 10 to 15 results.
6. Change the word Boss Cart to your own ‘ Label ‘ in the textbox
7. Press submit to save the changes.
8. All the words ‘ Boss Cart ‘ will now be changed to your label
9. To change the link to take to your own main site instead of Boss Cart

a> open page shopkeeper/footer.php

b> replace http://www.bosscart.com/premium-shopping-cart/ with your own link

c> open page shopkeeper/login.php

d> replace http://www.bosscart.com/premium-shopping-cart/ with your own link

e> open page shopkeeper/ forgotpassword.php

f> replace http://www.bosscart.com/premium-shopping-cart/ with your own link

g> open page templates/4.css/footer.php

h> replace http://www.bosscart.com/premium-shopping-cart/ with your own link

i> similary open templates/4.css/footer.php

j> replace http://www.bosscart.com/premium-shopping-cart/ with your own link

Thank You

1. Fill the id column ( first column ) only if the product with that id needs to be edited. New product does not need id.

2. Code ( second column ) is mandatory. It is code of the product being added or edited. Duplicate value is not accepted. It will show error and the row and the rows after it wont be uploaded

3. Quantity ( third column ) is mandatory. Please enter a numeric value . It means the no of products in the stock

4. Master Category ( fourth column ) is mandatory . Enter the main category name here. If checkbox with label ‘ Insert New Categories form CSV ?? ‘ is checked new category will be created in database if the category with same name does not exist.

5. Category , Sub Category  ( fifth, sixth and seventh column ) is not mandatory. Enter the category in the hierarchy that the products rests on.

6. tax inclusion ( eighth column ) is mandatory. Insert ‘ No ‘ if the product is not taxable . ‘ Yes ‘ if it is taxable

7. vat inclusion ( ninth column ) is mandatory. Insert ‘ No ‘ if the product is not vat applicable ‘ Yes ‘ if it is vat applicable

8 free shipping ( tenth column ) is mandatory. Insert ‘ Yes ‘ if it is the products ships for free . No if the shipping charge is required

9 meta description ( eleventh column )   ( mandatory ) enter the meta description for the product

10 meta keyword ( twelth column )  ( mandatory ) enter the meta keyword for the product

11 name ( thirteenth column )  ( mandatory ) enter the name for the product .

12 Original Price ( fourteenth column ) ( mandatory ) enter the price of the product

13. Discounted Price ( fifteenth column ) ( optional ) enter the discounted price of the product (this price will be applicable as price of product if entered )

14. Product Weight ( sixteenth column ) ( optional ) enter the numeric value of the product weight. Do not include unit. unit will be the default unit that is applicable in the shop

15. Description ( seventeenth column ) (  mandatory ) Enter the product description.

16. Promoline ( eighteenth column ) ( mandatory ) Enter the promo line for the product.

17. Manufacturer ( nineteenth column ) ( mandatory ) Enter the product manufacturer name. If the manufacturer name is not present in the database new manufacturer will be added.

18. attribute 1, Value 1 , Unit 1 and so on ( optional ) . Enter the product specific attribute name , its value and its unit. Maximum 10 such attributes can be added.

Other instructions

1. Do not keep  ‘ , ‘ in the value . Keep [comma] in where it is needed.

2. Do not keep rows empty ( the rows below the empty row wont be uploaded )

3. The fields should be in the first row of the csv file. The rows below the first row are considered product rows.

4. To obtain the csv file format please follow the instructions below

i> Login to shopkeeper control panel

ii> Click on the uploader tools

iii> Click on csv uploader

iv> Click on ‘ download previous data ‘ .

v> A csv file will start downloading. It will contain previous products in store.

Thank You

One of the questions we get asked quite frequently at Boss Cart is “What is the minimum server installation requirement for installing Boss Cart Premium”. We hope this post will answer your questions, of course we love hearing from Boss Cart users, even after reading this, if you still have questions about installing Boss Cart, please contact us and we will be very pleased to answer your questions.

Boss Cart Premium runs on all major server platforms including Linux, Unix and Windows operating system provided PHP and MySQL is installed on the Windows or Linux server. For those using Windows, please pay particular attention to the additional Windows requirement at the bottom of this post.

Linux, Unix and Windows server requirements

• PHP4 or higher version of PHP such as PHP5.
• Safe mode needs to be turned off ( safe_mode can be disabled from your server php.ini file).
• SQL safe mode should be disabled (sql.safe_mode can be disabled from php.ini)
• File uploads enabled (enable file_uploads from php.ini)
• ini_set should be enabled from php.ini
• Server name , database name , database username and database password.
• GD Library functions should be enabled. ( uncomment extension=php_gd2.dll from php.ini)
• Rewrite Engine Enabled (uncomment LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so in httpd.conf)
• mail() function should be enabled
• SMTP server for sending emails.
• post_max_size should be 60 MB to allow for large file upload.
• upload_max_filesize should be 60 MB to allow for large files.
• An HTTPS module (like Net::SSLeay perl module, CURL executable, OpenSSL executable or libCURL PHP extension) for some of the online credit card processing modules ).

Your will need one of the following browsers

We have tested Boss Cart Premium with the web browsers below:

• IE-6
• IE-7
• Mozilla Firefox
• Opera
• Safari

Windows specific requirements

Windows must have Apache and MySQL server installed. Boss Cart Premium does not work with Windows native server IIS nore Microsoft SQL server.

For Cache Control Header the following lines of code in the httpd.conf file must be uncommented.

• LoadModule cache_module modules/mod_cache.so
• LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so
• LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.so

1. Paypal IPN
2. Paypal Express Checkout
3. Paypal Pro
4. Paypal Pro Payflow Edition
5. Secpay/Paypoint
6. Nochex
7. Worldpay
8. 2Checkout
9. Google Checkout
10. - PROTX VSP Form
    - PROTX VSP Direct
11. COD (Cash on Delivery) created, not tested live.
12. Pay by Cheque (to be created next week)

If you required a payment gateways that is not listed here, just drop us a line and we will intergrate it with Boss Cart Premium.  There is a comprehensive list of Payment gateways supported by Boss Cart premium at out payment gateway documentation page.

To make submitting your product to Google Base, Boss Cart Premium contains Google Base exporter tool, it makes uploading all product in your shop to Google Base very easy.
The step-by-step guide below shows how to use Boss Cart Premium’s built in tool to export product to Base.

Here are some Google Base related urls:

• Google Base homepage : http://base.google.com/base/
• Google Base data description page : http://base.google.co.uk/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en_GB&answer=73932

Here is the step-by-step uploader tutorial.

1. 
   Login to Boss Cart Premium admin interface, expand uploader tools, click on “download previous CSV for Google Base”.

2. In the open window after step one, select “Save file” and download the CSV dump to your computer.

3. Go to Google Base login page and login to your Base account.

4. Browse to Data Feeds, Select New Data Feeds.

5. You need to complete the form in this page, pay particular attention to the name you call the data feed filename, it must be the exact name of the data feed filename you downloaded at step 1.

6.  Click on Manual upload file.

7.  Browse to your computer and select the file you download at step 2 and you are done. You should get a feedback from Google Base letting you know the upload is successful.