This year we’ve noticed an increase in the number of API integrations that we’ve been asked to carry out in order to synchronise Zen Cart installations with supplier data.
As many online shop owners will know, administration of products and inventory can take up a LOT of your time, and this is time that would be better spent marketing and promoting your online business. Furthermore, there is always the risk of introducing human error when somebody is updating large volumes of data manually.
We’ve been contacted by several customers this year that want to free up their time and ensure that their online inventory is always right up to date with data provided from their suppliers, wholesalers or distributors. As a result we’ve created many API integrations to achieve this, which have made huge differences to these shop owners and their availability.
Once completed, these integrations allow the shop owners to be entirely ‘hands off’ with inventory management as it is 100% automated – if a new category or product appears in their supplier’s data, then the category and product are automatically added to their Zen Cart store; if their supplier no longer stocks a product, this is automatically deleted from their Zen Cart inventory.
If you think that you could benefit from the massive time savings created by automating your inventory, then please get in touch and we can discuss the options!
If you’re making a custom post type archive template – archive-custom_post_type_name_here.php – and it’s not working (i.e. the standard archive.php template is still being used) and you think that you’ve exhausted all options… make sure that you’re not viewing a custom taxonomy term and expecting the archive template to be used! In this instance, the custom template that you need is taxonomy-custom_taxonomy_slug_here.php
Over the last few days you may well have received an email from PayPal with the – rather scary looking – subject of: ACTION REQUIRED: Important changes regarding dispute tracking for your PayPal Account. Those capital letters make it pretty serious, huh?
You’re probably wondering if you need to make any changes to your existing Zen Cart store in order to avoid these changes causing you any problems. Well, the good news is that these PayPal changes will have NO effect on your Zen Cart store at all.
Phew!
If you’re a regular browser on your phone, you may have noticed a recent change in Google’s search results…
Whilst on mobile, you now see a ‘Mobile-friendly’ indicator next to optimised websites in the search engine results. Google – and of course the other search engines – want to provide the best user experience to all, so they’re giving preference to websites that are likely to be the easiest to use.
Make sure that your website is responsive to ensure that any available improvements in search engine rankings can be achieved!
If you’re looking for a web designer in Carlisle, then we’d like to suggest ourselves (of course)!
At Rocket Sites, we pride ourselves on creating web solutions that allow you and your business to achieve your desired objectives. A great looking website is one thing, but remember that your website also needs to do the things that it was intended for, be that convert visitors into customers, capture email addresses or prompt your website visitors to send you a message.
To give you a feel for our services, here are some pretty lovely comments received from some of our latest customers:
“Rocket Sites are a refreshing change when it comes to web developers. We spoke to several other firms before finally deciding to go with Rocket Sites for our new website for our business – and I am pleased I did as I love the new design and layout. I like to give developers free rein on the design as I’m no designer. Matt at Rocket Sites is very approachable and eager to help, and replied to my emails within minutes, which is a big bonus! I strongly recommend you to talk to Rocket Sites before picking a web design company. I have already passed Matt’s name on to several people.”
“We have been working with Rocket Sites for several years now and have nothing but positive things to say about them and their work. They are always willing to answer any questions and respond to emails within a flash. Over the years they have helped us redesign our site, transfer our hosting and recommended & create many helpful Zen Cart modifications. Matt at Rocket Sites seriously is a Zen Cart guru – any issue we have ever experienced he has always been able to resolve. As well as being the utmost professional at all times, Matt is also a genuinely nice guy. If you are thinking about moving or updating your eCommerce site then I would look no further then Rocket Sites and Matt.”
“We had almost given up trying to find decent Zen Cart developers, when by chance we came across Rocket Sites who have produced countless customisations for us – both quickly and flawlessly – where other developers we have hired either refused the work because of the complex nature, or made a complete pigs ear of the project. I can highly recommend Rocket Sites and I have no intention of using anyone else in the future! A total pleasure to deal with!”
One of our existing eCommerce customers enlisted us to carry out the automatic translation of thousands of products into four languages.
Their existing Zen Cart website contained over 12,000 products, all of which needed to be translated into French, German, Spanish and Italian. The reason for this is that they were to soon commence selling on international platforms (eBay and Amazon across Europe) and needed each product to be available in each language.
The process of carrying out a manual human translation would have been both incredibly time consuming and massively expensive, so instead we created an automated system that translates all product names and descriptions using a third party API. The result meant that in a very short space of time all of the existing products were ready to be added to the international marketplaces – so that our customer can begin taking over the world!
If you need a similar service, please get in touch and we’ll see what we can do for you!
A client based just up the road in Brampton had an existing Zen Cart website that was serving them well, but they wanted to bring it up to date and make it responsive.
Kairos Jewellery sell a huge range of jewellery both online and from their lovely shop, but felt like their website could achieve much more if it was responsive as they were aware of the large percentage of visitors that were using mobile phones.
We re-created their Zen Cart template to be fully fluid responsive – and all without affecting ANY existing functionality or data. We’ll be monitoring the website statistics closely as we expect the change to result in a dramatic increase in conversions from mobile and tablet traffic.
