Joomla and Ecommerce - Is This Possible

Living With Joomla

Joomla can be installed manually from source code on a system running a web server which supports PHP applications. Manual installation generally requires extra time and practical knowledge compared to other alternatives such as installing Joomla from a package management system or using a TurnKey Joomla appliance which pre-integrates Joomla and its dependencies as a ready-to-use system.

E-commerce Today

What is Ecommerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as (electronic marketing) e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with widespread Internet usage. The use of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at some point in the transaction's lifecycle, although it can encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail as well.

Ecommerce Products

According to eMarketer the biggest product categories include:

• Information
• Home Electronics
• Gifts and flowers
• Travel services
• Entertainment
• Music
• Computer products (hardware, software, accessories)
• Tickets
• Financial Services
• Toys
• Apparel
• Books

ecommerce vs off-line Commerce

How is eCommerce better than conventional commerce

• Larger catalogs
• Improved customer interactions
• The ability to build an order over several days
• The ability to compare prices between multiple vendors easily
• The ability to search large catalogs easily
• The ability to configure products and see actual prices
• Larger purchases per transaction
• The ability to easily build complicated custom orders
• Lower transaction costs

Ecommerce and Shopping Carts

A shopping cart (also known as e-commerce software, e-store software, online store software or storefront software) is a software package that works as an engine for online store's catalog and ordering process. Typically, a shopping cart is the interface between a company's site and its deeper infrastructure, allowing consumers to choose products; review what they have selected; make necessary alterations or additions; and purchase the merchandise.

Virtuemart Ecommerce Solution

VirtueMart is the major GNU licensed web store solution for the incredibly popular Joomla! Framework. VirtueMart Shopping Cart Bundle is not an official release of the Joomla! Project.

Virtuemart Joomla Shopping Cart Extension Features

VirtueMart Shopping Cart supports an unlimited number of products and categories, with products able to be assigned to multiple categories. It also permits the sale of downloadable products, and offers a catalog mode where the shopping cart features are turned off. VirtueMart supports multiple prices for a single product, based around shopper groups or a quantity range, and permits the use of a variety of different payment gateways.

Because VirtueMart Shopping Cart is an open source e-commerce solution all the application code is openly visible in PHP. This allows PHP developers to view, update or customize the operation of the shopping cart. In addition VirtueMart itself offers simplified templates ( called 'fly pages' in VirtueMart) structure that allows various shopping and cart page(s) to be edited as standard html and css.

Notably new to VirtueMart 1.1.0 was the inclusion of the ability to quickly change themes for category, product, checkout and cart pages.

VirtueMart Hosting Requirements

As Virtuemart Online Shop Solution is only a plugin for Joomla! / Mambo, it has the same system requirements, which are currently:

• Joomla! 1.0.x or Mambo (>= 4.5.1) recommended: Joomla! 1.5.x (VirtueMart will soon only work with 1.5 or above).
• PHP 4.2.x or above - recommended: PHP 4.4.x
• MySQL 3.23.x or above -recommended: MySQL 4.0.x
• Apache 1.13.19 or above -recommended: Apache 2.x

Several other required supporting libraries or extensions include MySQL, XML and Zlib support built into PHP. Support for https (openSSL) and cURL is recommended.

Understanding VirtueMart Joomla Templates

Template for Virtuemart is the glorious triad of outstanding design, premium quality and brilliant solution for eCommerce activity. This is your lucky chance to update or start your own Internet shop that grants possibilities of convenient intercommunication with all of your clients and accents out distinguished appearance of your company's image.