Given that there are number of eCommerce extensions available on the Joomla! Extensions Directory, it can often get confusing for a first time store owner to make a decision when setting up a store for the first time. Our Joomla experts have put together a list of some of the most popular eCommerce extensions discussing pros and cons of each of them.

EShop -

The most reviewed eCommerce extension available on the Joomla Extensions Directory, EShop is a simple to use extension for powering your Joomla based eCommerce store. The extension comes packed full of features that help you to stay in complete control of your online operations.

Score- 100
Reviews- 278

 Paid Download -

1. Flexibility- The extension is quite flexible as it supports multiple payment gateways, multiple themes, digital and physical goods, multiple currencies, multiple languages, unlimited categories and multiple shipping methods.
   
2. Setup- It is recommended that the plugin is setup by experienced developers but once it is setup, it can be easily be used by anyone. All you need is basic Joomla administrative knowledge. Find out more- Joomla Developers Sydney
   
3. Administrative Features- Packed gull of features that help you stay in complete control of your ecommerce operations including the ability to generate Sales Reports to find out statistics about most viewed products, most sold products and total sales for a week, month or a year.
   
4. SEO Features- The extension also comes with a SEO module that allows you to control Meta titles, Meta descriptions, Meta keywords across your entire range of products. Also allows you to setup Rich Snippets amongst other things.
   
5. Extedibility- If the standard core features are not enough then there are few extensions that can be purchased from their online store to further extend the features.
   
6. Security- The extension supports Captcha and SSL Certificates making the eCommerce store fairly secure.  
   
7. Other Features- Other features include the ability to set multiple tax rates based on Geo Zones and Zones, Email Campaign Manager that allows you to send out emails to product suppliers and customers, One Page Checkout, Reviews and Ratings on each product page and a Product Wishlist that allows customers to add products to their wishlist.  
   

HikaShop -

Score- 99
Reviews- 251

 Free Download (Basic Download) -

HikaShop is a simple and flexible extension that turns your Joomla setup into an eCommerce store. The extension allows you to sell your products to a global audience with the ability to handle multiple tax zones, multiple languages and multiple currencies.

1. Setup- It is best you get an experience Joomla developer to undertake the initial setup if you don’t have intermediate to advanced level of Joomla knowledge. Looking for Joomla Experts Sydney? Find out more about our services.
   
2. Flexibility- The extension allows you to list unlimited products on your eCommerce store, optimise your SEO, comes with advanced pricing features, handles digital (downloadable) goods, comes with a native commenting and voting system and comes with a highly flexible customer checkout.
   
3. Administrative Features- The extension has a range of marketing tools (affiliate program support, coupons, discounts, etc.), but also powerful statistics displayable on your HikaShop dashboard to help you manage your store.
   
4. Security- Comes with a ReCaptcha for forms and SSL.
   
5. Extendibility- Ability to use plugins or ad-ons that further extend the functionalities of the extension. These include
   

• More than 60 FREE payment plugins to handle online credit card payments.
  
• Credit card plugin to collect credit card information for offline payment processing.
• Shipping plugins that support Australia Post, Canada Post, UPS, USPS, FedEx, CanPAR, Envoimoinscher, Mondial Relay, etc FREE shipping plugins.

Conclusion -

Both the plugins are equally good and have their positives and negatives. What it comes down to is your requirements. We highly recommend that you engage an eCommerce developers and provide them a detailed brief covering all the functionalities that you would like to integrate as a part of your setup and they can help you decide which plugin is a better choice for you. 

​​Creating an online store whilst is an exciting adventure, not all aspects of the set up can be as exhilarating. For instance, choosing a competent Shopping Cart Software product, can be just an important as choosing what to sell, sourcing the product and not to forget choosing an eCommerce Development Sydney team.
And this blog aims to offer a comprehensive comparison between two heavy weights that command attention; BigConmerce and Woocommerce. Know more about WordPress  WordPress Developers Sydney.
So what is it?
Well, BigCommerce is a self hosted all in one e-commerce platform launched in 2009 and the only online store that actually integrates directly with Google’s Merchant Centre. WooCommerce is open source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. Both options cater well to all segments of the market; from fast growing brands to small to large-sized online merchants.
Costs
BigCommerce offers 4 different plans to suit different budgets in the market and the features available vary with these too. All plans though do include standard features like unlimited product listing as well as storage and bandwidth, ability to employ multiple sales channel and accept PayPal as well as credit cards, coupled with zero transaction charges and 24/7 customer support. The more advanced plans do offer additional features which again depend on your individual need and budgets. With their very basic plan starting at $29.95, this could be a pricey option especially if compared with WooCommerce which really is a free plugin available to install on your existing WordPress website. And again, whether or not your total costs for using WooCommerce equate to that of BigCommerce per month will depend largely on a number of factors e.g.: whether you use paid or free themes and extra plugins you need and install. Whilst BigCommerce does offer dedicated hosting which means one less thing to worry about, from a cost perspective, with WooCommerce you can get cheap(er) hosting depending on how much you can shop around.
 
Themes and Design Options
BigCommerce offers about 91 free and paid themes optimized for mobile devices and nicely categorised into different niches and the costs of these vary up to $235 whereas with WooCommerce, there is a bigger library of both paid and free themes available to choose from. With WooCommerce however you would need to rely on the skills of a developer or be skilled in basic coding to enjoy high degree of customisation and modification of codes in the themes to suit your requirements. Both platform do offer the flexibility of customisation with changes to colour scheme, fonts, adding logos, etc. with WooCommerce being an open source platform so offering that extra edge when it comes to having the flexibility of integrating any number of plugins and applications as you desire.
Flexibility and integration
WooCommerce also does offer the option to integrate with just about any service provider and more so than BigCommerce that offers a carefully curated selection of top third-party apps and integrations and fewer apps than competitors.
SEO Tools
Both platforms are extremely SEO friendly with WooCommerce offering the ability to customise title, Meta, and content to optimize it for search engine rankings. BigCommerce offers advanced SEO features too including their own content delivery network to optimize page loading times, use product specific keywords and modify product name, description and images.
Customer Service and Support
BigCommerce offers a dedicated support portal complete with tutorials, and how-to videos, a dedicated consultant and 24/7 chat, email, and phone support whereas the only downside (depending on which way you perceive it) with WooCommerce is the lack of official support which is more than made up for by their extremely large community of responsive users and forums with active participants willing to help!
Conclusion
All things considered, both platforms do pack a punch with powerful features, heaps of flexibility and multiple options. How valuable each of these options and features are for you depends on your overall business goals and which platform has the capability to support those. So choose wisely, Exchanges and returns can be costly!

Providing the back-end framework for at least 2.3% of all web sites globally and powered by PHP, a free and open source content-management framework, Drupal was first released 17 years ago in May 2000. Since then, Drupal has amassed more than 1.3 million members including dedicated Drupal developers as part of its community which is a true reflection of its popularity with more than 39,000 free modules and over 2,500 free themes.
In November 2015, Drupal 8 was released and below is a compilation of some of its key features that you should know.

Twig- The New Theming Engine
In order to allow a user to create websites that are user friendly, practical and functional, Drupal has introduced Twig. A PHP theme template engine, Twig is flexible, efficient and most importantly secure so a user can build and maintain layout elements faster coupled with faster load times for compiled versions of the templates.

Mobile Friendly and Responsive
Drupal 8 is embracing the Mobile friendly philosophy as evident from the built-in themes and admin themes that are fully responsive and adaptive to fit every type of screen size seamlessly.

Multilingual
With nearly 100 common languages and with 4 key modules in the core, Drupal 8 has an impressive multilingual feature with built-in translations as part of the admin interface. S what this means is that instead of depending on additional plugins or modules to add translation functionality, a user can create language-based Views filtering and block visibility at the site-wide or field levels.

Views
Making Drupal ever so powerful, Views are now one of Drupal's core modules which means users can effectively and efficiently create pages, blocks, admin sections, etc. And customise as required.

CKEditor
As a replacement to WYSIWYG, CKEditor is available now as standard with Drupal as one of the best text editors allowing HTML editing for web content to become simplified along with the option of making changes to the text directly from the front-end of the site.. This has significantly reduced the additional time required for maintenance work

A robust Configurations Manager
A built in configuration manager at the file-system level allows a user to export and import the features that you build or content type, views, or fields, etc to the server with ease. The configuration changes can be just as easily managed too with a version-control system.

Built in Web Services
RESTful web services allow Drupal developers to create, connect and communicate better with external web services in a standardised manner.

Interactive Tours
Drupal 8 boasts an interactive Tour module in its core whee users can click the "Tour" link and see pop-ups of tooltips to explain the inner workings of Drupal in an organised and comprehensive manner.
 

There are a number of security extensions available for Magento and if you are new to running an eCommerce store it can often get confusing as to which security extension will work the best for you. Here is a list of security extensions that our team of Magento developers have created based on their experience while working on a number of eCommerce store projects. Websites ‘N’ More Ecommerce Developers Sydney is the ones that you should call.

1- MageSecure

A must have extension for your Magento store! This extension runs a number of scans and checks for your Magento setup and produces a detailed report of fixes along with recommendations for the website administrator.

List of Security Tests Conducted by the Extension;

• Default admin login page URL exposure test - Checks if your website have default admin panel location, which is not recommended and makes attackers task easier.
• Magento Downloader login screen exposure test - Magento downloader is used to upload Magento extensions to your website, which is not recommended in production.
• Directory listing test - Checks whether you are listing all your directories and files to the world. This is common and dangerous thing.
• File permissions test - Checks whether you are allowing your sensitive files to display to the world or not. Again it is common mistake that even big websites do.
• File content exposure test - Are you showing your database and website username/password configuration settings to the world?
• Magento latest version test - Checks if you are using old version of Magento or are using outdated version which is not recommended.
• Admin panel security test - Checks how secure is your admin panel
• Default "admin" user account test - You should really get rid of "admin" username as it's really very common administrator username to have.
• Lifetime coupons test - Do you want to give your products in discount price even if there's no discount on it?
• HTTPS test on checkout and customer page - Customer and checkout page contains very sensitive information of customers, it should be very secure.
• Repository code exposure test - Are you showing your code to the world?

2- TotalSecurity -

The extension protects a Magento run eCommerce store against unauthorized access. It does so by providing two-factor authentication option for the website administrator and also provides the option of tracking IP addresses that have access the admin panel with the option to whitelist and blacklist IP addresses.

Some of the features include;   

• Two step authentication for admin panel login.
• Unique code sent to website administrator.
• Optional super password generated if email token is not generated for any reason.
• Create an IP watchlist.
• Option to categories IP addresses in the whitelist, blacklist and watchlist.
• Option to enable/disable module from backend.
• Option to set/change email recipient.
• Option to Check IP flood for a particular IP.
• Send email to admin when flood limit is reached.
• Option to set flood count.
• Easy installation.
• Compatible with all Magento themes.

3- Login Security

A simple yet powerful extension that provides that extra security when it comes to user accounts on your Magento eCommerce store. The extension automatically logs out users if there has been a password change. Essentially this means that a user cannot continue a session without entering the password again. The extension kicks into action even if the user is using separate browsers to browse the store and change the password.

Some of the features include;   

• Easy installation and setup.
• Automatically checks for passwords every time a page is updated.

4- Security Extension MageFence -

A comprehensive security extension for Magento that provides your eCommerce store protection against commonly known web attacks.

Some of the features include;

• Brute Force Protection using Two-factor authentication, Custom admin URL, Custom Magento Connect Manager URL and IP monitoring and protection.
• A deep website scanner that provides protection against Malware. Provides a report to the website administrator for any issues and vulnerabilities that can potentially cause security related problems.
• Allows you to set a schedule for the scan to take place.
• Allows you to set security alerts e.g. a notification is sent out if there is any file changed in the entire setup or every time there is an admin login.
• Provides a complete summary of the checks, system changes, security issues etc.
• Detects and reports any unauthorized admin activity.
• Provides a range of IP protection options.
• Provides a list of latest security updates and patches to the core software and the extensions that are a part of your setup.

5- Security Suite by Amasty -

Another comprehensive security extension for Magento that allows you to backup and store your website data, track and manage admin users’ performance and protect the admin panel from unwanted login attempts.

The features for this plugin include;

• An admin activity logger that allows you to track the activities of all admin panel users. The activity logger will provide you information about login attempts, restrict logins after a particular threshold has been reached, monitor actions and page visits of users with admin capabilities.
• The module also allows you to set admin user permissions. Essentially you can allow/restrict admin users to view and edit only certain sections of the admin panel.
• A Backup tool that allows you to easily perform on-site and off-site backups and also gives you the option of scheduling backups. You also have the option of a full or a partial backup and the module can easily sync with popular cloud storage services such as  AmazonS3, Box.com and Dropbox.
• Provides added security to the backend panel by enabling Google’s Authentication application and allows for IP whitelisting.
  

 
Need help in setting up an eCommerce store? We are an enthusiastic team of Magento Developers based in Sydney with a number of Magento projects under our belt. So start a conversation with our Magento Developers Sydney today.

Responsive web design as the name suggests is an approach to web design that ensures websites and web applications to respond to the device it is being viewed on. This means that the same website can be viewed on different devices such as Desktops, Tablets and Smartphones without compromising on user-experience. A website based on the concept of responsive web design takes into account, flexible grids, images and media queries in order to provide a seamless experience to the user.

Testing is an important part of a responsive web design project and it will be fair to say that web designers spend at least 30% of their time in any given project on properly testing the website or web application across various devices and browsers prior to project completion. The task of testing responsive websites can be quite daunting given the number of devices available in the marketplace, each with their own screen size and resolution especially when we talk of Smartphones and Tablets.

There are a number of tools that can be used for testing purposes and allow you to check for various devices. Here are some of the options,

1- Browser Resize Testing

One of the most easiest and simple ways to test your responsive website or web application is to re-size the browser window on a Desktop and check for any inconsistencies or bugs. The idea is to resize the browser to a break point that might be similar in size to the device you want to check for and observe the results. This is not the most accurate way of testing a web design but can give you a quick overview of the work that has been put in thus far and can help you pick out any bugs.
 
2- Testing on a Device    

Another way of testing the responsiveness of a web design is to run the website on different devices such as Desktops, Laptops, Tablets and Smartphones (Android, iOS, Windows). This method might be a bit flawed or not the most efficient and effective because there are only a limited number of devices you can check a website or web application on especially when it comes to Smartphones. There are literally thousands of different versions of Smartphones available in the world and it is not humanly possible to check for all the devices at once.

3- Using Online Testing Tools  

There are plenty of online tools available that can allow you to test the responsiveness of a website of a web application.  Here are some of our favourite tools that we have used over the years across a variety of web design projects,

• Mobile browser emulator- This is a Google Chrome extension that can be used to test for various screen sizes and resolutions for both mobiles and tablets. Download and activate the plugin from the Chrome Extensions/App Store, open the website that needs to be tested and click on the extension icon on your browser. Now all you got to do is select the device you want to test for and enter the screen size. The emulator will generate pop-ups for the chosen screen size. There is also a similar extension available for Firefox, Firefox OS Simulator.
• Browser Stack- This is a paid online tool for checking responsive web design across a range of browsers and devices from different manufacturers including Apple, Samsung, Windows and Kindle. Some of the features of Browser Stack include, native browser experience (as good as using the device browser itself), access to development tools, pre-loaded software such as Java, Flash, Acrobat Reader etc and the ability to generate screenshots and ability to conduct the test across a team. 
• Screenfly- This is another great online tool for testing your responsive designs. It allows you to view a website or web application on devices such as Galaxy tab, Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom, Asus Nexus, Microsoft Surface, Motorola Razr, BlackBerry and Desktops as well. This is a handy and user-friendly tool overall and can be used with ease to test projects.

Responsive web design is an interesting area and undertaking quality assurance for these projects comes with its own set of challenges. But these challenges have been taken well by developers around the world thus far and we have seen an emergence of an array of testing tools and methodologies that are certainly allowing the responsive design test process to become more effective and efficient. 

A force to be reckoned with, a powerful eCommerce software platform offering scalable solutions and user friendly interface for businesses, Magento is an intuitively fast growing open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP.

So here all you need to know about Magento (just in case it comes up at Pub Trivia)

• Since its launch in 2008, Magento has been the most comprehensive open source e-commerce solution in the market thanks to the flexibility and stability it brings to an online store with the Magento platform being chosen by more than 125,000 businesses, including some recognizable brand names to the likes of Samsung, Ford, Nike, North Face, Nokia and Olympus. In fact, so strong is its power that it can and does complete with well-known eCommerce platforms like Oracle ATG, Hybris and IBM Websphere Commerce.
  
  
• Magento offers three distinct platforms; Magento Community Edition, Magento Enterprise Edition and Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition. Magento Community Edition is free and by adding new plug-in modules, developers can extend its functionality Magento Enterprise Edition and Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition are paid and the former of the two offers higher degree of functionality and support. Magento Enterprise Edition is designed primarily for large corporations at require technical support with installation, usage, configuration, and troubleshooting whereas Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition enables rapid deployment of fully customisable, secure and scalable web store fronts. Neither platform provides hosting options though.
  
  
• A nimble little platform, its strength lies in its flexibility! It’s a clever platform that allows for product customisation, payment options, or shipping and handling and smart delivery integrations. The merchant can manage and modify the store’s appearance, content and functionality from its administration interface. Magento also offers its merchants the option to access with a full set of reports regarding the status of the online store. And especially for merchants in multiple regions, countries and languages, there is the option to offer store management in different languages under the same installation process.
  
  
• Magento can handle multiple requests simultaneously by taking advantage of multiple servers’ configuration in a cluster environment. So in simple terms, this means better eCommerce store performance simply by encouraging the growth of the number of nodes!
  
  
• Since its inception in 2008, Magento has witnessed more than 500,000+ downloads.
• So strong has been the hold of Magento that it was a far more searched term in Google, than even the word eCommerce itself!
  
  
• Magento is used by 26% of the top 1 million websites with over 6500 Extensions with over 400 solution partners and third-party developers globally. No wonder Magento the most popular eCommerce platform, holding a 31% market share.
  
  
  

So what’s next? Naturally it’s Magento 2.0!

The Bigger and better next generation Open Source Digital Commerce platform available from the 18th of November 2015 as announced at the Magento Live Conference is arguably the future for Ecommerce.


And here are some facts about the almighty Magento 2.0

• The new Magento Connect, (the Magento extensions marketplace) for Magento 2.0 will only allow certified extensions to be available for download/purchase.
  
  
• Developers will be able to test their code more frequently and easily with the integrated unit testing tool thus streamlining the customisations process for frontend templates coding with backend customization.
  
  

• Magento 2.0 will allow merchants to improve their page loading speed massively which is absolutely essential for eCommerce stores to avoid user abandonment. Thanks to the new easy to configure built-in Varnish Caching support.
  
  
• Merchants can enjoy better performance with Improved Restful API as well as built-in SOLR Search Engine and the Indexing Speed h that have been optimised.
  
  
• Magento 2.0 supports up to 3.5M page views/hr, supports up to 250K orders/hr and supports 1.5 m product catalogue size
• Magento 2.0 reduces the checkout process from 5 steps to now 2, and PayPal is now a native integration.
  
  

About Us - Websites ‘N’ More is a Sydney based Web development Company with a team of dedicated Magento developers on board who have a deep understanding of the Magento core. If you are looking to develop an eCommerce store based on the Magento platform, be sure to get in touch with us.