General Requirements for E-Commerce

This section gives a very brief overview of the requirements for e-commerce. However, it is important to understand that all of these are not necessarily required for all levels of e-commerce. Requirements widely vary with different kinds of e-commerce activities.

Telecommunication Infrastructure Requirements
This mostly entails bandwidth and security. The requirement for bandwidth varies widely from one e-commerce activity to another making it hard to generalize. Bandwidth usually becomes crucial for service-based B2B e-commerce as opposed to product-based one and high-traffic B2C e-commerce as opposed to low-traffic one. Two main components of security requirements for e-commerce are type of firewall and encryption/algorithm mechanism. This also varies widely from one e-commerce activity to the other. Ranging from protection against unwanted disclosure of client information to guarantee of reliable electronic payment. Security requirements are a crucial part of e-commerce.

Hardware Requirements for E-commerce
Hardware requirements for high-traffic sites may be dependent on the following issues: number of transactions per second; number of hits per second; number of queries per second; number of queries done by RDBMS per second; number of pages served per second involving all of the above parameters. Some other factors that need to be considered when setting up a high traffic e-commerce site include clustering i.e. use of backup servers which automatically takes over operations in case of failure of primary ones. Low-traffic sites can be easily served from a single machine depending on the needs of the business. Pentium II/III based Intel server running Linux can serve hundreds of unique customers each day.

Software Requirements for E-commerce
several software are available free on the Internet that can be used to build e-commerce exchanges. Some examples are Apache Web Server, Apache-Jserv Servlet Engine, Linux Operating System, mySQL database, postgresql etc. Many of these open source software may not be adequate for high-traffic sites.

Technical Skill Requirements
A systems administrator must have a good knowledge of computer hardware, must be able to maintain and upgrade hardware including hard drive, processor and motherboard. He/she must also have the skill to install and compile Apache, mySQL and Java servlet engine. A developer needs to be a high level programmer with a few years of experience in the industry and must possess a clear understanding of how an e-commerce system works. Understanding how information flows from one end of the system to another and what modifications take place in between is essential. Specific required skills include programming skills in C, PHP and Java and knowledge on SQL programming and data architecture

Financial Infrastructure
Payment procedures are the ways in which a seller can receive payment in return for the goods or services sold. Access to these services depends on the banking infrastructure in location of selling and customers’ locations. For full-fledged e-commerce transaction the banking infrastructure requirements should be as follows:
Dependable telecommunication network
Use of integrated banking software for back office and front office data processing
Use of WAN and Internet for banking operations
Availability of Electronic fund transfer System
Availability of Electronic Clearing System
Availability of Public Key based Encryption System
Availability of Credit Card System both for local and international payment
Availability of Foreign Exchange Remittance Mechanism over the Internet
Availability of Legal Infrastructure supporting online payment mechanism Interim Solution:

If local telecommunication services in a country do not allow for direct connection of a web site to secure payment facilities, and in particular to those offered by credit card companies, it may be possible to host a web site in a neighboring location that is capable of providing the necessary financial connections.

Legal and Policy Framework
In general, policies that ensure legal certainty, security and consumer protection for online transactions and interactions should be enacted. These include the resolution of issues such as transactional security, electronic contract enforceability and the authentication of individuals and documentation. The development of such an enabling environment has involved a joint focus of government and private sectors on: an efficient and sound financial system (including online payments, the use of electronic currency and foreign exchange liberalization), an efficient, inexpensive and reliable telecommunication system (including to long-distance market, competitive local exchange carriers, and high speed lines),legal mechanisms for the enforcement of contract law, consumer protection and defense of intellectual property rights, an efficient tax administration, and swift, transparent, and reliable customs operations. The following factors, often influenced by national policy, should be considered: Perceived political risk, Predictability of the legal environment, Soundness of economic and monetary policy, Openness to foreign direct investment, Convertibility of local currency, Restrictions on capital flows, Credit card usage, Credit card processing protocols, Access to credit, Entrepreneurial culture, Access to startup capital, Regulations and restrictions on small business.

WordPress and starting your own Ecommerce Store

WordPress is widely accepted theme based CMS platform for many years. Day by day new upgraded versions makes WordPress better than before. WordPress is fully flexible to adopt plugins and themes. One can create a very good website of any kind with the help of wordpress. This is time of Ecommerce boom. Every day new online stores of different kinds are launched on the Internet. Now Can WordPress is good CMS platform to use as a Online Store…?? There are other Ecommerce based CMS are also available in Market like Magento.

WordPress cut throat competition is with Magento for building a fully functional Ecommerce site. WordPress plugins and themes to their Ecommerce website functioning well, but these plugins and the key issues could be a trouble for you while you are advancement with the WordPress installation. It is good if your themes and plug-in installed should compatible with the updated version. If you can choose a WordPress theme that is very responsive and mobile friendly website for e-commerce areas, such as auto-side and exit, there is a excellent opportunity that you will enjoy this rising segment -Shopper in line and sell more products.

However, e-commerce actual exchange rates are much lower for shoppers visiting stores on a smartphone. One way to see this is that there are buyers, the use of wireless devices, but for some reason not as many, buying items that add that their desktop counterparts in the basket. Ecommerce store should be easily flexible to add delete products frequently. Other transactions should be carried out smoothly. Durable to handle heavy traffics should easily upgraded without damage of data or information. For any Ecommerce store, frequently changes in home page, data, information is daily process so your Ecommerce site should be easily adopt these changes. With wordpress you can do all the above mentioned things. There are many wordpress plugins and themes are available in market which help to build a better Ecommerce store online.

SoloStream WordPress Themes has a number of beautiful and functional online stores themes to create good Ecommerce store. These themes are create to easily adopt with WooCommerce, easy digital downloads and other accessories e-commerce.

Adding to WordPress platform there are few plugins and top themes that ads the validation of ecommerce into the WordPress. There is WooCommerce for eCommerce, JS Composer for Writing, BBPress for Forums, and many plugins that are existing into the market are the ones that help to be the most favorite Open Source among the others.

So what are you waiting for..?? Go for better WordPress Ecommerce Theme and start your Ecommerce Store.

Ecommerce with Word-Press Theme

WordPress has started its journey as a blogging platform, but now it’s being used as a robust solution for building eCommerce sites. The powerful plug-in architecture of WordPress makes it possible for anyone to transform an ordinary site into a fully-fledged digital shop. So in case you’d rather build it with good old WordPress instead of using dedicated shopping cart software, read on!

What to Look in a WordPress eCommerce Plugin for Your Site?

There are plenty of WordPress eCommerce plugins in the market. But not all of them have the essential set of features you would need to start your eCommerce site.

Some eCommerce plugins are good for selling digital goods like eBooks, photos, music, etc. While others are better suited for selling physical goods that need shipping and inventory management. There are also eCommerce plugins that are good at both of them.

You need to choose a plugin depending on what you will be selling and what kind of features you would need to efficiently run your online store.

Next, you need to consider which payment gateways you will utilize to accept payments. Make sure that the plugin you choose supports those payment gateways by default or through addons.

Your eCommerce plugin will not come with a theme. You would need to see that the plugin you choose has themes that work with the plugin.

If you’re also planning to build an eCommerce site with WordPress, you may get confused which eCommerce plug-in fits your needs best. To help you choose best among the rest, I’ve researched and made a list of 7 best WordPress eCommerce plug-ins. All these plug-ins are absolutely free to use and perfect for creating any kind of profitable WordPress e-store.

1. Woo Commerce

WooCommerce, built by talented folks at WooThemes, is probably the most popular and widely used free eCommerce plug-in for WordPress Packed full of top-of-the-line features, this powerful and highly extendable plug-in empowers you to turn your WordPress site into a multi-million dollar eCommerce store. One of the best things about WooCommerce is its golden collection of free and paid themes and extensions, using which you can tailor your online shop to meet your specific needs.

2. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is a lightweight, feature-rich and simple to setup eCommerce solution for selling digital downloads via WordPress at no cost. Rather than including a lot of useless features like other plug-ins, Easy Digital Downloads has kept selling digital goods simple and streamlined by providing only most useful features. It ships with a powerful reporting system that enables you to see all of your earnings and sales through interactive graphs and easy to analyze data tables. You may also want to read my full Easy Digital Downloads review.

3. WP ecommerce

WP e-Commerce is another simple to use yet powerful WordPress eCommerce plug-in that has been around for last several years. Written by Justin Sainton, Dan Milward and Gary Cao, WP eCommerce allows you to customize HTML and CSS, so you could have full control over the look and feel of your eStore. Whether you sell physical inventory, digital downloads, memberships or subscriptions, this amazing plug-in has made selling an absolute breeze.

4. Ecwid

Ecwid makes strides in the market by catering to companies that don’t want to start a brand new site. The primary feature is that you can take your old site and quickly integrate the Ecwid system within a few minutes. You can also mirror the system onto various other sites if you plan on selling elsewhere online. Manage all of these sites from one place instead of switching between multiple dashboards. Another nice feature is the syncing between multiple devices. Sell on-the-go with your smart phone. This means that you can go to a tradeshow to make a few sales and all of these sales are reflected on the backend of your website.

5. Jigoshop

Jigoshop is a reliable, secure and robust WordPress eCommerce plug-in from Jigowatt, a UK based web design agency. Best suited for SMEs, Jigoshop features an intuitive dashboard through which you’ll have the ability to setup and manage your web store in minutes. You can choose from 30+ fully fledged and highly customizable themes that are suitable for building any kind of online store. Plus there are over one hundreds of powerful extensions offered to take your eStore to the next level. Check out my full Jigoshop review as well.

6. Market Press3

MarketPress, prudently written by experienced WordPress developers at WPMU DEV, is a well designed, easily customizable and feature-rich eCommerce plug-in. The main motive behind the development of this fabulous plug-in is delivering users a simple, beautiful and enjoyable shopping cart experience without any add-on or extension. Thus, MarketPress is a WPMU DEV’s effort of putting together the powers of different plug-ins into one single standalone eCommerce solution.

7. iThemes Exchange

iThemes Exchange is a simple, intuitive and extremely extendable WordPress eCommerce plug-in developed by i-Themes. Having a user-friendly interface, it makes product creation process relatively easier. Unlike other plug-ins that create their own database tables for customers, Exchange takes advantage of built-in WordPress user system for adding customer information to its own page. So that you could easily manage customers by viewing available downloads and products purchased, editing transactions and adding notes to customer information.

8. Cart66 Lite

Cart66 Lite, formerly known as PHPurchase, is a lightweight, secure and highly efficient e-commerce solution for creating any kind of “PCI compliant” WordPress store. It makes use of Mijireh Checkout to securely collect and transmit credit card information to your favorite payment gateway. What’s interesting, it also perfectly integrates with Amazon S3 to let you sell digital products without any hassle. Unlike other eCommerce plug-ins, Cart66 Lite is easy to use yet powerful.

Thinking Outside the Box: Creative Uses for WordPress

WordPress is an inexpensive, easy to use website building option used by millions of people around the world. There are a number of uses that users have found for WordPress, some more traditional and some unexpected.

Connect Remote Workers

In the digital age, a company is no longer defined by one building or a collection of physical branches. The global marketplace and the advancement of technology has made working remotely from home more an more common. Without a single, central physical location, companies have a need for solutions to connect remote employees, communicate, collaborate and upload work. A good, quality WordPress theme can help companies build a “social media” site for their employees. Employees can use the site to communicate, post journals with project ideas, collaborate on projects, and post finished work.

Wiki Site

Want to share information about a topic? Want to show off your knowledge of your favorite games franchise, TV series, or book series? Some WordPress themes and plugins allow you to turn your WordPress site into a wiki with pages for different aspects of your chosen topic. You can control who can share information on the wiki site.

Donation Hub

Do you run a non-profit or charitable organization? You can use WordPress as a hub for donations. Donors can look at your WordPress site to find information about your charity or organization. They can then make a donation and see their name displayed on a list of donors to thank. You can also display graphics to indicate desired donation level and how much of the level has been reached.

Portfolio

Are you an artist, musician, or designer? You can use WordPress to create a portfolio of your work. You can display a bio indicating your background and past accomplishments. You can also post examples of your work for potential customers. Some themes will allow you to have contact methods for customers to make custom orders from you through your portfolio website.

Ecommerce

You can also create a WordPress site dedicated to selling items. You can display works you have currently for sale and give customers a way to order them. You can also link your shop website to a portfolio website and link your portfolio to a shop.

Review Website

You can use WordPress as a place where users can post reviews of items and services. You can dedicate your site to one single topic like reviews of restaurants or set up a review hub that branches off to review pages for different topics like games or movies. You can also set up a blog style review page where you give your own impressions of items or media either alone or with a team of reviewers.

Photoblog

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. You can blog about important events in your life or topics and events you find relevant through posting a series of photos with brief captions that express the message you want to convey. There are a number of catchy, attractive WordPress themes for setting up a memorable photoblog.

This WP Business Template Converts And You Won’t Want to Miss It

“Do I need a WP business template and website?” That’s the big question. It simply depends on your answer to this, do you want to build presence online, gain traffic and convert for your business? If “Yes” is your answer, you need a website.

No matter how small or large your business is, coping up in today’s digital age, keeping business afloat and leading it to success makes a website important. It does not mean you have to sell all your products or services online, as you can also do it offline. But getting a WP business template and having your site up and running will make things better for you. (more…)

Premium WordPress Themes for Travel Agencies

Travel sites have unique needs like scheduling calendars, maps, pricing options, video capability and filtering systems. Not all website templates have the functionality to pull off a high class, easy to use travel website. Fortunately, WordPress is the perfect solution to create a truly magnificent travel website. With free and premium WordPress themes for travel agencies designed specially for the travel industry WordPress themes offer the flexibility, functionality and reliability demanded by travel professionals.

Knowing Your Needs

Every travel site has unique requirements. Finding the perfect premium WordPress themes for travel agencies depends on understanding what functionality you require. For instance, maybe you blog about travel but do not book travel. The requirements for a blogging travel site will be less demanding than those for a travel site that needs a fully functional booking system. Both types of sites may want video capability but not all requirements will be the same. There may be many themes that work for your type of site, so choosing a theme will come down to the functionality and the detailing of the site you want to create.

It helps to look at your site through the eyes of your customers. As a customer what do you want to be able to see and do when you get to the website?

Make a list of all the things your site needs to be able to deliver to the visitor or customer and then begin researching premium WordPress travel themes to see which themes are most visually appealing to you and have the capabilities you need for your site.

Support and Updates

One of the most important considerations when picking a theme comes down to the support and availability of regular updates and versions. Pick a theme developer or provider that has a solid history of providing outstanding technical support and guarantees lifelong updates and new versions that will be compatible with new versions of WordPress and new browser requirements. You do not want to be stuck with a theme that becomes incompatible. Also check to make certain the theme comes with explicit documentation so you can see if it will be easy to customize and maintain without the need to use coding or with a minimal knowledge of simple coding.

Features and Functionality

Some of the features and functionality most travel specific themes offer include:

Responsive themes that adjust and look good in any device
Cross platform compatibility with all browsers
Video capability
Filtering systems
Booking systems
Easy customization
Multiple header styles and sliders
Pricing module
Categorization
Maps
Contact forms
Color options
Custom post types
Option to upload your own background and logo
Social sharing and network integration
Calendar
Testimonials module
Search tools

Additional Considerations

If you are doing a lot of blogging or including a lot of photos, video or audio testimonials you will want to make sure the theme you choose has video and audio capability as well as the option to include one or more photo galleries. You may also want the ability for customers and visitors to be able to comment on your posts or rate accommodations. Make sure all of these things get captured in your list of requirements.

Responsive eCommerce WordPress Themes

Over the past several years several ecommerce plugins have been developed for WordPress making it a reliable, full-featured, powerful ecommerce solution. With the development of these ecommerce plugins there has also been a great deal of time by many providers to create premium responsive ecommerce WordPress themes.

Before talking about specific responsive eCommerce themes we will look at the different ecommerce pluginsavailable for WordPress.

What Choices Do I have for eCommerce plugins?

By and large, most WordPress eCommerce themes use the WooCommerce free plugin to provide ecommerce functionality but there are others available including Jigoshop and WP eCommerce.

Responsive Design

Shopping has moved from brick and mortar stores to the internet and now to mobile devices. This means your site needs to be optimized for mobile devices and that translates into a WordPress theme that offers a responsive design that adapts, looks good and functions properly on any type of device. No one wants to lose a customer because the site functions poorly. This should be a high priority when choosing an eCommerce WordPress theme. When customers visit your site eCommerce WordPress themes with responsive design deliver the best possible shopping experience regardless of screen size, the resolution or the type of device they are using to view your site.

Choosing an eCommerce WordPress Theme

When you start to search for an eCommerce theme the first filter should be responsive design to narrow down the list of possibilities. Next, focus on your niche. There is no shortage of eCommerce WordPress themes. Some are targeted for traditional online shopping and other eCommerce themes are designed for a specific niche like music, art or travel.

Identify the types of transactions and functionality your site will need. For example, you may need a calendar function or audio and video functionality if you are in the music niche in addition to your eCommerce online shop. Are you selling one item or multiple items? What type of pricing structure will you need? These are all important questions to think about when selecting an eCommerce theme. Not all themes offer the same functionality so know what you need before you fall in love with a theme that may not work for your situation. When you have a list of the functionality your site requires then you can begin researching the themes that best support your needs.

Support and Updates

When implementing a site that has a store, it is really critical that you choose a theme that offers ongoing, full support and regular updates. You want a provider that keeps their themes up to date and compatible with the latest versions of WordPress and the latest releases of various web browsers so your theme does not become obsolete. Always look for themes that have guaranteed lifelong support and free updates as well as newer versions. Check to make certain the theme also comes with explicit documentation that you can easily understand so you can manage your theme properly. If you are not a developer or have little experience coding make sure the theme is highly customizable from the admin panel.

If you follow these suggestions you will find many high quality eCommerce themes with responsive design that will make your site not only visually stunning but easy and pleasant to use for your customers.

Fully Customizable WordPress Themes

Nothing beats fully customizable WordPress themes. When you have a site that needs to get completed quickly, on-time, and on-budget, then you will need to work with the fully customizable WordPress themes line to ensure that you have the amazing capability to re-work your site in a myriad of ways.

What makes up the line of fully customizable WordPress themes?

To be honest, the more dynamic the better when it comes to fully customizable WordPress themes. For instance, consider all the people in your high school class, and imagine if they all wanted to develop their own website. Now imagine how many themes you would need to fit all their tastes and interests! Don’t worry, we have you covered in your comprehensive, fully customizable WordPress themes, so that you, your class-mates, your business associates, your sports team, and church group can all have their own website using a unique theme! The days of calling each other copy-cats is now over with our premium line of fully customizable WordPress themes.

So What Else Makes Up The Fully Customizable WordPress Themes:

*Flexible Widget Options
*Flexible Category Layout
*Adjustable Style Sheets
*Short Code Boosters
*Image and Media Libraries
*Video Players
*Music Players
*Games
*Twitter Feeds
*Facebook Posts
*Multiple Fonts
*Tons of Colors
*Choose Your Site

Premium WordPress Magazine Themes

It seems like more and more online magazines are making their way to the front pages of the internet as more and more interesting stories and news items come into play. One of the best things about the ability to be a publisher is through the use of premium WordPress magazine themes. Since many people start out with a blog and then progress from a blog writer to a larger, more professional writer, the use of premium WordPress magazine themes has been on the rise.

Getting your hands on some premium WordPress magazine themes can be quite technical, but there are also some premium WordPress magazine themes that are simple, yet effective. Take a look at our Critique Theme:

One of the most “magazine-y” features of this theme is the top menu and sub-menu items that clearly direct the viewer to specific topic so as to prevent miscommunication. This makes it great for people who just like reading one section of the magazine, and gives them a direct URL.

One of the first things you need to do when getting ready to launch your premium WordPress magazine themes is come up with a basic design element before-hand so you can populate your theme once you have it selected. This may be as easy as jotting down some menu items that you would like to cover in your magazine, just so you are a little more prepared when it comes to getting your site launched. So why wait around? Get hosted with us, and you will get all the themes as part of the package, and you will have plenty of premium WordPress magazine themes to get your new page up and running.

SEO Optimized WordPress Themes

Are you looking to add some exposure to your webpage? Or would you like to learn a little more about the concept behind SEO, or Search Engine Optimization? If so, then continue reading as I will tell you some of the ways you can enhance your site through SEO Optimized WordPress Themes. This can be achieved by either downloading the WordPress Plugin by Yoast, which is an SEO enhancer, Using the Keyword Research Tool, or getting an excellent writer to provide well organized and thoughtful material that uses repetition to get a point across.

Before we dig any deeper into SEO Optimized WordPress Themes, let’s take a look at the Yoast interface:

SEO Optimized WordPress Themes

After you have installed the Yoast Plugin, you will have a much better idea of how your posts score on a range of factors that determine their quality of optimization. The trick is to find the right combination of repetition in your diction, as to draw the search engines to index your site, thus providing a greater level of visibility to the particular “keywords” that you are optimizing for.

SEO Optimized WordPress Themes

So now that you have the SEO plugin installed, you will be well on your way to getting better SEO Optimized WordPress Themes since you will be able to see how your post scores on the SEO checker that is located near the Publish button. This is a great way to get your site more prepared, and better optimized for search engine indexing.