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Export ZenCart products, Import Magento products: Summary

Here is a summary of the CSV file downloaded from ZenCart, edited then uploaded to Magento.

If you are new to Magento you may wish to read first my previous posts on importing basic products into Magento from ZenCart, configuring the Magento CSV file and importing categories and images.

Overview:

Creating a Magento product CSV from a ZenCart file is straightforward and easy.

I open a sample Magento file and then copy and paste the Zen-cart columns, deleting the column when it is copied over to keep track.

Then simply bulk copy and paste the remaining Magento specific rows – it only takes about 4 copy and pastes. Change the image details then sort out the categories. Upload and done.

Magento Headings    Information Required               ZenCart Equivalent

store                            default: admin

websites                    name of every website using this product

eg myweb1, myweb 2 (comma separated)

attribute                    Default

type                             simple

category_ids           the number of the category     v_categories_name_2

simply find and replace to convert them

sku                               model number/stock code       v_products_model

has_options             0

name                            product name                          v_products_name_1

meta_title  meta_description   url_key url_path page_layout options_container

I leave all these blank although you could copy and paste them from your ZenCart database if you wanted.

gift_message_available  default: Use config

price                            cost for buyers                                    v_products_price

special_price  /  cost    I leave these 2 blank

weight                         weight for shipping purposes  v_products_weight

status                          Enabled           ensure this is set for all products else they do not show

tax_class_id            Taxable Goods

is_recurring             No

visibility                   Catalog, Search

enable_googlecheckout           set all to Yes or No if you want to use Google checkout

description              product description                 v_products_description_1

short_description     either copy in description again or leave blank (I leave it blank)

meta_keyword custom_layout_update  special_from_date   special_to_date news_from_date news_to_date            custom_design_from  custom_design_to

I leave all these blank

qty                              number in stock                       v_products_quantity

The following depend on your set up. Most will be 0 or 1. Below is mine:

min_qty                    0

use_config               1

is_qty_decimal       0

backorders              0

use_config_backorders           1

min_sale_qty         1

use_config_min_sale_qty       1

max_sale_qty        0

use_config_max_sale_qty       1

is_in_stock              1

low_stock_date     ( I leave this blank)

notify_stock_qty     0

use_config_             1

manage_stock        0

use_config_manage_stock      1

stock_status_changed_automatically 0

use_config_qty_increments    1

qty_increments     0

use_config_enable_qty_increments    1

enable_qty_increments           0

product_name             I don’t know why this appears again copy  and paste column H name

store_id                     1

product_type_id   simple

product_status_changed         I leave this blank

product_changed_websites    I leave this blank

image                          /image.jpg        v_products_image

Use the image name with the / and ensure jpg is lower case.  If you have directoryname/image.jpg then simply find and replace all directoryname/ with / to leave /image.jpg

Copy all the image files to /media/import and ensure permission on the files is 777.

small_image            copy and paste column from image

thumbnail                 copy and paste column from image

Moving to Magento

Your competitor has a new website with a modern, individual look and many useful functions. You have an open source 2 or 3 column standard layout that looks like any other shopping site available and offers only basis functions  Which website is a customer going to browse?

While osCommerce and ZenCart are not difficult to use or to understand how they work, are they rather dated and unable to do what customers require of a modern shopping website? I think its time to move on and I have chosen Magento.

It is a challenge. Magento works very differently and offers many more functions  with more ways to customise than either ZenCart or osCommerce could hope to offer. The downside? It’s complicated.

Rather than go live, I have installed it at home on my own server in order to test and understand how to manage the front and admin side.

My aim: to run 3 websites using one installation of Magento with one database, offering a selection of products through sites that look and feel different.

I am starting with the free 1.4.1 version and I’ll keep you updated on how i get on. Hopefully if you are a Magento beginner like me it will help you too.

In addition, the importance of SEO cannot be emphasised enough for any website. As well as marketing and promoting your online store, your cart software has to have great SEO compatibility and I think Magento is over and above ZenCart and OsCommerce.

Multiple Pages and Website Optimiser In ZenCart Part2

Google Optimiser gives  a piece of code to insert at the beginning and end of the original ez-page and another piece of code at the end of the 2nd alternative ez-page. This can be easily copy and pasted using the ZenCart admin.

Now for the tricky part.

Having selected the add to shopping cart stage as the ‘measurement of success’ page i placed the tracking code in /includes/templates/YOURTEMPLATE/template/tpl_shopping_cart_default.php. This file will need to be copied from the template default and uploaded to the server in YOUR TEMPLATE folder.

This file has 2 functions: display the cart when an item is added and display the cart when it is empty. So, to measure page success when something is added to the cart, the Google code needs to go in the middle of the file before the ‘cart is empty’ function.

I inserted the code around line 174  in tpl_shopping_cart_default.php just after the shipping estimator section as shown below.

Once edited upload the file to your server and save an additional temporary copy to your desktop.

Validating the file.

Google will not be able to validate the performance success page so this needs to be done manually with the saved copy of tpl_shopping_cart_default.php as illustrated below.

Verify all the information in the optimiser and let your experiment begin.

It may need some tweaking but now the pages are in place I can edit the ez-page easily through ZenCart admin section as long as I don’t disturb the Google script allowing experimentation with the page content.

Multiple Pages and Website Optimiser in ZenCart Part1

Having braved google analytics, the bounce rate of an ez-page is high and I want to change it. But what to?

Well, by looking at how and why people visit a page and, from the overlay, where they click I can make assumptions at why there are there and now i want to meet their expectations.

But hold on. How will I know my new content will be an improvement? Why not offer multiple variations of the same ZenCart page and see which one is more successful?

Once you have a Google analytics account you can go directly to Google Website Optimiser and set up testing. I am using a simple A/B page to begin with.

One page is made in EZ pages and consists of the normal, but revamped, page. The other is again an ez-page but one that google will redirect to rather than publicly linked and clickable.

Having created two pages and selected a ‘results’ page (i used adding an item to the shopping cart as a result to measure page performance http://allgiftsdirect.co.uk/index.php?main_page=shopping_cart) it is time to add the tracking code. That stage is a little more tricky so I’ll cover it in part 2.

Zen Cart Error: A network error occurred loading an XSLT stylesheet

If you have upgraded to Zen Cart 1.3.9 and use the sitemap module to create a sitemapindex file then you may be getting the above error.

Fix:

  • Delete the old sitemap files from the root directory.

  • Edit the file includes\modules\pages\sitemapxml\header_php.php
  • Delete the line that reference sitemap css 119/120:

$tpl_dir = $template->get_template_dir(‘gss\.xsl’, DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base, ‘css’);
$zen_SiteMapXML->setStylesheet($tpl_dir . ‘/gss.xsl’);

Get Serious About SEO: 2 Word Length and Relevancy

Again it is basic but have you checked the length of your descriptions, meta descriptions, key words and their relevancy to your content?

Try this meta tag analyser and have a look at your own website.

In my own example, before working on it, word length is fine but word relevancy needs some work.

Get serious about SEO and do it.

In the next article I will talk meta descriptions in Zen Cart. I changed mine manually and Google noticed the improvement.

Zen Cart Error: Sorry, we are not shipping to your region at this time.

That old error from Zen Cart came back again.

I have recently moved the site and had to make the 2 changes in code for PayPal to send the correct country code to the shopping cart in order to calculate the shipping.

For those running 1.38a and do a fresh install here is a reminder of the changes:

Zen Cart forum fix for:

/includes/modules/payment/paypal/paypal_curl.php

and the zen cart fix for:

line 1825 in /includes/modules/payment/paypalwpp.php from

It was only over the course of a few hours since going live that this error was spotted and all is working well now. Once again apologies to anyone inconvenienced by this.

Tracking Down Problems in Zen Cart. Basic Troubleshooting.

Zen Cart

Zen Cart

Recently I decided to change the way categories are displayed on my gifts website and, with an FTP client, removed the files that run BetterCategories.

Unfortunately Zen Cart would only display a white blank page and return a 500 error. I knew the server was working as this blog and my images were being served correctly so it was obviously a problem with a file I had removed by mistake.

But which file?

Fortunately I discovered a handy troubleshooting file on the Zen Cart website. Following the instructions I discovered a missing file from Image Handler that prevented the website from working. I uploaded the file and now its back again. Phew!

Handy tip: When you use a Zen-cart mod save a copy of the mod in a directory on your PC. I have a folder called zencartmods so I know which modules I am using and can easily find any missing files.

Back to designing my christmas look.