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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

Export ZenCart products, Import Magento products Part 2

Once your products are in Magento you will probably want to change settings.

For example all my products had a quantity of 0 and were not visible or included in searches. To get started quickly I want to change everything to in stock and display the items in the search and catalogue.

Once again we can do this by exporting and importing a file rather than go through everything individually.

Change 1 item to the way you want it by editing the first product on the page.

Catalogue>Manage products>Edit a product.

For one product I changed the following in the product edit from the menu on the right hand side:

General: Status to Enabled, Visibility to Catalogue, Search

Prices: Tax Class

Inventory:  Quantity, In stock yes.

These are the basics but your item will still not show in Magento. You need to assign the product to your website, or store view even if you only have 1 website/view. This is by using the catalogue, products menu, ticking the box by the product and updating attributes then using the websites option.

I found a detailed explanation of it here: how to display products in Magento and assign products to a store view. They also show a video on where to click if you are not sure what to do.

This is another example of the strange quirks of Magento and how user unfriendly it is. Now we know how to do it and have a product in better shape, lets export the file.

System> Import/Export Profiles>Export All Products>Run Profile

The file is found on the server var/export.

The first product should now have all the values in the columns set up correctly so its simple a case of copy and pasting those values in excel.

My changes to copy and paste down the columns are :

B websites

T status, U tax_class_id, V is_recurring, W visibilty, X eenable_googlecheckout

As these are helpfully together in one block we can copy the whole row from T to X and paste is downwards. I changed all mine to:

Enabled Taxable Goods No Catalog, Search Yes

I have also taken this opportunity to once again paste the stock quantity in from the Zencart file. Ensure the is_in_stock column is all set to 1.

Save the file then re-import it as shown in previously in part 1 importing products to Magento from Zencart.

Products should now be in stock, enblesd, searchalble and showing on your site.

Next I shall be making categories and assigning products to categories using the same export/edit/import method.

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 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.

Get Serious About SEO: 3 Meta Descriptions in ZenCart

Previously I briefly covered the basics of meta descriptions. Here I focus specifically on Zen Cart and how it can help you.

I haven’t manually assigned meta descriptions and keywords for each product, that is too time consuming, but I have for product categories. Google picked up those changes very quickly so it it absolutely worth doing.

In your categories menu you will see, on the right hand side, something like this:

The orange symbol shows the tag has been manually configured, the black shows it is on automatic. Doing it manually is so much better and from the example above there is one category to configure so lets do that now.

There are 3 boxes to complete: the first is a customised title for the page which should reflect its content. The second is for keywords which should reflect the products within that category (or subcategories if you use them). The third box is for the meta description.

This is what could be displayed when people search for a particular key word. If your keywords and content match up to a users search term then the meta description may be shown in the search engine results, otherwise only the page title will show.

Maximum characters displayed (by Google) in a meta description is 150 so don’t go over this.

My previous post offers ideas on what makes a good meta description.

It is too important to leave to Zencart to auto display. Ensure for each category and sub category you manually configure your (meta) title, keywords and description. It is so worthwhile.

Update: Don’t forget /includes/languages/english/YOUR TEMPLATE/meta_tags.php

and then add a line for each of your EZ-pages

  • define(‘META_TAG_DESCRIPTION_EZPAGE_2′,’your description here’);
  • define(‘META_TAG_DESCRIPTION_EZPAGE_3′,’your description here’);

and so forth for the title, description and keywords for each EZ-page you are using. Google loves it.

NB: When editing meta titles, descriptions and keywords for your categories or pages all 3 fields must be filled in otherwise the meta fields are not complete and will be ignored.

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