If you are looking for an easy to use yet loaded with features web application to power your online store, you should definitely put OpenCart on the top of the list of software to investigate. OpenCart is a open source application that allows you to create your own online store, and it is suitable to sell goods (including digital products) for any business around the world.

Before I was introduced to OpenCart, I tried to find a suitable plugin for WordPress. Since I have been using WordPress for more than 6 years, it only made sense to try to find a plugin that would allow me to turn a WordPress installation into an online store. There are some outstanding shopping cart plugins for WordPress, by the way. However, as much as I love WordPress, I was a somewhat disappointed, mostly by it’s clumsiness  when it comes to implementing SSL certificates for WordPress.

When looking for e-commerce solution, certain criteria were extremely important to me, therefore I will base my recommendations  on these criteria – OpenCart satisfied all of them:

Easy to Install And Use…

If you have ever managed to manually install WordPres, OpenCart installation is as simple and easy. OpenCart official website also provides detailed documentation including installation instructions. Before installing OpenCart however, I would suggest you to take a free tour of both front end and the admin area of OpenCart- while this demo does not give you full privileges in the admin area, it will give you a good general idea how the software works.

Once you decide to install it on your server, it should not take more than 5 to finish the installation (minus the time needed to upload the files to your server and to set up the database).

No need to install every single version update….

The most annoying part of e-commerce plugins for WordPress that I have tried was that not every developer stayed on top of the most recent versions of WordPress. In some cases it took months before plugins were upgraded, often just in time for the latest version of WordPress to be released.

OpenCart does not rely any other application to function properly. Since I began to use it, each version of OpenCart comes with improved functionality. However your old version is likely to work just fine. You are not forced to upgrade to the most recent version if you do not want to.

Responsive Community…

Since not every web hosting provider is made equal, there might be times when you need to troubleshoot issues with OpenCart. If you are planing to use it, you might as well become a member of OpenCart Community Forums. Many times my questions were answered in the matter of minutes by the members of the forum. Often the developers themselves would answer my questions or direct me to a correct answer.

Availability of Modules and Addons…

Functionality and performance of WordPress can be improved by different plugins. This also true about OpenCart. While I personally think OpenCart presents itself quite nicely “out of the box”, there might be times you need it to do something it can’t in the out of the box state. You can find number of addons and extentions for OpenCart on their website. There are also developers (The Qphoric Domain being my favorite) from whom you can purchase other modules that can enhance your OpenCart store.

Does it work…

And by work I meant does is it really capable of selling products. Before installing OpenCart for a friend of mine to power her online store, we tried eShop plugin for WordPress for about a year. OpenCart however was able to produce the same amount of sales just in one month! To me it was one of the most reassuring factors.

Does OpenCart have any drawbacks?

The only drawback that I can think of is that OpenCart does not currently offer a way to manage an affiliate program without a third party software.  I do believe that affiliate management extension or addon will help OpenCart to “explode” in popularity. There is a sing that OpenCart will have affiliate feature in the future- the latest version 1.4.7 already includes an extension called “Affiliate” (which appears to be “work in progress”), however it is not configurable at this time, so we have to wait an see. If you need to integrate affiliate management software into your OpenCart website right away, Post Affiliate Pro seems to offer a solution.

If you have a store powered by OpenCart, please share your experiences, success stories or disappointments (if any) in the comments bellow.

This post is so long overdue! To begin, I would like to thank Shawn Collins, and the entire team of Affiliate Summit. In the past I have hoped to attend this great conference however things were getting on the way- from health issues to a law suit, something seamed to always stand on the way. This year was no different, I had no plans to attend the Summit because I could not budget for it. After canceling my attendance in the past- it id not feel right to ask for a “press pass” again. I am however easy to persuade, if you don’t believe me – ask Shawn. So thank you guys!

Going there as an affiliate, coming back as an affiliate manager…

I wish to be able to to last through half of all the sessions at Affiliate Summit TrishaLyn is planing to attend, still I can hardly wait for August to be here!

Last two years I have been helping a dear friend of mine, and the owner of The Chocolate Belles, in Brick, NJ. Not only have we launched a successful online store, we are also just few months (I hope) away before launching an affiliate program.

The Chocolate Belles is a candy making and cake decorating supply store. In addition to selling hundreds of candy making and cake decorating tools they also make custom cakes and offer class decorating classes. They teach anything from making chocolate cowered strawberries to decorating elegant fondant cakes:

On one hand it is very easy to work with well established and very successful business. However, an affiliate program will be the next HUGE step for both, myself and The Chocolate Belles. If you plan to attend the Affiliate Summit, and have experience in managing affiliate programs, I would absolutely love to hear from you and to meet with you at the Summit. Feel free to drop me a line or two so we can plan.

I am fortunate enough to live in a state (New Jersey) where the lawmakers have not attempted to explore the ways to hurt affiliates. But I am not holding my breath. In fact I am a little surprised New Jersey did not follow our neighbors to the East, the New York State.

I admit that I know very little about the issue and still am trying to educate myself more should the time come for NJ affiliates to take a stand. If you are in the same shoes as I am, I highly recommend Geno Prussakov’s interview with Jen Goode of JGoode Designs about Colorado Internet Sales Tax.

Here is what Jenn says affiliates can do to have a better chance fighting the “Internet Sales Tax Laws” in the future:

• Educate your merchants. Let them know that the Colorado [Instead of Colorado insert the state you live in] internet tax does not apply to affiliates nor nexus.
• Get to know your legislators so you can educate them on the way this industry works, most really have no comprehension of the enormity of this industry let alone how it all works.
• Build relationships within the industry so that when issues like this arise, you’re not alone trying to figure out what to do next.

It is amazing what Colorado affiliates managed to accomplish and we should follow their example in the fight in our won respected states.

It has been some time now since Commission Junction introduced a platform called “CJ Pay Per Call” – you probably see it every time you login into your publisher account.

I have signed up for the pay per call deals but have done much with it until last night. One of my big disappointments is how few merchants are participating or take advantage of this new product.

So how does pay per call works? In a few words, a merchant offers you creative to use with an 800 number assigned to them (just like the one you see for eFax to the right). When a potential client calls that specific 800 number you are credited ones required time elapsed. This creative can be clicked on and the clicks are tracked (as far as I know) via your regular CJ publisher account.

As I mentioned above the limited number of participating merchants is not encouraging so I don’t plan to sepnd much time or money promoting these offers. What about you? Have you been successful with CJ’s pay per call?

Last night as I was reading through my Facebook news feed I came across a video from Shawn Collins, the founder of Affiliate Summit:

The above video got me thinking…. Is Shawn leaving a lot of money on the table? So I was thinking and then a moment of enlightenment came- if Shawn does not want to do paid reviews I will. Heck, I have done them in the past (more about that in the future)!

So I am extremely excited to announce

Now I know some of you maybe thinking that I’ve lost my mind. But do not jump to conclusions yet! Did you notice my secret weapon??? Yep. The newest innovation in the SEO industry- once you get a link with that attribute (“tripplefollow”), your site will appear not in the first, second or third place in the search results of all major search engines but above their Logos!!! No one attempted this ever before, and while I am still in beta with this new attribute I can tell you prospects are incredible!

I am also thinking of implementing an affiliate program. I am still working out details, but I am pretty sure to have one of the highest commission in the industry starting at 99% (or $14,850.00) per review sold. How about that for an affiliate program?

In the upcoming days I will be revealing more details- so keep an eye on my blog! But if you have an idea of how I can make this even better, go ahead leave a comment.