You Are Going To Get Insight Of Content
OpenCart is an open-source online shopping platform. You can say it e-commerce business platform for online merchants. It helps you set up your own online store management system and earn effectively. We will tell you the easiest way to create an e-commerce website using OpenCart within less than 10 min.
There is more than 1000 company who is working in OpenCart Market to provide quality work. One name is OpenCart Modules from India.
It covers each part of the online e-commerce business. We are going to discuss OpenCart Features so you can get a better view of it and make a decision when choosing Open Source Software for your new e-commerce website They also provide a demo website where you can check live its website and have check what they provide
OpenCart DemoOpenCart History
Originally OpenCart was developed in 1998 by Christopher G. Mann for CDROM and later free BSD Mall. It came into action publically in May 1999. Further developed by Daniel Cerr and used as the basis for his own e-commerce software written in PHP.
After a long struggle and complication, it finally, release reliable and stable software onto Google in February 2009. (source: wikipedia.com)
“Totally free PHP based android application platform for online store management system”
A Walk-Through Guide To Create E-commerce Website Using OpenCart Within 10 Min
Whenever we say create an e-commerce website using OpenCart. That means you can set up your first e-commerce website without taking anyone’s help. OpenCart comes with the simplest admin interface. Which makes it more comfortable for all kinds of people.
I m writing a comprehensive guide on how to set up your first e-commerce website within a minimum time.
It will have the installation of selecting themes free or paid. Important modules added to the website.
I have also written a feature list of OpenCart, If you are not sure, use OpenCart for your E-commerce website. You can scroll down to read it. All steps mentioned here are easy to follow small technical knowledge is needed, for uploading files only.
It will help you to create an e-commerce website within less than 10. If all steps are followed correctly. You can comment below if you need help. For now, Let’s start.
How To Download OpenCart And Install
OpenCart application can download from the official website. The latest version of OpenCart can be downloaded from the site given above. A zip is downloaded.
Unzip it and follow the readme. Text and follow the file to install it.
Upload to your web server established and the OpenCart archive extracted. We will now use the file transfer protocol (FTP) client to upload this uncompressed file to the web server.
Goto the OpenCart location and Three Easy Steps are followed and you are ready to sell your product. For the installation Guide check on OpenCart official website
Initial Website Setting: Get Your E-commerce Website Ready
Til Now, I assumed, you already created an e-commerce website using OpenCart. Your website is running perfectly. You will see your theme installed. Now time to update settings like website name, meta title, meta description, address, opening day, timezone, and other things. This information will help search engines to know who you are, and what you sell.
Updating Title, Owner, Email, Address, And SEO Of Website
- Login to website admin
- Go to System -> Setting -> Store name (Default) -> click on Edit
- Here you will see the various settings. information entered here is used to run the website. Please do not change anything if you do not know how it works.
- In the General Tab -> You will see the store Name, Store Owner, Address, E-Mail, and other information. Please fill in all information correctly.
- Now update SEO meta tags, Go to Store Tab -> enter Meta Data here. It will be used by Search Engin to show your homepage in the search result.
Adding Country, Currency, product default weight class
You must remain in the setting section to update information.
- Go to the Local tab
- Update Country, currency, and website reading language.
- You can also select the default weight and length class for the product.
- Selecting the weight and length class will be the default class while creating a product. It can be changed easily from the Data tab of the product.
The Last Step Is A Basic Setting To Create an E-commerce website using OpenCart
Remain tabs contain important information. That’s why I m writing a separate section. There is no way to make any error or update the wrong information that will break your website.
In the Option Tab -> There 7 sections present with multiple settings. These are Products, Vouchers, Accounts, checkouts, Stock, Affiliates, and Returns. I suggest you not make changes to Checkout Section.
Updating the wrong key will make your order processing inefficient or not workable. Rest information can be updated easily.
In The Image tab -> You can update the website Logo and favicon here. Also if your theme needs a bigger size of image to look great. Then you can adjust the size of the image’s height and width.
OpenCart made image size per page. For example, You can either product page image size or make changes to the category page product display image size. Or you a both.
It is damn easy, right? Yeah!
You can find more information about the rest tab: FTP, Server, and Fraud on the official website.
You might also interested to read. How To Create A Blog In OpenCart And Maximize Traffic and Revenue?
Top 5 OpenCart SEO Extensions To Increase Organic Traffic To your Store
Select One of Top 10 OpenCart Themes For Your Website
OpenCart provides a default theme for a startup. A store owner can start with the default theme or can make a custom theme according to requirements. OpenCart default theme is responsive.
OpenCart has a big market in the E-commerce industry. You must also check before buying the theme for the website, whether is the theme compatible with OpenCart modules you are going to use or not?
If you are going to kick start your website with a tight budget then you either start with a free theme or a theme that costs you less to create an e-commerce website using OpenCart.
Else you can buy good themes which cost you a little high but these themes will give you relief from hiring a dev to do little changes if you are a good developer yourself.
Let’s start with the topmost-selling OpenCart themes. We also go over Free themes. If you only looking for Free themes then scroll down to check, Download links are also there.
We have listed 15 OpenCart Themes for all kinds of business. You can go through that post or continue reading for a complete OpenCart guide.
Journal – Advanced Opencart Theme
First, come always First. Journal -Advance is one of the best among OpenCart themes. Not because it’s sales and designs.
But design also matters. Because of Features, it gives to the Website owner to make little changes to its website like WordPress provides.
If you are familiar with WordPress then you can easily know and track down its features.
“No coding required! Use any of the pre-designed demos as they are, or customize each one as needed.”
Compatible with Opencart: 2.3.0.2 / 3.x.
Shoppica – Premium OpenCart Theme
Shoppica is a fully responsive multi-purpose OpenCart theme with a stylish design and a powerful backend. The clean and modern look allows you to use the theme for every kind of online shop. In combination with the super powerful administration panel packed with tons of options
Fastor – Multipurpose Responsive OpenCart Theme
Fastor is the best product we ever did. It’s the most powerful OpenCart theme with tons of options. Included modules allow you to save more than $200 and create a store without additional costs.
Demo content is the perfect solution to have the store ready in just a few clicks. It’s more than the theme.
Fastor is packed with features and layouts so not only will you be creating beautiful OpenCart websites easily, but you will also receive huge savings with our included modules, including revolution slider, blog, multistore mega menu, one-page checkout
Of course, Fastor has been designed & developed with today’s best practice coding methods and is 100% Responsive which means that no matter the device, your website will scale beautifully to suit each device each time.
Wrist Timer – OpenCart Responsive Theme
Wrist Timer OpenCart Responsive Theme is specially designed for watches, bags, Shoes, Apparel, Jewelry, Fashion, Accessories, Travel, Medicine, Mobile, Electronics, minimal, and multipurpose purpose stores.
This OpenCart Theme is looking good with the color combination. All sub-pages are customized. It is very nice with its clean and professional look. This OpenCart theme is suitable for small to medium business owners who want to sell their products online.
Some of the core features are
Bootstrap HTML5 and CSS3, Fully RESPONSIVE Theme, Google Fonts Included, Support Multiple Currency, Support Multiple Language, Included RTL Language Support.
Maxido 3.0.X Opencart MultiPurpose Responsive Theme
Maxido Opencart theme is a simple and clean layout with an elegant design, very easy to install and use. No HTML knowledge requires, easy to install and easy to use. It has been built with mobile users in mind.
So it looks great on desktops, tablets, and mobiles. Fashion is an awesome, robust, and flexible theme with design and all features of the online category and fully customize, suitable for the e-commerce website.
It is dedicated to fashion, jewelry, cosmetics, home appliances, bags, organic, restaurant, watch, fashion, ceramic, flower, shoes, power-tool, and pet-store.
Ananda Jewellery OpenCart Template
Ananda Jewellery Opencart Theme Multi-Purpose Premium Responsive Theme. It is super for home, fashion, inspector, decor, furniture, interior, and exterior, and minimal for every type of store. Moreover, Fully compatible with all mobile devices.
– HTML5 and CSS3
– Ajax Search Products you want in real-time.
– Fully responsive & retina-ready theme
– Using Google fonts
– Support multiple languages & Currency
– RTL+LTL language support
– SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly
– Optimized for fast loading
Free OpenCart themes that fit your website
Taaliyah Multi Purpose Opencart Responsive Theme
Multipurpose Opencart theme is best for multi purpose any kind of e-commerce store, it has good looks and improves your store with its clear and good and best professional look.
ShopMe – Free OpenCart Theme Responsive
Free Responsive OpenCart Theme the Shop is a minimalist eCommerce responsive site template coded with Bootstrap framework. Shopme suitable for e-commerce sites, minimalist portal system sites, portfolios, blogging, small business, tattoo, marketing sites, and similar websites. This theme is good for all kinds of physical products to sell. You can use this theme to create an e-commerce website using OpenCart.
Golden Eye: Free Responsive OpenCart Theme
GoldenEye is a beautiful free Opencart theme, built with our OpenCart hosting that can be easily customized as a fashion e-shop, jewelry online store or beauty, and cosmetics website. GoldenEye features an integrated shopping cart, supports multiple languages and currencies, and a simple client area.
With OpenCart you’ll be able to change the colors of the web design, the images on the home page slider, the product pages, and categories, the header and footer sections as well as the web page menus and inner pages.
You can also set up a blog where you can publish interesting news from the world of fashion.
Pav Celo – Free Jewelry Opencart 3 Theme
Pav Celo is a clean and minimum Opencart theme for jewelry, decor, electronics, and Furniture Website with creative design, and 3 ready-to-use demos, built with Drag and drop Opencart page builder.
It supports 50+ Opencart widgets, easy to set up and configure with a powerful theme control panel and theme customize theme, and many other advanced features.
The Jewelry Opencart theme also supports the advanced Opencart blog platform to build beautiful blog pages.
LaddyLike – Opencart Theme
LaddyLike is OpenCart theme built for fashion, jewelry, watch, mobile, electronics, shoe, furniture, kitchen, medical, tools, Food Store, Beauty Store, Pet Store, Multipurpose Stores, etc…
The theme is a fully designed template and comes with all needed e-commerce features with additional features like a full-width slider, parallax block, unlimited cms blocks, banner blocks, filter, etc.
you can find good and responsive themes on these websites
Some Website also provides free OpenCart themes. Free themes can be used to It is fairly easy to create an e-commerce website using OpenCart. These themes are not great like paid themes but if you lack money and want to give a kick start then Free Themes are a good choice to start. Head over to these websites
Necessary Modules should be present while creating First Time E-commerce Website
If you are on a tight budget or running out of money then you either go with the free module. They are pretty good and have the necessary features, not like paid modules but yes you can start with it and when you get some money you can replace the free module with the paid one.
I m not recommend using Paid only but for trying to say if you want to get your business in in-front of more customers then you must pay.
Using a free or paid module to create an e-commerce website using OpenCart is the best way. Because many modules or extensions are freely available.
Free OpenCart ModuleYou can also read our Top 5 Free OpenCart Modules Article. I m sure you get it useful
SEO Module
I m going to tell you about two SEO modules. The first one is OpenCart SEO Pack PRO with sales of over 4433. It is fully compatible with multi-language and multi-vendor. Have more than 20 features related to SEO.
Using this module will make your website compatible with Google SEO ON page stuff. What they say
“SEO is not about design. SEO is about being the best.” – Be the best using Opencart SEO Pack Pro 9!
meta keyword generator, meta description generator, related product generator, SEO friendly Url generator, multi-language SEO URLs, virtual subfolders for additional languages, pagination content, SEO URLs pagination.
Canonical links for the category, canonical links for brands, the custom title for products, Custom image alt for products, auto internal links, breadcrumbs RDF, rating schema
advance SEO editor, SEO report. More features are present into this module
Opencart SEO Pack Module
The second module is less expensive with fewer features Opencart SEO Pack Module is rich with basic features.
This module is also created by the same Company And you can kick-start your website this module gives the visibility of your product in search engines. Features are
Keywords generator for all products, meta description generator, related products generator, tag generator, product SEO plus, canonical categories,
canonical brands, friendly SEO URLS generator, SEO friendly URLs,
custom titles, clear SEO, (NEW) custom titles generator
If you are looking to buy free modules then you can go with Free SEO modules you can find free SEO modules on the official OpenCart website. I already posted the link above here is also giving a search link for free OpenCart modules
Free SEO OpenCart ModulesAdvanced Search Module
OpenCart provides a search that does not utilize proper product information and does not have auto-correct text. Which returns sometimes no products when a customer wrote the wrong text by mistake.
Also, OpenCart missing other advanced features like showing a product list while searching.
Advanced Search helps any E-commerce Website to sell more by displaying accurate products. This module also helps to search anything related to a product like Model, Price, Special Price, SKU, UPC, EAN, JAN, ISBN, MPN, Location, Attribute, and description these are all options you can show and hide from admin by selecting Yes or No.
Quick Checkout
The quick checkout module is a fully dynamic module for OpenCart. It helps to make your checkout more elegant and customize as per your need. You can set its layout and color theme from admin according to your store.
One-page checkout is one of the most important parts of the website to create an e-commerce website using OpenCart.
This extension allows users on the front end to make a one-page fast and easy checkout experience. Installing this module will not affect any core file.
Abandoned Cart Reminder Pro
Sometimes customer adds products to their cart to purchase but does not buy. They think I will buy some other days (like I do many times). This can impact sales figures right.
The abandoned cart reminder extension sends emails to the customer about products to buy. Sometimes we forgot we need to buy products right.
According to amazon research, their sales increase by 10% in 2017 using the abandoned cart email notification.
Good Enough Right?
Amazon is the best example, If you bought something from Amazon, and a product is added to the cart but do not buy it. They will send 3 in one week, email consist of a reminder, we need to buy products that we added to the cart.
Get It Now Go To Documentation
All in one Import Export module
Ever wonder, if one module can import and export customers, users, coupons, and Affiliates? I know you might be thinking now if you did think before 😀 Yeah, now you can import and export all these data using one module which is made by OpenCart Extensions Company.
This module consists of many features which can help you get out of stress and import and export in one single shot. It is like taking a backup of a website, not a complete backup but a partial backup which will give you a more suitable option to import products when anything goes wrong
Pav Popup – Opencart 3 Module
A great solution for those who want their visitors to be aware of all the hot stuff.
Pav Popup – Free OpenCart 3.x Module – will be a great solution for your promotional campaign. It allows to show off content in a popup and it will be displayed after a page load is done.
You can put your HTML code or load any OpenCart 3 module inside the popup, which is ideal for to you show sale information, coupon code, and newsletter module.
Get It NowFree Social Sharing
If you need a recipe for going viral on the Internet without making an extra effort, this module is for you! The OpenCart Share Buttons module lets your visitors share your site’s amazing content on their social media accounts.
Now all you need to do to get new subscribers and followers on social media is to publish your cool and unique content on your website and let your visitors do the rest.
Your readers will be delighted to have this chance to share your content with their friends just by pressing a share button!
Social Login
Nowadays, people want and think everything must be done within a few clicks or seconds. We are living in a digital world where information is accessible from little smartphones and tabs.
Adding Social Login to your website can reduce your customer signup time and they can easily buy products from your website without worrying about passwords and usernames.
SOCIAL LOGIN (FaceBook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn) Module will help you to get Social login into your website.
This module is simple, you won’t worry about Facebook’s new 2017 Policy change about its user information. If you want more than user basic information you might need facebook permission for this.
Customer Testimonial
The customer view about your products makes a huge difference in the sales of all companies. Yeah! you must agree to it. All website shows their customer reviews on their website to increase sales
Nearly 95% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase (Spiegel Research Center, 2017)
The testimonial Module allows you to show customer reviews on the website. which can increase your website sales. The module allows you to show Customer reviews on the Top, Bottom, Left, and Right of the page.
Mega Menu
You probably heard the website is using a mega menu. If you do not know the mega menu then let me tell you. There are two kinds of Menus Now.
One regular menu shows text links while hovering over menus. The second one is a mega menu which shows text and images or videos as well on menus.
Which makes mega menus different than regular menus. We can show more than text on menus. Default product images can be shown or category images can be shown. Also, they support a multi-level menu structure, unlike regular menus.
I recommend you OpenCart advance mega header module. Right now this module is capable to show text links and images of products and products themselves.
NOTE
I will cover other topics like making your product more SEO friendly, and selling more using these simple tactics. But now, I will post another article on it. Let me know your views on, or looking at other information, and I will try to give the answer to all your questions.
Also, read Ultimate OpenCart Pos Module Which can help you sell offline effectively.
How to get OpenCart Backup and Restore Of Your website
Follow these steps to get back up for the database of your store. This backup can be used to restore the website when anything goes wrong. You can restore back in three easy steps. Always remember to take a backup of your website after Creating an e-commerce website created using OpenCart.
For Backup follow these steps
1. Back up your database via your store Admin->System->Backup, and press downloads the database.
2. Back up your files using an FTP file copy or use the Cpanel file manager to create a zip of all the existing OpenCart files and folders.
To Restore Backup
You must log in to admin and then the left side menu
1. Open Tools > Backup / Restore page:
2. A select backup file you got from while generating a backup of a website in a .sql format
3. Click the upload button to restore a backup.
It will take some to upload the backup file as a .sql file runs in the background and replace existing database information present in your website and give you a working website.
NOTE: if you got any error like file type not supported then you might select the wrong file. Selected file format must be the .sql format. As OpenCart only generate backup in .sql format.
Troubleshoot Problems And Their Solutions
It is fairly easy to create an e-commerce website using OpenCart. I m going to list out some most common errors people met while setup or creating an e-commerce website using OpenCart. I also list out solutions. Many are programming errors so can not post solutions but I add a link to the forum where you will either get a solution or you can ask to support.
Modules incompatible error
Many times, people try to use a theme or module/ extension without reading their compatible version of OpenCart. That’s where a problem arises. You must read their compatible version. The latest version of OpenCart is 3.0.3.3.
Just check out there in which version they can run. It is present in the readme file, on the product page of the module or theme. or you can ask for the website directly.
Line No .. Header already sent
It is also one of the common errors people face. When people try to install a module or extension into the website. Then, this error comes.
The easiest solution is, Just to go to the website from where you bought it or downloaded it. Ask the developer or website support team to correct it.
You do not need to panic. Sometimes when this error comes. the website goes down or just shows 1-3 lines of an error on top of the header of the website.
Permission Denied
Most of the time, when people get this error got panic. Because it comes, when they tried to install a module/ extension in the website and were not able to make changes to the setting of the installed module. It happened, OpenCart is designed to give as much as possible security.
The unauthorized file should not execute on the website without admin permission. The simplest solution is :
- Log into your Opencart admin.
- System -> Users -> Users Group -> Administrator
- Edit the Default User
- Here you will see a list of files present on your website. Listed in Access Permission, Modify Permission
- Select All for Access Permission and Modify Permission,
- Be, careful you must click on Select All. Do not click on UnSelect All. Click on Save
- Now try to access that module setting page.
KUDO you are done.
White Page or 500 Internal Error
A blank white page shows when something went wrong while executing a PHP program. Either you do not see an error line or Your OpenCart Admin setting is done in this way so that the user won’t see errors. This is a server-side error.
500 Internal server error means the page requested a resource is either not present or PHP is not able to complete its request because of some internal errors.
Solution: Same as the header already sent. You need to contact the website or developer to make it work. Else you can read TemplateMonster guide to solve OpenCart errors
Undefined Function / Method
You might get “Fatal error: Call to undefined function” on the line number. It means the php program is trying to call the function/ method that doesn’t exist. It comes when a module or theme does not go through a good testing process.
Solution: Same as the header already sent. You need to contact the website or developer to make it work. Else you can read a guide to solve common errors posted on OpenCart Forum
Allowed Memory Size Exhausted
This error occurs when the memory allocated by your server is not enough to execute the php program. PHP script tried to get more memory for completing but exceeded the value of the memory_limit configuration option. The hosting Server makes always the lowest value memory_limit in php.ini file.
To stop an overwhelming unwanted script that runs all the time and eats CPU RAM and hard disk.
Solution: Go to your hosting server support team. And ask them to increase PHP memory_limit. After increasing memory. Your website will run fine.
Else you can ask your developer or go to the company where you found the module or theme and ask them for a solution.
Note: You can find more error and their solution on the Internet. The best place to ask for free support is the official OpenCart Forum. Dev and companies here giving free support.
This is all for now. This guide is written in simple and easy-to-understand language. Hope you understand. If you are still not able or taking much time to create an e-commerce website using OpenCart.
Please comment. I will answer your question or forward it to the technical team, and they will help you out.
If you came here, either scrolling or reading then you might be interested in OpenCart to get it for the next E-commerce website. I recommend you OpenCart Extensions Company for E-commerce Website. They are experts in their work and have 7+ years of experience.
They have developed more than 100 Modules in various categories to serve all kinds of customers and website owners. Also, They do have 30+ OpenCart Themes. This company is the official partner of OpenCart, You can check their profile on Their Official Partner page.
There are many free as well as paid OpenCart Modules and extensions provided by various companies. For a quick start, you start looking at OpenCart Extension.
If you need help setting up your website. Please Contact us for dedicated support. We serve more than 3000 customers and companies in the last 6 years.
Let me know if you need more information. Have any queries Comment down 🙂
Hi,
recently I just wanted to open a store on OpenCart to sell some gadgets but I didn’t know enough about opening a shop using OpenCart. So I searched for a step by step guide for it but I didn’t get something very helpful. Finally, I find your article and you have described all the things that I was searching for. Thanks for your article. It has really helped me a lot.
We are very glad to know that this article helps you. Let us know if you are looking for any kind of development or help, our support team will help you to solve your problem.