With the advent of the “Buy” button on Facebook and Twitter, e-commerce is breaking fresh ground. While this option will give more concrete feedback regarding ROI, there are some things to bear in mind. Read more here:
Category Archives: Blog
Sometimes in the world of small business, social media is one of the first things to fall through the cracks due to time constraints. Some people simply do not know where to start. This article provides several tips that can be used as “jumping-off points” for someone who is running into the above issues engaging with social media.
Any e-commerce site needs speed optimizations. A simple trick to speed up your e-commerce or X-Cart site is to turn on gzip compression. This is as simple as copying and pasting the following code into your .htaccess file:
# Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
# Remove browser bugs (only needed for really old browsers)
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
Header append Vary User-Agent
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
Header append Vary User-Agent
In addition, if you are using X-Cart, we have a module to help speed up your X-Cart site! Our Speed Booster module for X-Cart can greatly reduce speed times! Check out our FAQ on how it works as well as demos!
Currently using Magento Go? Have you made plans for Magento Go’s End of Life on February 1st, 2015? BCS Engineering can help you fulfill your future e-commerce needs. Perhaps the most reasonable alternative suggested by Magento for an e-commerce transition is Bigcommerce. Bigcommerce is one of the main platforms BCS Engineering currently supports. If you are looking to begin the process of conversion, let us help you along the way. Click here to get started:
Are you operating an X-Cart store with version 4.5.4 or older? There is an important API endpoint update being performed by PayPal on November 1st (this was originally scheduled for March 25th). Before this time, there is a patch that you will need to apply to ensure that you continue to receive payments via PayPal.
From PayPal: “If you have any questions, please contact PayPal Merchant Technical Services by filing a ticket; refer to LIVE API integration change in preparation for November 1. For real time system updates, please go to www.paypal.com/sitestatus”
If you want to apply the patch yourself, you can download the PayPal patch at: https://secure.x-cart.com.
If you need help applying the patch, please contact us.
Join us for our first installment in our Webinar Wednesday series kicking off on October 8, 2014 at 2:00 PM EDT. We will be discussing strategies for setting up shipping and also touching on the benefits of the AuctionInc RealTime Shipping Integration Mod. We’d love to have your questions ahead of time! To submit questions or register for this webinar, click here or email us at webinar@bcsengineering.com.
This article regarding start-up failures is very informational. Established businesses could benefit from several of these pointers as well, especially if your business is looking to grow, add services, or offer new products. Very good tips to keep in mind no matter what stage your business is in. Read more here:
Social media is one of the main channels for communication and advertising for businesses these days. The efficacy of social media in fulfilling these roles is often a function of the amount of time and/or money invested into it. However, there are easy, low-intensity ways to get more out of your social media pages. Read here for more information:
In the operation of an e-commerce site, it is easy to focus on communicating better with your customers via e-mail or social media. However, the telephone can be overlooked for ways in which it can help provide better customer service. Read here for 5 easy ways to improve bonds with your customers by utilizing the phone:
A cool thing about working on websites for a living is that you get to see so many great concepts and innovations that are available on many different ecommerce sites. Our clients are awesome and their products are really amazing. A great example of this is the Rogers Family Company. They have been a long time customer of ours and our internal joke is that before working on their site, barely anyone in the office drank coffee. Now at least half of the office can barely get going without our morning cup (or cups) of coffee or tea! Recently, they released a new product that we thought you’d enjoy hearing about as well.
We love coffee and we love going green and when we discovered that Rogers has developed a 97% biodegradable Single Serve Coffee we were pretty excited. Many of us use the single serve coffees at home and were always bothered by the waste associated with this convenience. Check out the article below to learn more about this product. This is just one example of the many ways our customers are providing people with the things that they desire. We’re glad we can help them make those products available for you on their websites!
Keep up the great work! This is the first, of what we hope to be regular installments, of innovations that hit home with us. If you are one of our clients and have something new and exciting that you’d like to share with us, please let us know. If you aren’t a client and would like some help getting your great ideas out there, don’t hesitate to contact us! Thanks again to the Rogers Family for your continued support over the years.
