www.Naeem.co.za

In this last part of my little Magento series, I’m going to list extensions that I currently use along with their costs

Minerva Shipping Extension
http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/pickup-at-event-multiple-flatrates.html
- FREE – This extension offers your customers the option to collect their order at your store (or other collection points)

Web Forms
http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/webforms-community-edition.html
- FREE – A nifty form creator complete with Captcha allowing you to build your own contact forms and embed it anywhere on your website.
In my case I had a little Product Enquiry form put into all product pages.

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Firstly, default Magento skin should only be used as your first time test store, rest assured it’ll look bland downright embarassing using that as your official store front.

I would suggest browsing the Magento Connect repository for hundreds of free and premium themes that you can download or purchase, I decided to go  with www.HelloThemes.com

They offer an awesome range of themes, all of which are professionally designed, polished, seo optimized and up to date with current design trends.  Undecided on what theme to choose (they all looked so good!) I purchased a 1 year Theme Club license for $99.  Essentially giving me access to ALL  their past themes and at least 2 new themes a month for the next year. Bargain!

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In my last post I explained why i chose Magento Community Edition (see here),   in this post I’ll share how i got started.

First things first. Find a Webhost!

There are hundreds of bloggers ranting about how unstable Magento is and how resource heavy it is.  Yes Magento is a resource hog, but if your  hosting is setup correctly, there is little chance of your store crashing.

Ideally a dedicated server is great, but this comes a price and with a startup store, funds are limited.  I’d recommend and am currently using a Shared Hosting platform, however I’ve ensured the webhost is familiar with Magento and the necessary requirements. In fact most, if not all Magento specialist stores off it as a “one click” application. Saving you the trouble of uploading and manually installing it.
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Over the last few months my recent twitter timeline has been littered with Magento related tweets and after chatting and advising a few I decided to punch out a few Magento blog posts. Over the next few posts I’ll share my adventures with Magento and ecommerce in South Africa.

As it stands right now, 2 of my stores are running on Magento Community Edition (CE for short) – these are,

www.TerrificTrophies.co.za – a niche store specializing in trophies and medals.

www.BLKcherry.co.za – our furniture experimental store retailing outdoor furniture and lounge suites.

Before choosing Magento CE the first decision was “Why Choose Magento?” in other words, what makes Magento better then other open source shopping carts. (more…)

Recently we held our 8th annual Autostyle Motorshow in Umhlanga, Durban.    What started of as a simple meetup of car enthusiasts has now become an annual tradition for us and each year the even gets bigger and bigger.  This year unfortunately we could no longer host the event outside our store.  Luckily the helpful guys at Gateway Shopping Centre  partnered up with us and offered us full use of an entire parking lot.  A mere 300m away from our store. Check out photographs over here

The event was absolutely awesome with Durban showcasing some of the best automotive styling concepts and designs out there.   We commissioned FreeStyleFilms.co.za to shoot the event,  check out a trailer video of the days event.

Autostyle Expo Durban, South Africa from Freestyle Films on Vimeo.