The Antropy OpenCart Blog
— Nov 17, 2023
Antropy Hourly Rate from 2024-01-01
As described in a recent blog article, we started reviewing our rates twice a year starting from the 1st of January 2021 to allow us to hire the best staff and use the best tools to deliver the best work for our clients.
— Nov 10, 2023
10 Proven Strategies to Supercharge Your Website's Visibility
Having a website is essential for businesses and individuals alike. However, merely having a website is not enough; you need to ensure that it gets noticed by your target audience. If you're ready to unleash the full potential of your website and leave your digital footprint, read on for our top 10...
— Nov 3, 2023
How to Set the Robots Meta Tag in OpenCart
In the digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for the success of any e-commerce business. When it comes to SEO, one of the often-overlooked but immensely valuable tools is the Robots Meta Tag. These unassuming HTML tags play a significant role in controlling how search engines...
— Oct 27, 2023
The Importance of Mobile Optimisation for OpenCart Ecommerce Websites
The rise of mobile devices as the preferred choice for accessing the internet is no surprise. Mobile phones are portable, convenient, and readily available, allowing users to browse, shop, and interact with online businesses on the go. As a result, mobile devices have completely transformed the...
— Oct 20, 2023
How to Take Exceptional Product Photos for Your Online Store
In the fast-paced world of ecommerce, product photography plays a large role in captivating potential customers and securing the sale. In the absence of a physical shopping experience, your product photos are the closest your customers will get to feeling and experiencing your offerings. That's why...
— Oct 2, 2023
Antropy Attends the Ecommerce Expo in London
On the 27th September Alex, Project Manager, and Jack, Digital Marketer, embarked on an exciting journey to the ExCel in London. With Antropy specialising in the development of online stores using OpenCart, the ecommerce expo was the ideal destination to explore the latest trends and gather...
— Sep 26, 2023
Protecting Your OpenCart Store: Insights from Antropy's Senior Developer
Recently, our senior web developer, Tyler, had the opportunity to talk with SafetyDetectives for an in-depth interview on how we approach security in the world of OpenCart. Some of the key insights from Tyler's interview shed light on common vulnerabilities, prevention strategies, reaction plans,...
— Sep 15, 2023
How to Remove the Category Product Count Within OpenCart
Having the amount of products within your category pages in your dropdown list can be very useful for customers to see. However there are drawbacks to having these enabled such as if your store has a lot of subcategories, then it can cause a performance hit on your website (this is highlighted in...
— Sep 12, 2023
7 Tips To Boost Sales In OpenCart Using Social Media
In the ever-evolving world of e-commerce, finding effective strategies to boost your online sales is crucial for the success of your OpenCart store. With the right approach, you can leverage various tools and techniques to drive more customers and revenue. In this blog, we'll explore seven tips to...
— Aug 15, 2023
How to See Monthly Sales Trends in OpenCart
Analysing trends in your sales can be a valuable asset when it comes to forecasting and making data-driven decisions for your business. Alongside utilising the Product Reports feature, you can assess your companies seasonal trends. During months when sales might be slightly lower than others, this...
— Aug 8, 2023
How to Enable Estimate Shipping in OpenCart
Enabling the Shipping Estimator feature on your OpenCart site can greatly enhance the user experience for your customers. This tool empowers them to receive a quick quote for the shipping cost for items in their shopping cart.
— Aug 2, 2023
How to Apply a Limited Time Offer on a Product Within Your OpenCart Site
Limited Time Offers (LTOs) can be a game-changer for e-commerce websites. By creating urgency, they drive action, increase conversion rates, attract new customers, encourage repeat purchases, generate buzz, and clear out excess inventory. Let's explore how you can implement this on your OpenCart...
— Jul 21, 2023
How to Copy in the Store Admin on all Customer Emails
In default OpenCart, when a customers makes a purchase, a minimum of two emails are sent. One email is sent to the store owner and another is sent to the customer. If you've ever seen the store owner's email, it's in plain text and, more importantly, doesn't contain all the information in the...
— Jul 7, 2023
Handy AI Websites
There's been an explosion in AI that really took off in late 2022. A lot of these services like ChatGPT have free versions, and a lot of them like remove.bg are incredibly useful. Here I'll list the most useful ones I find!
— Jul 6, 2023
How to Alter Your Dashboard Layout Within the OpenCart Admin?
Your OpenCart Dashboard is a useful first port of call to quickly see some key statistics. It is automatically configured to include the following:
— Jun 20, 2023
Website Planet Interviewed Antropy Founder and MD Paul Feakins
Antropy's Managing Director, Paul Feakins, recently had a delightful conversation with Roberto Popolizio, a distinguished interviewer from Website Planet. The interview shed light on Antropy's remarkable journey, their commitment to solving client pain points, the essential skills and tools driving...
— Jun 9, 2023
Unleashing the Power of VPS Hosting for OpenCart
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, e-commerce has emerged as a driving force for businesses worldwide. To succeed in the competitive online marketplace, it is essential to leverage the right technologies and tools. One such tool that can significantly impact the performance and growth...
— Jun 1, 2023
What Payment Gateway Can I Use for My OpenCart Vape Store?
The vaping industry has faced significant challenges when it comes to finding payment providers that are willing to support their businesses. However, with the emergence of alternative payment gateways like Viva Wallet, the vaping sector now has access to a versatile and reliable solution. In this...
— May 24, 2023
When Should You Get Custom Work Done on OpenCart?
OpenCart offers a wide range of features and extensions to help businesses create their online stores. However, there may be instances where the available options do not fully meet your specific requirements. In such cases, getting custom work done on OpenCart becomes the best solution. This blog...
— May 11, 2023
How to Send Abandoned Cart Emails from OpenCart
The best way to send emails to customers who may have exited your website is through the OpenCart MailChimp Integration Pro extension by Clear Thinking. Here are some of the key benefits to this extension
— May 11, 2023
Antropy Hourly Rate from 2023-07-01
As described in another blog article, we started reviewing our rates twice a year starting from the 1st of January 2021 to allow us to hire the best staff and use the best tools to deliver the best work for our clients.
— Apr 18, 2023
What's the best One Page Checkout for OpenCart?
As an online retailer, you know that a smooth and seamless checkout process is crucial for converting visitors into customers.
— Apr 13, 2023
How Do I Find What Version of OpenCart I’m Using?
This bit of information is very important to know about your OpenCart store; as well as being for your own personal knowledge, it is crucial to know what OpenCart version your website is on when you come to purchase extensions so that you download the correct one.
— Apr 3, 2023
OpenCart Builds From Enquiry to Go-Live
Whether it's modernising your out of date OpenCart site or looking to move from another platform to OpenCart, you will go through our process of getting an estimate through to getting your new site live. This blog gives you the step by step guide of how we go about this:
— Mar 22, 2023
OpenCart PayPal Checkout Integration Upgrade
Recently, PayPal has released an upgraded extension for the OpenCart e-commerce platform. The upgrade provides many new features and enhancements to the existing module. In this blog we take a look at what has been upgraded and what version of OpenCart this applies to.
— Mar 6, 2023
What Happens if You Let Your Error Logs Fill Up Within OpenCart
If you let your error logs fill up within OpenCart, it can have several negative consequences.
— Feb 24, 2023
How to Add and Edit Return Actions in OpenCart
When a product is returned either due to a fault or not being quite right for the customer, it can be frustrating for any business. That is why having a good product returns conveyor belt is critical! You can read further understanding how Product Returns work within OpenCart in a previous blog....
— Feb 17, 2023
What Are the Drawbacks of Moving Away From OpenCart to a New Platform?
Moving away from OpenCart does have some significant downsides, depending on your specific situation. Here are some potential drawbacks to consider:
— Jan 27, 2023
Should I Work on My Opencart Store Myself or Pay Professional Developers?
Whether you should work on your OpenCart store yourself or pay professional developers depends on your own skills, resources, and goals for your online store. However here are some factors to consider when making your decision:
— Jan 16, 2023
How to Set Up Weight Based Shipping in OpenCart
Setting up weight based shipping for your OpenCart store is a very useful exercise to undertake if your store requires it.
— Jan 6, 2023
Aquafayre OpenCart Rebuild
We have worked with Aquafayre for many years and undertaken numerous smaller projects over this time.
— Dec 16, 2022
Quick Checkout Extension
We get asked quite frequently about how you can improve the OpenCart checkout and potentially reduce the risk of customers abandoning their cart.
— Dec 2, 2022
Facebook Extension for OpenCart
OpenCart is working directly with Facebook and has a free of charge extension that is available to all OpenCart users. They have been working with Facebook since 2017 and at the time of writing it has a mammoth 61852 downloads!
— Nov 28, 2022
Antropy Hourly Rate from 2023-01-01
As described in a recent blog article, we started reviewing our rates twice a year starting from the 1st of January 2021 to allow us to hire the best staff and use the best tools to deliver the best work for our clients.
— Nov 25, 2022
Our Meeting With OpenCart
On Thursday 24th November, we enjoyed a splendid lunch with OpenCart's Marketing & Partnership Director Ben Ajenoui. We had a lovely meal courteous of The Parsons Pig in Crawley and it was a great occasion to talk all things tech!
— Nov 16, 2022
How to Refresh Your Statistics Within OpenCart and Why This Is Important
Making sure your store statistics are up to date within OpenCart is a very useful process to undertake. This blog will highlight where you can find this up to date information and how to keep it up to date
— Nov 9, 2022
Why Replying to Emails After Making an Enquiry Is So Important
It may seem like a very odd blog to write but it is a very important point to get across.
— Nov 1, 2022
How to Contact OpenCart Extension Support
We always ask clients to buy extensions for various different reasons and our blog Why do we ask Clients to Buy Extensions highlights this.
— Oct 14, 2022
How Product Returns Work Within OpenCart
There are two ways product returns are added within OpenCart, either by the customer or manually by yourself. So, let's start with the customer:
— Oct 5, 2022
4 Reasons to Upgrade to the Latest Version of PHP
If you're like most people, you probably don't think much about the programming language your website is running on, but your web host should make you aware that they need to keep the server software - including PHP - up-to-date.
— Sep 23, 2022
Our New Antropy Electron Theme
We have now released our third OpenCart theme named Electron and is available to purchase on the OpenCart Store right now.
— Aug 17, 2022
Where to Locate the Sales Statistics List Within Opencart 3.0.3.8
You can get a good overview of your sales within the OpenCart Dashboard but in order to get more in depth analytics on your sales then the Statistics List within OpenCart 3.0.3.8 is a very useful page to go to.
— Aug 10, 2022
Why Email New Requests to Our Info Email?
Whenever you have a new requirement it is always best to email info@antropy.co.uk as opposed to just one of the team. The main reason for this is if the person is on annual leave or extremely busy then your request will likely get missed.
— Aug 1, 2022
Mercers Furniture OpenCart Rebuild
We always enjoy undertaking rebuilds for current clients and this one was no different.
— Jul 20, 2022
Why and When to Make Use of Our Priority Fee
We have the Priority Fee available for projects that need to be completed urgently to hit a specific deadline. This means that for a small additional fee we will prioritise your project to make sure we hit the agreed deadline in efficient time.
— Jul 8, 2022
What Is Gogs and Why We Use It
When you either have a retainer, work hourly (only possible if you host with us) or have a long prepaid block of time and have a lot of tasks to complete each month; the easiest way we find to group them together and keep track of the individual jobs is by using a system called Gogs.
— Jun 29, 2022
Why Use Wise for International Bank Transfers
Bank transfers for international payments can be expensive with the conversion rates but equally PayPal fees have also become extortionate. So what is the alternative?
— Jun 17, 2022
How to Add a New Image Banner on your Homepage Within OpenCart
Rolling banners on your homepage are a very important visual representation of the products or brands that you sell on your site. Being able to add a new banner on your homepage is a pretty important task to know how to undertake yourself and this blog will highlight exactly how this is done
— Jun 7, 2022
Antropy Hourly Rate from 2022-07-01
As described in a recent blog article, we started reviewing our rates twice a year starting from the 1st of January 2021 to allow us to hire the best staff and use the best tools to deliver the best work for our clients.
— Jun 6, 2022
Derails OpenCart Rebuild
We have worked with Derails for many years and undertaken numerous smaller projects over the years.
— May 26, 2022
Team Antropy Attends the Three Bridges Networking Event
On the 25th May, Alex, Paul, Joe and Adem went to a local networking event held at Three Bridges Football Club.
— May 18, 2022
Sparks Electrical OpenCart Rebuild
Near the end of 2020 we were tasked with updating a very tricky custom built OpenCart store for a company called Sparks Electrical.
— May 6, 2022
Blocks of Hours vs Support Retainers vs Fixed Price
So we have a number of different ways of working on a project basis with clients. In this blog I will highlight the different ways we can tackle your project
— Apr 29, 2022
Antropy’s Most Downloaded Free OpenCart Extensions?
‘Nothing in this life is free’, the old saying goes but we beg to differ when it comes down to our most popular free extensions. Here are our top 3 most downloaded free OpenCart extensions:
— Apr 21, 2022
Hawkins OpenCart Rebuild
We have worked with Hawkins Hobbies since the middle of 2019 and we were very happy to rebuild their OpenCart site.
— Apr 13, 2022
6 Strategies to Promote Your eCommerce Brand to Millennials and Gen Z
Digital marketing for eCommerce brands isn’t the same as it was years ago.
— Apr 4, 2022
How to Send an Opencart Extension to Us?
So as per a previous blog of ours, we always ask clients to buy extensions and the reasons for that can be found here - Why do we ask Clients to Buy Extensions? However, in this blog I want to highlight how you go about sending the extensions to us.
— Mar 30, 2022
What do UK Ecommerce Sellers Need to Know about EU VAT?
VAT can be a tricky subject for ecommerce sellers in the UK. What’s more, since Brexit there have been a number of changes which have changed how this is calculated.
— Mar 28, 2022
Importance of User-Generated Content in eCommerce
Running an eCommerce platform can be exhausting, no matter how well you manage your stock or shipments.
— Mar 25, 2022
Celena Website Rebuild
It is always pleasing to see a client returning to get their website upgraded after we built their first site.
— Mar 16, 2022
Antropy Subcategory Images Extension
Adding images within subcategories has been a request we have had a fair bit recently, so we decided to package up our fix into a free extension that you can download here.
— Mar 7, 2022
5 Instagram Stories Tips and Tricks to Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Efforts
If you think Instagram Stories are only for sharing funny, entertaining, and momentary content, then you’re in for a surprise.
— Mar 4, 2022
How to Clear Your Browser Cache
There are many different caches within OpenCart and we have a useful blog on this aptly titled ‘How to clear all caches in OpenCart 3.0.2.0’.
— Feb 22, 2022
Antropy OpenCart Blog Extension
There are a lot of downsides of using Journal as an OpenCart Theme but one of the plus sides is the blog feature that comes with it.
— Feb 11, 2022
Top 5 Payment Gateway Extensions for OpenCart
We often get clients ask us what is the best Payment Gateway to use for your OpenCart store. So here is a rundown of who we would recommend:
— Feb 4, 2022
Opayo Update Deadline for your OpenCart Store is Looming
As I am sure those Opayo (formerly SagePay) users have seen, the SCA Deadline is set for the 14th March 2022. There are a number of updates that need to be put in place before this deadline and these should be implemented sooner rather than later.
— Jan 25, 2022
Is your OpenCart admin panel being DDoS attacked?
If your online shop has suddenly been hit with major speed issues, you could be being targeted by one of a recent surge of brute-force attacks. Read on to find out if you are affected, and how to fix if you are!
— Jan 17, 2022
Antropy's 2-Step Strategy for Handling Complex OpenCart Rebuilds
The normal way rebuilds run is we undertake a Phase 1 and then put the site live, if any further work is needed after this then that goes into a Phase 2. However with some sites where they are heavily customised this process isn’t one we would recommend or follow.
— Jan 12, 2022
PayPal Search Transaction History within OpenCart
A useful feature within the OpenCart Admin is to be able to search the transaction history of current or previous PayPal orders. This can be found by:
— Dec 22, 2021
How to Update Your Information Pages Within OpenCart
The Information page within the OpenCart Admin Panel is a little hidden and you could be clicking around for some time if you don’t know where to look. This is where you can find the following pages: About Us Delivery Information Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions
— Dec 16, 2021
Vape Liquid UK OpenCart Build
We have recently built a brand new website for a new vaping company called Vape Liquid UK. We once again based the new site on our iStore theme and tried to keep the design as simplistic as possible.
— Dec 8, 2021
Most Viewed Blogs of 2021
Just like in last year's blog, we go through the most viewed blogs written this year according to Google Analytics.
— Nov 19, 2021
British Land Rover Parts Website OpenCart Rebuild
We were asked to rebuild the British Land Rover Parts website as they were running on version 2.0.3.1 of OpenCart which was in need of a recharge. For the new site we upgraded their theme based on our Multipurpose Theme.
— Nov 15, 2021
Antropy Hourly Rate from 2022-01-01
As described in a recent blog article, we started reviewing our rates twice a year starting from the 1st of January 2021 to allow us to hire the best staff and use the best tools to deliver the best work for our clients.
— Nov 12, 2021
How Easy Is It to Switch to OpenCart?
A question we get asked a lot when clients are potentially looking to switch from one platform to another is a) how hard is this to achieve and b) how much disruption will it cause to my current site?
— Nov 2, 2021
Master Plastics OpenCart Upgrade
We were asked to rebuild the Master Plastic website as they were running an older version of OpenCart which was in need of an update and refresh. For the new site we upgraded their theme and mirrored the design based on their old site.
— Oct 21, 2021
Handy Git Commands
Just a little page for some handy git commands, including adding files, committing changes, and workflows for pushing and pulling.
— Oct 19, 2021
How Can Social Media Impact Your Mental Health?
Social media has become a part of our daily life, a business and a job for some, or a way of communication for others.
— Oct 13, 2021
Organic Textile Company OpenCart Rebuild
We were asked to rebuild the Organic Textile website as they were running an older version of OpenCart which was in need of an upgrade and refresh.
— Oct 6, 2021
Total E Liquid OpenCart Rebuild
We were asked to rebuild the Total E Liquid website as they were running an older version of OpenCart which was in need of an update.
— Sep 29, 2021
Plantex OpenCart Rebuild
We were asked to rebuild the Plantex website as they were running off an older version of OpenCart and in need of an update.
— Sep 17, 2021
Quay Traders OpenCart Rebuild
We were approached to update and rebuild the Quay Traders website as they were looking for a fresh, yet simple new site.
— Sep 7, 2021
Cold Spring Website Merge
This was a website merge and update that we are very proud about.
— Aug 26, 2021
OpenCart v WooCommerce: How Do They Line Up When It Comes To Customer Safety?
If you’re looking for a self-hosted ecommerce solution, you’ll undoubtedly encounter both OpenCart and WooCommerce during your research.
— Aug 20, 2021
Onion Reporting OpenCart Website Rebuild
Onion Reporting Software are a Belfast based company who specialise in putting your Sage accounts in Excel format. They were running on the old 1.5.5.1 version of OpenCart which made the website look outdated and in need of a refresh.
— Aug 12, 2021
Toucan Property Services Website Build
I would roughly guess that 98% of the work we undertake is on OpenCart but we do have a couple of clients that run on Concrete5.
— Aug 12, 2021
How to Find the Perfect Name for Your Company
The right brand name is critical to a company's success since it can optimize and transform it from a mediocre business into a market leader.
— Aug 6, 2021
Crawley Sheds & Cabins Website Rebuild
We always enjoy helping local companies with their ecommerce websites and the Crawley Sheds & Cabins rebuild was no different.
— Jul 23, 2021
Is PHP 8 Going the Way of ActionScript 3 (OOP Soup)?
Many years ago, Macromedia Flash was all the rage in web development with talented developers able to produce some truly amazing things with it.
— Jul 21, 2021
Why use Concrete5 over WordPress?
When it comes to eCommerce stores, OpenCart is of course our go-to but when the site does not need to sell online, then we always go for Concrete5.
— Jul 14, 2021
Antropy Hourly Rate from 2021-07-01
As described in a recent blog article, we started reviewing our rates twice a year starting from the 1st of January 2021 to allow us to hire the best staff and use the best tools to deliver the best work for our clients.
— Jul 8, 2021
New VAT System from 1st July 2021
As Chris Smith of leading Sage Business Partners, Smith Cooper System Partners, explains: as of July 1st 2021, new VAT schemes will be made available for e-commerce businesses that sell to EU customers (customers in the EU who are not VAT registered).
— Jun 25, 2021
How To Make Risky Decisions for Small Businesses
Big decisions can carry numerous risks for small businesses in every industry. Here’s how to take those risks in a way that benefits your business.
— Jun 16, 2021
Dolphin Single Click on Xfce
Even if you're a developer who uses Linux, you may not have heard of Dolphin or XFCE but Dolphin is my favourite File Manager (and has been for a long time) and XFCE is my current favourite Desktop Environment.
— May 17, 2021
Instagram Marketing - A Comprehensive Guide for Businesses
With over 1 billion users, Instagram has become one of the most popular advertising and sales channels.
— Apr 27, 2021
How To View Your Subscriptions in PayPal
Ah PayPal. Love it or hate it, it's going to be around for a while. Even one of the original PayPal founders, Elon Musk himself, has said PayPal hasn't kept up with the industry.
— Apr 1, 2021
Missing Orders Mysteries
A comprehensive guide on OpenCart's 'Missing Orders' - what they are, their causes, and how to solve.
— Mar 16, 2021
How to Add Reward Points to Customers Within OpenCart
Keeping customers happy and making them feel valued is very important. One way to go about this is by rewarding them with Reward Points. In this blog, I highlight how to go about rewarding customers with reward points within OpenCart.
— Mar 8, 2021
How to Enable or Disable Payment Methods in OpenCart
What payment methods you want to use on your OpenCart store is a very important decision to make. It is very easy to select which payment methods you would like to use and below I have listed the steps to do this.
— Mar 4, 2021
How to Redirect to WWW and HTTPS
I've mentioned before that you should always use WWW, and I've also blogged that it's time to switch to HTTPS. Here's how to set up the redirects in .htaccess (applies to all sites, OpenCart or not) and also make sure OpenCart is configured correctly for it in its 2 config.php files.
— Mar 3, 2021
How to Enable or Disable Reviews on Your Site
This may sound like something you should know how to do but I had to squirrel around the admin to find where you enable or disable reviews on your site.
— Feb 19, 2021
We Have Updated Our EU VAT Extension
VAT and especially VAT not being applied in Europe from the UK is a hot topic at the moment. We have already written a blog on this as we have had a lot of clients asking us questions around this subject.
— Feb 8, 2021
How to Add a New Voucher Theme in Opencart
Themes/ pictures on vouchers are important when sending a voucher or when a client purchases a gift voucher. The default themes are Birthday, Christmas and General. The below blog highlights how you can add a new theme.
— Feb 3, 2021
Antropy Hourly Rate from 2021-01
Setting one's rate has always been tricky. Too high and you'll price yourself out of the market, too low and you'll find yourself unable to deliver your best work.
— Feb 1, 2021
Our New Technical Audit Service Now Available
We have been undertaking our SEO audit for quite some time now and it really helps clients understand what the website is like from a customers perspective.
— Jan 18, 2021
How to Add a New Weight and Length Class in OpenCart
Adding a new weight or length class is a useful exercise to know within OpenCart. It could be that you notice that in correspondences with customers they keep referring to a specific weight or length metric that you feel could be useful to add to your website.
— Jan 11, 2021
Dropbox Sync Takes Ages and Seems to be Stuck on Ubuntu
I had to reinstall the OS on one of my main computers recently, I was switching from Linux Neon KDE to Linux Mint XFCE for various reasons (including enjoying "DistroHopping" from time to time).
— Jan 11, 2021
New VAT Rules Now We Have Left the EU
Now that we have left the EU as part of Brexit, you will need to alter your VAT statuses to comply with this.
— Dec 16, 2020
KDE Neon Boots to Black Screen with Mouse Cursor
If you love open source like we do at Antropy, you may be using Linux and if you love KDE like I do, you may use its official distribution, KDE Neon.
— Dec 15, 2020
How to add an IP for an extension that uses the OpenCart API
Sometimes a 3rd party extension or developer will need to access your OpenCart API, for this to happen they will need to get their IP added. I have highlighted below how you undertake this:
— Dec 15, 2020
How To Speed Up OpenCart (and/or Fix Speed Issues)
Speed is one of the most important things when it comes to how enjoyable a website is to use for a customer and these days Google considers it a ranking factor - faster sites appear higher up in the results and therefore get sent more traffic.
— Dec 10, 2020
4 Sensible Risks To Take With Your Ecommerce Store In 2021
Calculated risk lies at the heart of business growth. If you play things too safe, you'll never reap any significant rewards.
— Dec 4, 2020
Our Most Viewed Blogs of 2020
Just like in last year's blog, we go through the most viewed blogs written this year according to Google Analytics. This year we have really tried to focus on blogs that will help you as OpenCart users and giving you more 'how to' guides.
— Nov 23, 2020
How to Change an Order if the Customer Has Made a Mistake
If a customer places an order but makes a mistake in the checkout, such as putting in the wrong delivery address, then it is important to know how to edit an order. This is a simple step by step guide as to how you do that:
— Nov 16, 2020
How to Add a Custom Stock Status
If you want to add more stock statuses on top of the default OpenCart offerings then this is a simple guide as to how you do this:
— Nov 11, 2020
How to Add a New Currency
If you get asked by a customer or whether you feel it would be beneficial to add a new currency to your store, this is how you do it.
— Nov 2, 2020
How to put your OpenCart 3 site in Maintenance Mode?
If your site is undergoing development work or having a major update and needs to be temporarily put into maintenance mode, this is a useful guide as to how you achieve this in your OpenCart 3 store.
— Oct 30, 2020
How to Manually Make an Order Through OpenCart
Sometimes customers prefer to order over the phone or are having issues purchasing good on the site.
— Oct 26, 2020
Why Do We Ask Clients to Buy Extensions?
One questions always crops up when putting together a proposal or talking to clients about projects… ‘Why do we have to buy the extension’?
— Oct 14, 2020
Products Reports within OpenCart
It is imperative that you know which products are being regularly viewed and thus being converted into sales.
— Sep 29, 2020
How to Add a New Admin User
Knowing what people can and cannot see on your admin can be very important and there is information that is very personal to you and your company.
— Sep 21, 2020
How to Add a New Return Reason in OpenCart
If you notice a product is being return for a specific reason on multiple occasions then there is a quick way to add or modify a new or existing ‘Reason for Return’ on the standard OpenCart Returns Page.
— Sep 11, 2020
How to Send Out a Marketing Message or Update to Your Customers Through Opencart
Sending out marketing content such as blogs or offers is always important to keep your customers up to date with what is going on within your business and sector. Some of you may or may not know that this is a feature that you can actually make the most of within OpenCart.
— Sep 4, 2020
How to Send a Gift Voucher to a Customer through OpenCart?
Loyal clients are what makes companies tick and keeps them going.
— Aug 26, 2020
Updated Error Log Trimmer Extension
Three years ago we built an extension that trims your error log so that it doesn’t build up over time and potentially crash your site. This was originally built to be compatible for version 1.5 but we have now updated this to be compatible with version 3.
— Aug 14, 2020
How to Change the Images on a Rolling Banner Within OpenCart?
If you have a rolling banner on your OpenCart store then it is important to know how to either change the pictures on the banners or delete it outright if you don’t want it there anymore. So how do you go about this:
— Jul 31, 2020
Our New Theme Build Package
If you are looking for an upgrade with a simple CCS only theme then look no further than our iStore and Multipurpose themes.
— Jul 17, 2020
Astra Free Trial for Antropy Customers
Our long terms security partners Astra are offering a free trial to our customers. We have worked alongside Astra for a number of years now and they have helped secure many of our client's websites by overcoming hacks that have occurred and prevent any further attacks from happening.
— Jul 13, 2020
3 Key Reasons to Upgrade from OpenCart Version 1.5
We get this a lot - 'Why should I upgrade to the latest version of OpenCart?’ Many clients have the age-old attitude of ‘if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it’.
— Jul 1, 2020
Watch out for scam attacking OpenCart sites!
We have had a spate of OpenCart customers contact us about a scam whereby they have received an email purporting to be from a customer that akes you to a spoof Opencart log in page.
— Jun 22, 2020
Our recent website build for the Scottish Association of Marine Science
Our journey with the Scottish Association of Marine Science (SAMS) starts back in December 2018 when we were asked to put together a document for redeveloping their website. This then proceeded to being asked to tender for the redevelopment and thus ended with getting the contract.
— Jun 9, 2020
5 E-commerce Trends to Follow in 2020
With the general change in online shopping behavior, staying competitive is key.
— Jun 5, 2020
How Better Inventory Management Brings in Higher Sales
Selling products doesn’t just require a clever marketing plan. Every element of a business can be optimized to increase profits. This includes inventory management.
— Jun 2, 2020
Setting up Different Shipping Rates
If you start to ship to other countries, territories or specific states then you will need to add these on your OpenCart store with the correct shipping rate.
— May 20, 2020
How to Change Your Address and Other Contact Details on Your Opencart Contact Form
Some things you know you should know and appear to be very simple but if you don’t know where to look, then that simply isn’t the case.
— May 15, 2020
Breakdown of OpenCart Versions by Downloads
When building extensions we often get asked which versions of OpenCart are most popular and which versions are in use.
— May 4, 2020
Kate Hadfield Gallery
So first of all a bit of background about what Kate Hadfield and her team does.
— Apr 8, 2020
OpenCart Spam Types and Their Protection Methods
The e-commerce industry is battling a number of cyber-threats including spam. Spam issues are quite common to e-commerce websites and OpenCart is no exception. If you head over to the OpenCart forum you’ll find many OpenCart users complaining about spam on their websites.
— Mar 13, 2020
5 Key Reasons Why Your Site Should Be Mobile Friendly?
Over 50% of sales come from mobile or tablet device, so from this alone why would you not make the site mobile friendly?
— Feb 24, 2020
How to Set Up Google Analytics Tracking in OpenCart
Google Analytics is a key component to any business as it gives you helpful data regarding the comings and goings of your website. Being able to sync this with your OpenCart store is key so that this data can be viewed and analysed. So how is this achieved?
— Feb 21, 2020
How to Find Good Quality OpenCart Extensions
We love OpenCart, it's a great platform and has a thriving and active community who support users on the forums and develop great extensions ...
— Feb 16, 2020
Why It's OK to Split Projects into Phases
It is a common myth that if you have a lot of work to complete that this will mean that it has to be done all together in one large project. If you have a list of requirements that can be broken down, then it makes sense to put these into a Phase 1 & Phase 2. So what should this consist of?
— Feb 4, 2020
Linnworks Partner Event: Amazon Shipping Meetup, London
On Wednesday 29th January, I made my way to London for the Linnworks Partner Event at the Amazon Fashion Studio.
— Jan 26, 2020
Error Messages not showing up and how you can check these in OpenCart
Blank white pages or 500 Internal Server Errors are a PHP error. For some reason the error messages do not appear due to the server not being setup to display the errors. So how do you go about rectifying this? Well it is actually a relatively simple process.
— Jan 16, 2020
How to Check your OpenCart Site for Hacks
Sometimes you can experience unusual behaviour on your website such as it not sending emails to customers properly and even the whole site being blocked or dropped on certain search engines but it can appear to work perfectly for you.
— Jan 14, 2020
How to Switch Hosting Providers
Most of our clients have the hosting and web development under the same banner (attach blog) with us.
— Dec 20, 2019
How To Lock Down Your OpenCart Site in Case of a Hack
It is hard to find viable answers to pressing questions like, what steps to take to minimize the damage to your OpenCart site on the web.
— Dec 2, 2019
Our Most Viewed Blogs of 2019
Having a rundown of our most viewed blog of this year through Google Analytics made for some intriguing reading. So below we run down what blogs you were most interested in:
— Nov 15, 2019
Our New Antropy Multipurpose Theme
So as promised a couple of months ago, this is our second theme that is now available exclusively on the OpenCart Theme Store. In the same way we built the iStore Theme, our new Antropy Multipurpose Theme is styled using CSS only and no core files have been overridden.
— Nov 6, 2019
How To Scale Your Ecom Business Via Multi-Channel Inventory Management
Though the startup costs are low, ecommerce businesses are capable of incredible growth. The retail world is littered with examples of online-only retailers that started small and expanded massively to become bigger than brick-and-mortar companies could have.
— Oct 28, 2019
How to add a new tax rate within OpenCart
Changing tax rates or tax names on products is always a useful exercise to know as it is a little hidden away within the OpenCart admin. Some products may have a specific tax rate that you need to apply to being able to set this correctly is important to know.
— Oct 27, 2019
Remotely Debugging PHP with Xdebug
PHP is one of the most popular programming languages in use today and is the language that powers the majority of websites. Although it's free and open source, it is of course very actively developed, with version 7.4 having been recently released and updates being very regularly released.
— Oct 14, 2019
OpenCart Demo site
We have had a number of inquiries over the last few months asking us what OpenCart is like as a platform and whether it would be best for the said persons site.
— Sep 25, 2019
The downfall of Thomas Cook highlights the shift from high street to online retail
In a similar vein to when Monarch went out of business in 2017, there is sadness and a tinge of anger around the Thomas Cook collapse.
— Sep 9, 2019
Changing URL Structure - is it a good idea yes or no?
It is a common question we get asked as to whether it is ok to change URL’s and whether this will affect SEO rating’s in anyway. The answer in short is no (if done correctly). Why would you look to change URL’s in the first place?
— Aug 20, 2019
One simple way to speed up your OpenCart Store
The speed of your site is one of the key components to the successful running of your site.
— Aug 9, 2019
Hobby Mounts Quick Checkout
One of our key clients gave us the briefing of replicating the quick checkout process that you can have in Shopify onto OpenCart.
— Jul 15, 2019
How to utilise coupons on OpenCart 2 & 3
Using coupons on your website is a good way to promote and push projects.
— Jun 21, 2019
Why Have Your Hosting and Development Work Under the Same Roof?
We are in the lucky position of having the majority of our key clients hosting with us, as well as doing their development work.
— Jun 10, 2019
How To Build A Profitable Multi-Channel Retailing Strategy For Your Online Store
Outperforming your ecommerce competition is about ensuring that your brand (and your items) appear in the right places at the right times.
— Jun 6, 2019
How To Get Good Support on the OpenCart Forum
The OpenCart 3.0 General Support Forum is a great place to get free help and support with your OpenCart issues.
— Jun 4, 2019
5 Ways Enterprise Resource Planning Will Streamline Your Ecommerce Business
Enterprise resource planning, or ERP, is a vital part of running a competitive enterprise-level business — particularly in the digital world.
— May 17, 2019
Nauticalia Website Rebuild
In September 2018 we were approached by our long-term clients Nauticalia to rebuild and update their OpenCart website.
— May 17, 2019
Online Shopping Secrets: How to Get the Most Out of Amazon
Multi-channel selling is one of the best ways to boost sales, but knowing which platforms to utilise can often be a bit of a minefield.
— May 17, 2019
7 Podcasts Every Ecommerce Entrepreneur Should Subscribe To (And Why)
Self-education is crucial for any ecommerce entrepreneur hoping to achieve success. As an ecommerce entrepreneur, it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse in your industry, evolve as your business grows, and learn from the success of others around you.
— Apr 29, 2019
Our Newly Created Custom Themes Are Now Available to Purchase
This has been a project which has been quietly running in the background for a number of months now.
— Apr 11, 2019
Why do we ask for login details?
We get asked this around 3-4 times a day so I thought I would clarify why we require a websites login details when we need to look into an issue.
— Apr 5, 2019
Open Office Cannot Remove Page Break Before Table
If you use the excellent OpenOffice (now called LibreOffice) word processor instead of Microsoft Word, you may come across the issue where you insert a Page Break by pressing Ctrl + Enter, inside a table only to find you cannot delete it again!
— Mar 22, 2019
How to create Product Specials within your OpenCart Store
Setting up a special price for a product is very important for your ecommerce business in order to push product sales.
— Mar 8, 2019
Updates on our Advanced Captcha & Next Day Delivery Countdown timer extensions
Due to popular demand we have now made our Advanced Captcha code into an extension that can now be purchased on the OpenCart extension store.
— Feb 20, 2019
Ecommerce Inspiration: Examples Of Successful Businesses Using OpenCart
In any industry you care to mention, learning from those who’ve already achieved what you’re trying to do is one of the best ways to improve.
— Feb 20, 2019
WooCommerce vs Shopify vs OpenCart — Which One Suits Your Business?
If you’re looking for a great ecommerce CMS, you’re not lacking for options, because the standard has gone up enormously since the early days of online retail.
— Feb 15, 2019
How to Create an OpenCart 3 Theme
Creating a new theme for OpenCart 1.5 used to be pretty easyOpenCart 3 brings new features, but creating a theme is a little more difficult.
— Feb 11, 2019
Using Windows File Explorer to Manage Images in OpenCart
Unbeknown to a lot of OpenCart users you can use File Explorer to put images from your computer in to the OpenCart image manager. This is very useful if you would like to add or delete a large amount of images to or from your OpenCart store.
— Jan 25, 2019
How to prevent spamming on your OpenCart store
This section is split into three sections whereby I will go into more details with regards to why you should enable CAPTCHA & Google reCAPTCHA, what is advanced CAPTCHA and how do all of these prevent spamming?
— Jan 12, 2019
How to view and create a new product review within OpenCart
Reviews are crucial to the stability and growth of a product range for a company. Being able to view the reviews that you are receiving and being able to add new ones in that may have come through an email is a good exercise for any OpenCart user.
— Jan 4, 2019
Our Christmas do and why they are important for a company's growth
On the 22nd December we embarked on our annual curry to the lovely Taj Mahal restaurant in Crawley.
— Dec 22, 2018
How the admin can place an order as a customer
This is a very useful exercise that enables you to see the store from a customers perspective when they are logged into their account. I have below described a step by step guide to help you run this exercise
— Dec 21, 2018
Antropy MD Paul Feakins Gets Certified in Machine Learning
I've just completed Andrew Ng's excellent Machine Learning course from Stanford University. Machine Learning (ML) is not a new field in computer science but recent advances in computing power and an explosion in the amount of data available have made some unbelievable things possible!
— Dec 14, 2018
Xmas 2018 Antropy Opening Hours
Thanks everyone for your support this year, it's been a very exciting year for us! Here are some Xmas dates ...
— Dec 13, 2018
Here's a Proven Way to Make More Online Sales
All eCommerce and “bricks & mortar” shops would like to increase sales and revenues. eCommerce in the UK continues to grow between 13% and 15% per annum but there are some significant challenges facing these business whether on-line or on the high street.
— Nov 30, 2018
5 step process to make sure your Ecommerce Store ready for Christmas!
Ho Ho Ho Merry Ecommercemas (I have been waiting months to release this pun)!
— Nov 26, 2018
Abandoned Orders Extension
We recently helped to install an extension for a client that has helped them show missing or abandoned orders.
— Nov 14, 2018
How to Add Relative Links in OpenCart with Sub Stores
If you use the excellent sub-store functionality in OpenCart, you may have come across the issue of internal links in the product and category descriptions.
— Nov 13, 2018
![[SOLVED] OpenCart 1.5 Site Search Very Slow](/files/cache/b8d7e56f8a9a6cb99fe6a782f7d11eac.jpg)
[SOLVED] OpenCart 1.5 Site Search Very Slow
We came across a problem recently where an OpenCart 1.5 site with no extensions and the default theme was often running very slowly for no apparently reason.
— Nov 8, 2018
![[Case Study] Hobby Mounts Monthly Competition](/files/cache/73f869e2796f750b91893ef5367acd8f.jpg)
[Case Study] Hobby Mounts Monthly Competition
Hobby Mounts are the UK's largest DJI, Yuneex and Action Camera Specialist and one-stop shop for your Drones and accessories. They are based in Cornwall and have a showroom based just off the A30.
— Oct 27, 2018
The big question- Amazon vs eBay
Now I am big into my sport so I will use this analogy for the Amazon vs eBay showdown!
— Oct 19, 2018
Move to PHP 7 before Jan 2019 or Risk Getting Hacked!
We were all quite excited here at Antropy back in 2015 when PHP 7 was released because it included improvements all round as well as a massive 70% speed increase. PHP had received a turbocharger!
— Oct 12, 2018
OpenCart 3.1: What Does the Recent Alpha Tell Us About the Next Full Update?
OpenCart first hit public release way back in 1999, and it’s come an incredibly long way since then, keeping pace with newer, better-funded and paid rivals. However, it hasn’t seen a real update for over a year at this point, with version 3.0.2.0 being released in July 2017.
— Oct 11, 2018
Top 5 free OpenCart Extensions
There are many different OpenCart extensions that range from $20 to $120 that cover a wide range of scenarios that can help your business.
— Oct 4, 2018
OpenCart Checkout Hack Authorize.net
We have recently been contacted by several different companies who have noticed extra payment gateways or errors on the checkout.
— Sep 27, 2018
Antropy Pricing Structure
Unlike most web companies we have decided to buck the trend and put our pricing scheme on our website.
— Sep 26, 2018
What Impact Could A No Deal Brexit Have On The UK Ecommerce Industry?
Brexit has been the UK’s defining topic since 24 June 2016. Whatever your Brexit stance, the conversation around the deal the UK will get from the EU has shifted substantially in the last two years.
— Sep 14, 2018
10 Years Since the Financial Crash
There seem to be a lot of articles in the news this week about the Financial Crash that began in 2008.
— Aug 30, 2018
Always on hand when you need us
Having recently joined Antropy I have had to not only move into a completely different industry but also a different sector entirely. That being said the team have been very supportive as I have got up and running within the company.
— Aug 20, 2018
How to clear all caches in OpenCart 3.0.2.0
Caches can be the absolute bane of a developer's life, but what exactly are they, why can they be annoying, and how can we make them less annoying?
— Aug 7, 2018
Why You Would Benefit from a Collection Account Abroad
If you are selling overseas via the internet, you are likely to deal with foreign currency exchange with your buyers.
— Apr 9, 2018
PHP Script Keeps Timing Out Despite ini_set
Occasionally when programming you may need a script to run for quite a long time and unfortunately without changing some settings, the script may timeout before it's finished.
— Apr 6, 2018
Antropy's Best Email Productivity Hacks
Love it or hate it, email as a method of business communication is here to stay.
— Apr 6, 2018
Please Use "Reply All" in Group Emails
Why you should always use "Reply All" in group emails to keep everyone in the discussion.
— Mar 28, 2018
Will e-commerce continue to help the finance sector grow?
The e-commerce explosion has been huge and far-reaching and shows no signs of slowing down.
— Mar 16, 2018
GDPR TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read)
There's a lot of talk lately of the new EU GDPR rules that come in to force in May 2018, and we've been asked by several clients for advice.
— Jan 25, 2018
Automatic OpenCart Website Backups
Everyone knows that backups are very important, but how many online sellers could quickly and easily get you a recent backup of their ecommerce website if something went wrong? How many just hope that nothing will go wrong?
— Jan 4, 2018
6 Ways To Mix Up & Manage Your Product Inventory For 2018
Product inventory. The mere mention is enough to send shivers down your spine. It conjures images of clipboards and long hours jotting down products, and it’s certainly not as exciting as new developments like AI in ecommerce. But it’s essential to the success of your business.
— Nov 19, 2017
Efficient Learning for New OpenCart Developers
A programming language like PHP has a fairly large number of built-in functions and a lot of developers get by knowing just a small subset of them.
— Nov 2, 2017
How to Write a Really Good Web Project Brief
Why should you go to the effort of writing a good web project brief? Surely that's the job of your web agency.
— Oct 20, 2017
Freetrade: Trade Stocks & Shares for Free
One of your goals should certainly be to accumulate as much capital as possible. Why? Because money generates more money. It's the reason the rich get richer.
— Oct 12, 2017
Opencart Emails Not Arriving When Using SMTP
We have mentioned previously about issues which can cause your OpenCart emails to fail when sent using SMTP. Unfortunately this is a fairly common problem that can have lots of possible causes, below I detail another new (to us!) cause.
— Sep 22, 2017
Computing in 1995 vs 2017
I was recently tagged in an old school photo from one of our IT lessons which I think was taken around 1995, so it's a good chance to have a look back at how computers have changed in the last 22 years. Extra bonus points if you can spot me!
— Sep 19, 2017
We've Moved to Three Bridges in Crawley, West Sussex
We've settled in nicely to our new offices at Crawley Business Centre, Three Bridges.
— Jul 21, 2017
Are Passwords with Numbers Instead of Letters Secure?
The amount and sophistication of hacking activity has been increasing and is likely to increase still further.
— Jul 7, 2017
![[Case Study] The Good Care Group Speed Improvements](/files/cache/3f3ae1a2e93d17dfdb620a82042a222e.jpg)
[Case Study] The Good Care Group Speed Improvements
The Good Care Group is a UK national company specialising in live-in care for the elderly and disabled. Their website was built using the Concrete5 CMS and we host the site on its own SSD VPS. Unfortunately they weren't scroring highly on Google Page Insights.
— Jun 30, 2017
What's New in OpenCart 3?
After a fairly quiet period of intense activity behind the scenes, OpenCart 3.0.0.0 was released just over a week ago.
— May 19, 2017
Marketing Automation Emails Are Now Free in MailChimp
I've blogged a fair amount about automation in the past because it's one of the keys to a succesful, profitable and scaleable business.
— May 18, 2017
Contact Form Not Sending Email
Most websites will have a contact form of some sort designed to take sales enquiries in a simple way and send them on to the business by email.
— May 13, 2017
![[Video] How easy is it to edit products in OpenCart?](/files/cache/48236ea0c33173641c7d5505c28734b3.jpg)
[Video] How easy is it to edit products in OpenCart?
A quick test of a head mounted camera, and a very quick example of how easy it is to edit products in OpenCart.
— May 8, 2017
OpenCart PHP Session /tmp Files Filling Up
When users come to a website, especially an ecommerce website, it's useful for the server to be able to keep track of who they are so it can do things like display their shopping cart. To do this, the server needs to keep a little file on the server (as well as one in the browser called a cookie).
— Apr 27, 2017
How to Acquire Awesome Customer Reviews & Testimonials
The way we shop forever changed when ecommerce exploded via the internet and delivery services streamlined.
— Apr 24, 2017
Antropy Introduce Hourly Task Reports
Antropy have just released a fantastic new feature for our "hourly" clients that will help keep you on top of your tasks and your budget when working with us.
— Apr 11, 2017
OpenCart PayPal Standard Error after March 31st 2017 Update
PayPal did an update on 31/03/2017 that has broken a lot of checkouts with customers seeing a message like: "Things don't appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later."
— Mar 13, 2017
How to Stop OpenCart Emails Going to Spam by Using SMTP
Spam email is a massive problem these days and the best defense we have against it is spam filters.
— Jan 29, 2017
The Singularity is Near: How Kurzweil's Predictions Are Faring
Back in 2007 I was very excited to start reading The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil which had been published 2 years earlier in 2005.
— Dec 2, 2016
Finding and Fixing Bugs in Software
Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, computer software is incredibly brittle (as opposed to being flexible). That means that a small change somewhere can totally break something and prevent anything from working at all.
— Oct 21, 2016
Antropy Ecommerce Website Audits
I'm pleased to announce that Antropy are now offering full ecommerce website audits that help identify areas where online shop owners are missing opportunities or have problems that may be negatively affecting sales.
— Oct 14, 2016
How do OpenCart Layouts Work?
Once you know how it's actually very easy to adjust the layout of various OpenCart pages to move things around and remove or add items. Here's a quick overview of how it works.
— Oct 7, 2016
AI in Ecommerce
There's a lot in the news lately about AI (Artificial Intelligence) with names like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking warning about its dangers and Microsoft saying it will use it to cure cancer in the next 10 years.
— Jul 15, 2016
What's the Quickest Way to Install OpenCart?
One of the fastest ways to get a functional ecommerce website up and running very quickly is to get some web hosting that provides cPanel (such as ours here).
— Jul 1, 2016
What does the Brexit mean for ecommerce?
Whether you wanted the UK to Leave or Remain in the EU, the decision has now been made by the UK public and we will leave the European Union in the very near future, unless of course there is some sort of intervention.
— Jun 17, 2016
What is the difference between modules and extensions in OpenCart?
In computer software, the terms "module", "extension", "plug-in", "add-on", "app", and even "vQmod" (in OpenCart only) are often used interchangeably.
— Jun 10, 2016
How to Use Product Tags in OpenCart 2
If you're adding products to your OpenCart 2 store, you're going to want to make sure that everything is done in the best way possible for SEO and the presentation of your site. A very useful but often overlooked field is the Product Tags field which can be seen in Catalog > Products > General (tab)
— May 6, 2016
How to Speed Up OpenCart in 2 Minutes
If you're OpenCart store has a lot of products and categories (especially sub-categories), there's a very quick and very easy way to speed it up by changing 1 setting in the admin.
— Apr 21, 2016
OpenCart 2.2 Fulfilment By Amazon
OpenCart 2.2 was released recently and hiding amongst the other standard updates such as "cleaner code" is something we think is really quite exciting ... the ability to connect to Fulfilment By Amazon (FBA).
— Apr 11, 2016
How Cognitive Biases Affect Our Everyday Decisions
I don't always share infographics, but when I do it's because I found them pretty interesting ...
— Apr 1, 2016
How to Transfer a Busy Ecommerce Website with Next to No Down-Time
As your ecommerce business grows, so do demands on your web server - as you add more products, more categories, more customers, more sales, more channels ... your server will eventually also need more power. Sometimes this can be upgraded "on-the-fly", but often a server move will be required.
— Mar 4, 2016
OpenCart Automatic Error Log Trimmer
I blogged some time ago about a very elusive but dangerous beast of a problem that can happen to unsuspecting OpenCart sites.
— Feb 19, 2016
It's time to switch to HTTPS
Very simply, if you want your site to be more secure and your customers to see the lovely green padlock in their browser, then you'll need an SSL Certificate which will allow you to use HTTP Secure or HTTPS.
— Jan 14, 2016
Don't Forget to Make a Profit!
If you're just starting out in ecommerce, knowing how to price your products is going to be one of the most difficult things to get right. With so much competition and demands from customers for discounts, free delivery, guarantees, refunds etc. it's easy to end up not making any money.
— Dec 23, 2015
PHP 7 Released
The release of PHP 7 is very good news for everyone who uses the Internet because it will speed up the majority of websites out there in one fell swoop!
— Dec 14, 2015
OpenCart Maintenance Checklist
With Christmas 2015 approaching, it's definitely a good time to make sure your OpenCart installation is as stable as possible. So here are a few things that you can check yourself to help avoid any downtime over the festive period.
— Nov 27, 2015
Ecommerce Marketing Strategies Overview
If you're running an online shop, then the most important thing will be getting people to actually go through the checkout process.
— Nov 10, 2015
The Antropy Software Development Project Management Process
Estimating and quoting can be one of the hardest things in software development, even for the most experienced developers.
— Oct 16, 2015
How To Speed Up OpenCart
Your customers are willing to pay significantly more to their Internet Service Provider per month for faster Internet speeds.
— Sep 30, 2015
Retail Week Supply Chain Awards
Last Thursday Antropy were invited to join the Lengow table at The Hermes Retail Week Supply Chain Awards which took place at the Hilton Park Lane, London.
— Aug 14, 2015
Business Automation with OpenCart
Business Automation in its broadest sense could be said to have happened when the first person delegated a task to someone else.
— Aug 7, 2015
OpenCart Themes
One of the best ways to get an online shop set up quickly is to start with a theme for your eCommerce platform.
— Jul 31, 2015
OpenCart Not Sending Order Emails
If you're running an online ecommerce business, you won't need us to tell you how important it is that your customers receive their order confirmation and status emails and that you and your team receive the admin emails to tell you when there's been an order.
— Jul 23, 2015
Seldom Used Hacks That Will Amplify Your Marketing Productivity
At times, things don’t go well and we may end up having a messed up day at work. Yes, it simply means that we failed to have a productive day. So the next question, that comes to your mind will be like - What is this thing called productivity?
— Jul 17, 2015
Secure Trading Payment Gateway
There are lots of payment gateways to choose from, but it's definitely worth having a look at Secure Trading. Secure Trading is an integrated payments services company - a single point of contact for merchant services, payment processing, PCI compliance and cyber security services.
— Jul 13, 2015
Allow your Customers to Finance their Purchase in OpenCart
If you sell high-value items through your website, you may find that customers would rather break the purchase in to on-going monthly payments.
— Jul 3, 2015
PayPal Standard Hack Causes Wrong Order Total in OpenCart 1.5.x
If you're using PayPal Standard, your shop is potentially vulnerable to an attack that will allow customers to pay what they want for your products.
— Jun 26, 2015
php.ini Settings Not Working
Sometimes you need to apply a configuration change to a PHP server and it just doesn't seem to be taking effect whatever you do. Usually it will be something like increasing the max post size or memory limit in php.ini, but a subsequent check with phpinfo() isn't showing the value you set.
— Jun 24, 2015
Speed-Up Ecommerce Websites with a CDN
You may have heard people talking about CDNs. You may not have. But essentially what you need to know is that they can very quickly, easily and cheaply, increase your Google ranking, conversions and therefore sales.
— Jun 10, 2015
Handy Linux Commands
Just a little page for some regularly used useful Linux commands.
— Jun 5, 2015
Perception of Value
Well this is quite a fascinating infographic on the perception of value. Especially useful if you're selling on eBay, Amazon and especially your own site and still believe the only way to sell more is to be the cheapest. This one is well worth bookmarking.
— May 29, 2015
A Fantastic Ecommerce Experience
As an ecommerce professional, I'm always paying extra attention when buying online. I look closely at the websites I'm using, their marketing and introspectively at my own buying processes. So when I see something particularly good, it makes me want to share it with our clients.
— May 19, 2015
Mobilegeddon
On 21st April 2014, Google made a change to their search algorithm that meant websites that aren't very well optimized for small touch screens will be less likely to appear in searches from mobile phones.
— May 18, 2015
How do OpenCart Multi-Stores work?
If you have more than one ecommerce website as part of the same business, it may make sense to put them all together in to one OpenCart install as sub-stores.
— Apr 27, 2015
Top Reasons Why People Migrate to OpenCart
Due to the rapid expansion of e-Commerce around the world, the digital marketplace is becoming flooded with modern, cheap and advanced shopping carts.
— Apr 14, 2015
Importance of Being Close to Early Customers
There are a number of common mistakes made by startups, but arguably the most important one is forgetting to stay close to your early users/customers.
— Apr 10, 2015
The Lure of Magento
Magento. The name conjures up the image of a big, successful ecommerce operation, full of features and doing a lot of business - or at least it does for me.
— Apr 2, 2015
Personalization – Getting Closer to Your Customers
Personalization has become one of the leading trends in e-Commerce. But what is it exactly and how it can be implemented?
— Mar 19, 2015
Why You Need to Aim for a "Frictionless" Checkout
If humans were purely logical creatures, buying decisions would be cold and calculated.
— Mar 11, 2015
Why Hourly Charging can be a Win-Win for Client and Agency
Along with writing documentation, quoting and estimating on complex programming work are some of the most difficult tasks a developer has to undertake.
— Mar 10, 2015
Kiva Robots for an Automated Warehouse
With the revolution in e-commerce, vouchers sites are a hot topic.
— Feb 16, 2015
How to build personal relations with the visitors of your website
Relationships are the basis for business. This is true for all industries and sectors, including eCommerce. They are the vital asset for the sustainability of a company and essential for growing. They add value, improve customer satisfaction and helps you win their loyalty.
— Jan 21, 2015
ASOS is 15 Years Old
ASOS.com is a British online fashion and beauty store. Primarily aimed at young adults, ASOS sells over 850 brands as well as its own range.
— Jan 15, 2015
Shopping Cart Trends
It's always good to be aware of industry trends and "Google Trends" is a great tool for this. Assuming that the number of searches on a given topic is a good indicator of interest in it, which is probably is, it's a great tool for seeing how certain technologies/companies/platforms are doing.
— Dec 24, 2014
eBook: How to Take Your Retail Business Online
If you're part of a successful retail business and sales are okay but not really growing like they used to be and you've got that nagging feeling at the back of your mind that you really should be selling online then this ebook was written for you.
— Dec 15, 2014
Amazon's Retail Revolution Business Boomers BBC Full Documentary
The ultimate online retail success story - a business that was born in a garage twenty years ago and grew into a 100 billion pound global giant.
— Dec 11, 2014
New EU VAT Rules 2015
You may be aware that some rather onerous new tax rules will come in to force from January 1st 2015 to do with the way that VAT is charged in the EU.
— Dec 11, 2014
Showrooming: How it Feels to get Amazon'd
How big of a problem is showrooming to high street retailers?
— Nov 26, 2014
![OpenCart CAPTCHA not working JFIF gd-jpeg v1.0 [SOLVED]](/files/cache/9edd95c5e6c7fef87a6ff0a33e4c4f3f.png)
OpenCart CAPTCHA not working JFIF gd-jpeg v1.0 [SOLVED]
I came across an issue with OpenCart CAPTCHAs recently for the about the third time, which was difficult to fix each time.
— Nov 20, 2014
Shipping Software – How to Know When Your Business Needs It
Coming in a variety of forms, shipping software is a computer program that is specifically designed to process labels (with your customer addresses), track deliveries, access and manage a range of carrier services.
— Nov 19, 2014
Cyber Monday 2014 Infographic
This year, Monday 1 December is Cyber Monday! Hundreds of retailers will be slashing prices for 24 hours as consumers scramble to find a bargain.
— Nov 11, 2014
What emails does your store send?
During the buying process, your customers will receive various email updates about the status of their order. Are you making the best use of these opportunities? Here are some things you could implement that will increase revenue.
— Oct 31, 2014
A Quick Look at OpenCart 2.0
Finally the long-awaited OpenCart 2.0 has been released to the public for use. The new version of our favourite ecommerce platform has a whole host of major new features and improvements. Here are some of them.
— Oct 17, 2014
10 Years in the Web Industry
It occurred to me this month that I've been working in the web industry for just over 10 years. How time flies! And what better occasion to look back over the changes we've seen in the industry over that time?
— Oct 2, 2014
How do nameservers and DNS Records work?
You'll probably be thinking DNS is pretty complicated. Luckily it's not actually that tricky and here's a simplified description of all you need to know.
— Sep 30, 2014
![The State of Beacons in Retail 2014 [Infographic]](/files/cache/9bfaccbd59912d915037c401fe258811.jpg)
The State of Beacons in Retail 2014 [Infographic]
iBeacon is the trademark for an indoor proximity system that Apple Inc. calls "a new class of low-powered, low-cost transmitters that can notify nearby iOS 7 devices of their presence." The technology enables a smart phone or other device to perform actions when in close proximity to an iBeacon.
— Sep 23, 2014
OpenCart Orders to Tradebox to Sage 50
After many long evenings and far too much caffeine to be considered safe, we have released our OpenCart to Tradebox extension in to the wild to roam amongst the other OpenCart modules.
— Sep 19, 2014
A Century of U.S. Consumer Purchase Decisions
An interesting look at how consumers purchased products over the last 100 years.
— Sep 8, 2014
How Retailers are Converting on Mobile
What are online retailers doing in terms of mobile marketing and website optimization?
— Sep 2, 2014
How Do Colours Affect Purchases?
There are many factors that affect website sales and, as ecommerce experts, all of them are of great interest to us.
— Aug 29, 2014
What Are People Really Buying Online?
There are some pretty surprising findings below that may have an effect on the product ranges that you choose to stock and sell online.
— Aug 20, 2014
The Growth of Online Shopping
It's interesting to see such strong growth in ecommerce, but also that while bricks and mortar stores worry about "showrooming", such a thing exists as "webrooming".
— Aug 15, 2014
10 Ways to Convert More Customers
10 interesting and counter-intuitive ways of increasing sales. 1, 3 and 6 are particularly interesting!
— Aug 14, 2014
Flubit the Online Marketplace with a Difference
There's a new marketplace in town that's free to join, has 5 million UK shoppers, is easy to connect to your online shop and has a massive conversion rate.
— Aug 12, 2014
Portrait of a Mobile Consumer
In 2018 90% of mobile traffic will come from cloud applications, compared to 82% at the end of 2013. It is expected to grow at an annual compound rate of 64% between 2013 and 2018. The increase in the use of 4G allows for easier access to all forms of content from anywhere, across multiple devices.
— Jul 28, 2014
Tablet Growth: What to Expect
The trends are clear, desktop is diminishing and tablets are becoming ubiquitous. Essentially, tablet and mobile can no longer be ignored. They can't be considered a "nice-to-have", they must be considered a main, essential feature of any new website project.
— Jul 18, 2014
Tracking the Path to Purchase
The path to purchase has dozens of points where retailers can collect valuable data, enhance the shopping experience, and convert browsers into buyers.
— Jul 10, 2014
Benefits of Live Chat for e-Commerce
Imagine going to your local grocery store only to be surprised by an empty counter.
— Jun 17, 2014
Google's 200 Ranking Factors
Although the ranking algorithm is one of Google's most closely guarded secrets, this very extensive infographic must cover almost all of the most important factors.
— Jun 13, 2014
How to Report a Bug the Right Way
In order to get the best out of any web agency when you have a problem with your website, you'll need to give them a very clear description of the problem.
— Jun 2, 2014
Calls to Action Without Transaction: Squeezing Value Out of Every Click
In an ideal world, every single visitor to your eCommerce store would like what they see enough to make an order.
— May 19, 2014
OpenCart Currencies
There seems to be some confusion about how multi-currency works in OpenCart, so here's a short article to clarify some of the main points.
— Apr 25, 2014
How do you approach your ecommerce marketing?
Let's be blunt - the way in which you approach the marketing of your online business will be one of the most important factors in your success or failure.
— Apr 11, 2014
What is The Heartbleed Bug?
The Internet has been panicking this week at the discovery of a serious vulnerability that may have compromised passwords and data on many of the most popular sites.
— Apr 1, 2014
Facebook buys Antropy for £12 million
Mark Zuckerberg reveals plans to expand the ecommerce on facebook (f-commerce) after announcing the purchase of Antropy for £12 million.
— Mar 28, 2014
Add to Cart Popup Confirmations in OpenCart
Maximising sales in ecommerce is all about delivering the simplest and best user experience possible.
— Mar 21, 2014
Using a CRM with your Ecommerce Website
We really love open source software at Antropy, not just for the cost savings but for the flexibility of being able to change the software to fit your needs.
— Mar 14, 2014
RC Geeks Website Re-Design Case Study
Lots of companies invest heavily in the design/branding of their websites.
— Feb 28, 2014
The Importance of Website/Server Monitoring
What is server/website monitoring? And why is it so important for ecommerce websites?
— Feb 21, 2014
Canonical URLs in OpenCart
If you've looked in to SEO on any level you'll probably have heard of canonical URLs. So we'll try and answer a few questions about them.
— Feb 14, 2014
Ecommerce Guest Blogger Needed
We're looking for ecommerce guest bloggers, to help with guest posts and articles. We're keen to feature thoughtful and creative articles about OpenCart or ecommerce in general. If you know your stuff, write useful articles and enjoy putting finger to keyboard, get in touch to find out more.
— Feb 11, 2014
Comparison of Multi-Channel Selling Platforms
If you're serious about selling online, you need to be selling across multiple channels and if you have any number of products at all, you need to be synchronizing stock levels, managing orders in one place and ideally managing your listings automatically across the channels.
— Jan 31, 2014
Do you have backups of your ecommerce site?
It never fails to surprise me how many companies have their ecommerce website at the centre of their business but fail to have a proper backup solution or disaster recovery (DR) process in place. Are you one of these?
— Jan 28, 2014
9 Reasons Your Bricks and Mortar Shop Must Master Online Selling or Die
Some of the most compelling reasons why the time is now to take your business online. If you're wondering why sales are lagging off-line and haven't yet become an ecommerce seller, this is a must-read.
— Jan 23, 2014
Benchmarking Your Google Adwords and Product Listing Ad Metrics
If you are going to be pumping your hard earned cash back into promoting, you will want to know whether that cash is doing its best for your bottom line.
— Jan 14, 2014
Consumer Psychology at the Ecommerce Checkout
This detailed and informative image looks at the motivations underlying customers' behaviour during the checkout process on e-commerce sites.
— Jan 3, 2014
Why have Debenhams not done as well as John Lewis?
Many retailers and online shops saw the Christmas surge come later this year, with more customers leaving their shopping to the last minute.
— Dec 20, 2013
Ecommerce and the Christmas Holidays 2013
This year many online retailers have seen the Christmas rush come later than ever with more and more people leaving their online shopping to the last minute. It seems the reason for this is partly increased confidence and trust in buying online and in the speed and reliability of deliveries.
— Dec 11, 2013
Why the Telephone Will Still be Vital to E-commerce in 2014
You might think that telephone sales have been kicked to the sideline after the explosion of eCommerce, but you would only be half right.
— Dec 6, 2013
Amazon Prime Air
This week Amazon.com announced that it's working on technology that will make deliveries by drone aircraft (hexacopters) straight to the customer's home.
— Nov 28, 2013
Advertising on Amazon: How it Can Help Your Business
Amazon.com, Inc. is undeniably one of the giants of e-commerce.
— Nov 22, 2013
Email Customers Who Bought Certain Products in OpenCart
Usually we'd recommend sending your marketing email to previous customers via MailChimp or other similar web-based service.
— Nov 15, 2013
How To Get more Facebook Followers
If you're looking to sell more (and who isn't?) then it won't have escaped your attention that having a facebook page for your business with a lot of "likes" is a great way to get your products in front of your target market.
— Nov 8, 2013
Selling on Google Shopping with OpenCart
Google have been trying to list products for quite some time.
— Nov 5, 2013
Delivering an Exceptional Ecommerce Experience
Well I was so impressed recently when placing an order on overclockers.co.uk that I thought it would be worth highlighting some of the things they've got spot on and how they're going above and beyond customer expectations on a daily basis.
— Oct 25, 2013
Securing OpenCart
No computer system can ever be 100% secure, as proven recently by security breaches at Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Microsoft. But there are some simple steps you can take to deter all but the most determined hacker.
— Oct 18, 2013
Ecommerce Website Breakdown of Costs
Before starting a new online business, it's important to have a clear idea of the numbers involved in terms of initial investment, fixed monthly/yearly costs and likely return. So here's a brief overview of some numbers.
— Oct 11, 2013
TrustPilot and OpenCart
If you're not aware of TrustPilot already, it's an independent platform that allows customers to review the service they receive from your company online. It presents these reviews on your website in a little widget that you can add.
— Oct 4, 2013
eCommerce Expo 2013
We went to London yesterday to check out the eCommerce Expo and had a great time meeting some of the key players in the ecommerce industry. The highlight for us being the OpenCart stand where we met the developers behind OpenStock, OpenBayPro and the man himself behind OpenCart, Daniel Kerr.
— Sep 20, 2013
Hosted vs Self-Hosted Shopping Carts
Whether you sell online via eBay and Amazon already or whether you're looking to start selling online for the first time, at some point you're going to want a website on your own domain name that sells.
— Sep 13, 2013
eBay is No Longer Bargain Basement
Ebay was once seen as the place to go for those seeking rare or specific second hand items at bargain basement prices.
— Sep 6, 2013
OpenCart Customer Review Email
Selling online is all about trust. If you can increase the trust your users have if your site, your company and your products, you will increase your sales in turn. There are many ways to do this but customer product reviews are one of the most effective.
— Aug 30, 2013
How to Add Video to Products in OpenCart
If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video must be worth a thousand pictures. And pictures are very useful when selling online. So how can you add video to your OpenCart product descriptions?
— Aug 27, 2013
Why Your Web Host Should Know OpenCart
When choosing a web host there are a lot of things to consider, especially if you're an online only ecommerce business.
— Aug 16, 2013
New Antropy Offices!
The Antropy team are settling in nicely to our new offices in Crawley, West Sussex, in the same building as successful ecommerce company, RC Geeks.
— Aug 13, 2013
Setting Up Recurring Payments in OpenCart
One of the most exciting new features in OpenCart 1.5.6 is the ability to allow customers to set up recurring payments or subscriptions.
— Aug 5, 2013
Improving Title Tags for SEO in OpenCart
OpenCart is very well optimized for search engines by default, but there are certain things that can be done to improve the on-site SEO still further.
— Jul 29, 2013
Latest OpenCart 1.5.6 Connects to Ebay, Amazon and Play
The latest OpenCart has been released, version 1.5.6 and it has several really great new features!
— Jul 19, 2013
OpenCart PayPal Orders Not Showing IPN
Various OpenCart websites that use PayPal Standard have been seeing a problem recently where orders are being placed and appearing in PayPal but they aren't appearing as completed orders in OpenCart.
— Jul 12, 2013
Showing Sale Prices in OpenCart
You may have seen on some ecommerce websites a price of a product that's crossed out and discounted for a sale. It's a very good visual way to show how much a customer is saving.
— Jul 8, 2013
How to Get More Traffic with a Press Release
So we're not talking about the old fashioned kind of press release that goes in a printed newspaper.
— Jun 28, 2013
OpenCart Abandoned Cart Reminder
Abandoned shopping carts are where someone has added a load of items to their shopping basket on your website and then for whatever reason they haven't proceeded to place the order.
— Jun 21, 2013
PayPal Standard and Credit/Debit Cards
You can use PayPal Standard to take payments by credit card, but do your customers know this?
— Jun 14, 2013
How to do Refunds in OpenCart
A frequent question that comes up amongst OpenCart users is how are refunds and returns are processed. Even long term users of OpenCart often process refunds outside of OpenCart but there is a built-in way for doing this.
— Jun 7, 2013
How to Fully Backup OpenCart
If you've used OpenCart for any length of time, you've probably seen the Backup/Restore buttons in the admin area of your website. You may, like many others, have assumed that clicking backup will give you a full backup of your site should anything go wrong or should you want to move web hosts.
— May 31, 2013
freshindulgence.com Goes Social
Our latest website to go live combines social media and ecommerce in a new and innovative way that provides a better, more immersive shopping experience and brings customer loyalty back to retail.
— May 29, 2013
PayPal Pro as an OpenCart Payment Gateway
There are lots of payment gateways available for OpenCart and it's important to choose one that will suit your needs. Some of the most popular include PayPal, SagePay and CardSave and all have their place.
— May 17, 2013
Managing Online Orders in One Place
If you're selling online via multiple channels, you'll know that it can get quite time consuming monitoring each channel to process the incoming orders.
— May 10, 2013
Uploading Multiple Images in OpenCart
If you've used OpenCart for any period of time with a reasonable number of products you'll probably know that you can't upload multiple product images at once.
— May 8, 2013
7 Ways to Boost Your OpenCart Sales
Here are 7 things you can do relatively quickly to boost sales on your OpenCart website.
— Apr 26, 2013
The Problem with Outsourcing
When considering a new web project, it can be tempting to look for the lowest price, which often means outsourcing to a developing country.
— Apr 19, 2013
Printing Shipping Labels from OpenCart
As you start to sell more and more from your OpenCart store, you may find yourself printing a lot of invoices and shipping labels. Wouldn't it be great if this could all be automated?
— Apr 12, 2013
12 Essential Ecommerce Website Features
Whether you're looking to build a new ecommerce website or review your existing one, here are some of the features to look for that will get you the best return on your investment.
— Apr 5, 2013
Coupon and Voucher Codes in OpenCart
We've been asked a couple of times recently about how the coupon codes work in OpenCart. Well here's a brief overview.
— Mar 22, 2013
Amazon vs eBay
Amazon and eBay are the biggest online sales channels by far.
— Mar 15, 2013
Linnworks and OpenCart
If you're selling any volume of products online, you're probably selling on multiple channels already. The three most popular channels are eBay, Amazon and direct via your own website. There are others of course but these are the main ones.
— Mar 8, 2013
OpenCart 1.5 Virtual Memory Usage and CPU
We were seeing an issue on one of our sites recently where occasionally and without warning it would throw an Internal Server error. The site did have a pretty large number of products and categories but not too many more from some of our other sites that were fine.
— Mar 1, 2013
OpenCart vs Prestashop
OpenCart and PrestaShop are both great systems, both come with pretty much all of the features you'd need to get your ecommerce business off the ground.
— Feb 22, 2013
Setting Up Your OpenCart Product Feed with Google Shopping
One of the best ways to increase sales through your OpenCart shop is to get your products automatically listed on Google Shopping. It's pretty easy to do and will probably only need about 30 minutes, yet many OpenCart store owners don't know they should be doing it!
— Feb 15, 2013
Google Webmaster Tools Connectivity Errors
We're pleased to be able to say that since moving to us, our client has reduced the errors they were seeing in Google Webmaster Tools down to zero.
— Feb 8, 2013
Custom Code or Existing Platform?
It should go without saying that before starting any new software development project, it's essential to think carefully about the requirements and plan the best way to design the application. This is true whether your web app will be an ecommerce platform, a CMS or a company Intranet.
— Feb 1, 2013
Retail is Dead. Long Live Etail!
The economy is changing fast. The global credit crisis has been hard on any inefficiencies and some of the old retail business models are dead. Meanwhile, ecommerce is booming.
— Jan 28, 2013
Web Design Trends: Flat Colour
I've noticed a new trend (aesthetic, style, paradigm) in web design which I think is rather nice.
— Jan 18, 2013
One Quick OpenCart SEO Tip to Avoid a Duplicate Home Page
So here's a quick code change that you can do to your OpenCart shop to improve its Search Engine Optimisation.
— Jan 11, 2013
OpenCart 1.5.x Internal Server Error 500
We've seen a problem recently which will cause an OpenCart website to suddenly start causing an internal server error.
— Jan 3, 2013
The Future of Programming Interview
Sean Morris, Implementation Executive at TradeDoubler Interviews Paul Feakins, Managing Director at Antropy.
— Dec 21, 2012
OpenCart Cost Price Has Disappeared
In business, the bottom line is everything. So it was nice that versions of OpenCart prior to 1.5 could calculate gross profit and produce reports if you entered in the cost price of the items you sold.
— Dec 14, 2012
Is the Face of Business Changing Forever?
I read a very interesting article recently, here's a summary.
— Dec 7, 2012
Integrating OpenCart with other Software
OpenCart is an absolutely fantastic ecommerce platform. It is not, however, a blog, CMS or forum - that's not what it's designed for as those are platforms in their own right. Many people try to use blog software (such as WordPress) to build CMS websites and then bolt on ecommerce.
— Nov 16, 2012
osCommerce vs OpenCart
Not so long ago, osCommerce was the platform to be on when it came to open source ecommerce solutions. How does it compare to OpenCart, our favourite ecommerce platform?
— Nov 9, 2012
How to Find a Web Host
If you're planning on setting up a new website of any kind, it will need to be hosted somewhere.
— Oct 31, 2012
Using Facebook to Sell More Products is Easy
If you're already selling on eBay, Amazon or through your own website, increasing your sales through Facebook is actually pretty straight forward.
— Oct 9, 2012
EU Cookie Law
So what’s all this fuss about the Internet cookies? And what are they anyway?
— Sep 28, 2012
How to set up affiliates in OpenCart
Setting up affiliates is a great way to increase traffic and sales on your OpenCart store.
— Sep 23, 2012
Monitor Makes High Pitched Noise When Off
I've just found the solution to an irritating problem with one of my computer monitors that makes a high-pitched sound when the computer is in sleep mode.
— Sep 19, 2012
Is this the future of input devices?
It’s more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen. For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements.
— Sep 19, 2012
10 Fantastic Web Design Principles from the UK Government (No less!)
Government websites aren't usually known for excellent design in terms of both graphic design and software design but I came across this the other day and it's absolutely spot on.
— Sep 17, 2012
Quick Overview of Online Marketing Methods
How can I get more traffic? How can we make more online sales? Here's an overview of some steps you can take today.
— Sep 14, 2012
A Great Piece of Online Marketing
I saw a really great piece of online marketing the other day that instantly made me want to click it.
— Sep 13, 2012
Shopify vs OpenCart
Shopify is a hosted shopping cart solution that can be set up by almost anyone with basic IT skills and an internet connection. It’s easy to set up and has some well-designed themes. The idea is that everything can be set up and managed through a web browser, right down to the domain name.
— Sep 3, 2012
Matraxis Goes Live!
Matraxis identified the need for a new website that not only looked highly professional and befitting of a digital company but was easy to administer and update with their substantial amount of content.
— Aug 24, 2012
OpenCart vs Magento
Which shopping cart should I use? OpenCart or Magento? It's a great question that's asked a lot on business and ecommerce forums alike.
— Aug 13, 2012
A Closer Look at the Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi is a very small and very cheap (£22) computer, designed to get more people in to programming, which can't be a bad thing!
— Aug 8, 2012
Google Apps Free/Standard
Google make it hard to find the Free/Standard version - they'd rather you went for the paid version which does have some further benefits, but if you're after the free version, the link is here.
— Aug 7, 2012
deadmau5 Lights Up London with 3D Projection Mapping
On Monday 28th November Nokia brought deadmau5 and the world's most advanced 3D technology together and created an amazing free light show at Millbank Tower, London to showcase their new Lumia 800 phone.
— Jul 20, 2012
Manage Your Products Quickly and Easily in OpenCart with Product Manager
There's an extension called Product Manager which dramatically speeds the process of administering your OpenCart store.
— Jul 17, 2012
Hanah UK Ecommerce Website Goes Live
Our latest website went live this week, a trade-only wholesale ecommerce website built with OpenCart.
— Jul 10, 2012
How to Sell Products Across Multiple Online Channels
Having your own ecommerce website is great, but you'll generate significantly more sales if you're also selling on ebay and amazon.
— Jun 29, 2012
SEO Toaster
SEO Toaster is a relatively new ecommerce platform that includes a B2B quote engine. It's built from the ground up with SEO in mind at every stage.
— Jun 8, 2012
Developing iPhone and Android Apps with Flash
A lot of developers are put off creating iPhone and Android apps because of the time an difficulty of learning a new programming language, Objective-C for iPhone and Java for Android.
— May 18, 2012
Why You Should Also Be Selling On Ebay
If you're already selling online with OpenCart or another shopping cart platform, it may be worth also selling through ebay to increase your sales.
— Apr 25, 2012
UK Enters Double-Dip Recession
As the UK enters the double-dip recession I'm glad we operate in the services sector.
— Apr 17, 2012
How To Use the Meta Description Tag
Here are a few quick, simple ways to make the best use of the meta description tag on your website.
— Apr 11, 2012
Monitor Your Web Traffic
I'm often surprised when I ask people how many visitors they get to their website and they're not sure. They could be getting between 1 or 1,000 per day but they really don't know which.
— Mar 30, 2012
One Simple OpenCart Tip to Increase Sales
Here's something you can do right now in about 10-20 minutes that will increase traffic and sales on your OpenCart store.
— Mar 27, 2012
OpenCart Support Service
Antropy has been designing and developing OpenCart websites for quite some time now so it makes sense that we're now offering help and support to those who already have online businesses built on OpenCart.
— Mar 16, 2012
No Photoshop No Problem
A trend in IT is towards hosted software applications where software exists in the cloud and is access and used through web browsers.
— Mar 8, 2012
Concrete5 vs Joomla
Concrete5 or Jooma. Which is better? Both have different properties. Joomla has been around for years and according to www.opensourcecms.com is the most highly rated CMS there is (Concrete5 comes a close second) based on user feedback.
— Feb 24, 2012
Mozilla App Store - Mozilla Marketplace
Mozilla, the non-profit behind the legendary Firefox browser have announced plans to build their own app store called Mozilla Marketplace in direct competition with the Apple and Android stores.
— Feb 21, 2012
Why You Should Be Sending Email Newsletters
For a few reasons - first and foremost, they bring in work, which is of course their aim. If your recipients are previous clients or potential prospects it may be they were thinking of kicking off a project and seeing your company name is the reminder they need to get going.
— Feb 10, 2012
The Future of Flash
So... the Adobe Flash player seems to have a bit of an uncertain future at the moment, what's going to happen?
— Feb 3, 2012
BMW Drives Itself
Cars that drive themselves are getting closer! BMW developers have designed a car that can drive itself down Germany’s autobahn.
— Jan 27, 2012
3D Processors
EPFL scientists have developed a new generation of 3D computer chips, stacked vertically rather than placed side by side.
— Dec 23, 2011
3D Printing Makes New Shapes Possible
Besides making it more efficient to produce existing parts, 3D printing techniques make it possible to produce things that weren’t even conceivable before — like parts with complex, scooped-out shapes that minimize weight without sacrificing strength.
— Dec 15, 2011
HTML5 Geolocation
One of the exciting new features in HTML5 is Geolocation. This allows any website you visit to ask you to share your location, much like an iPhone app.
— Dec 9, 2011
The 4 Variables of a Project
In most projects, including web projects, there are just 4 variables:
— Oct 21, 2011
Microsoft Office Word vs. OpenOffice Writer
Open source software can prove to be better than its closed source counterpart. Firefox vs. Internet Explorer being just one very clear example.
— Oct 14, 2011
You built your own website? I'm out!
As a start-up you have to keep your costs to an absolute minimum. You also need a website to refer people to. So it's tempting to have a go yourself.
— Oct 7, 2011
Why Picking Up a Software Project Half Way Through Can be Tricky
Most software developers prefer to start a project from scratch rather than pick up an existing project. Here are a few reasons why:
— Sep 23, 2011
Faster Than Light
Interesting news today that scientists believe some particles may travel faster than the speed of light!
— Sep 16, 2011
Which credit card payment gateway should I use?
There are a few things to consider when choosing a credit card gateway... how easy is it to set up, what are the transaction fees like, and what's the support like.
— Sep 9, 2011
Tesco Trial Augmented Reality for Online Shopping
Tesco have begun trials with augmented reality... which means allowing you to see and interact with 3D products in your own home using just a PC with a webcam.
— Sep 2, 2011
3D Computer Games in Your Living Room
3D TV without glasses could be available in Europe in the next four months according to this article on The Register.
— Aug 26, 2011
Steve Jobs Resigns from Apple
Steve Jobs stepped down on Wednesday (24th August 2011) as CEO of Apple.
— Aug 19, 2011
The Pros and Cons of PayPal
Using PayPal has its advantages and disadvantages. This article weighs up the pros and cons of using PayPal.
— Aug 12, 2011
3D Products for eCommerce
With the proliferation of 3D displays and increasingly advanced software available, it's perhaps surprising that big online retailers haven't started using 3D.
— Aug 5, 2011
Drive a BMW Z4 with a Webcam and Adobe Flash
Using augmented reality, BMW allow you to drive a model version of their Z4 around any flat surface.
— Jul 29, 2011
How to Start Selling Online
An online shop can often enhance the existing business, giving customers the choice of where to shop and the convenience of shopping online.
— Jul 22, 2011
What to look for in an eCommerce Platform?
If you want to sell on the Internet through your own website, one of your first and most important decisions will need to be which eCommerce platform to use.
— Jul 15, 2011
eCommerce vs. mCommerce
eCommerce refers to websites that sell products online.
— Jul 8, 2011
When Saving Money Can Cost You Money
Imagine you run a courier company. You invest in your fleet of vehicles and you have running costs such as fuel and maintenance.
— Jul 1, 2011
How to Restore Accidentally Deleted Files in cPanel
However careful you are, mistakes happen. Sometimes surgeons remove the wrong kidney. Sometimes pilots fall asleep while flying a plane. Sometimes those files you thought you could delete... you needed!
— Jun 24, 2011
Does social media work?
More specifically, "will spending time and money on social media be a good investment for our business?"
— Jun 20, 2011
What is "Open Source" and Why Do We Love It?
There's a lot of interest in open source these days, and not just from the software developer community. Many average PC users would be able to tell you that the popular Firefox browser was "open source"... whatever that means?
— Jun 1, 2011
RC Geeks Goes Live!
We're excited to announce the launch of RC Geeks, an eCommerce shop built on OpenCart.
— Apr 11, 2011
Kent 2020
Last Thursday I attended Kent2020. It was a beautiful sunny day which made it pretty hot inside.
— Mar 25, 2011
New Ecommerce Website Goes Live!
Our latest website has just gone live - an Ecommerce shop selling unisex baby products, clothes and gifts.
— Mar 15, 2011
Agile Project Management with Backlogged
If you're looking for an Agile Project management solution which was built from the ground up with Agile in mind, look no further than backlogged.com.
— Mar 9, 2011
What Website Layout Should I Use?
Something interesting we came across recently was that websites in certain industries seem to often follow a similar layout to each other.
— Feb 23, 2011
Using Animoto to Create YouTube Videos
We used Animoto to create this 30 second portfolio showreel.
— Feb 21, 2011
How To Make a Digital Microscope for £15
This video tutorial shows you how to turn your PC in to a digital microscope for less than £15 using readily available items.
— Feb 17, 2011
concrete5 CMS
When it comes to features, ease of use, speed, in fact pretty much all the criteria we'd use to assess a CMS, concrete5 is way above the competition.
— Feb 17, 2011
3D Projection Mapping Creates Stunning Visual Effects on Buildings
With 3D projection mapping it's possible to project light on to a 3D surface in such a way that it appears as one flat screen.
— Feb 16, 2011
IBM Computer Beats Humans at "Jeopardy"
A computer built by IBM can understand the questions and word-play in this popular US quiz show! Perhaps a small step forward for Artificial Intelligence.
— Jan 11, 2011
CMS Review
One of the first decisions that needs to be made when building a content managed website is "which content management system to use"?
— Dec 30, 2010
Shopping Cart Review
There are plenty of open source shopping carts written in PHP and a very common question is "which one should I use?" Well here's our review of the most popular ones.
— Nov 27, 2010
CameraMouse
It's not often that you find a piece of software that is of such obvious benefit to so many people but today I came across CameraMouse.
— Nov 4, 2010
Website Features vs. Business Benefits
A table to show what the business benefits are of each technical feature.
— Sep 21, 2010
HubSpot Website Grader
The HubSpot Website grader has been around a while and it's such a useful tool for SEO that we thought it deserved a mention.
— Aug 18, 2010
CSS Basics
I remember my early "adventures" while learning CSS and with the benefit of a few year's hindsight it's now easy to see which of the rules in the many tutorials were the most useful. Here are a few of them.
— Aug 18, 2010
Software Design Patterns in Adobe Flex
It's been well over 10 years since "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Software" was first published by the so called "Gang of Four" an allusion to the "Greek Gang of Three" who were also concerned with logic.
— Mar 21, 2010
GoboLinux
If you've ever wondered why when you install a program on Windows, it scatters files all over your computer, GoboLinux is worth a look.
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