# OpenCart Site needs help



## sewon (Sep 4, 2007)

Having an embroidery and heat press business for a long time, we ventured into the E-Commerce world this past summer. It truly is a whole new universe. We didn't realize how much work was involved in setting up and maintaining a website. 

We hired someone to do our site through OpenCart. We are basically happy with the design of the site but HATE the way he set up the checkout. He had very little experience with retail sites and it shows. We have tried to get him to fix it, but he seems clueless. I have looked to try and fix it myself, but I am even more clueless. My question is...and this will really show my ignorance...Is the checkout set up in OpenCart? or in the CPanel? Also as far as adding text and/or images for sales or new products maybe in a side panel or at the top on our home page...can that be done without knowing HTML in OpenCart? or does that have to be done in the C-Panel? Our site is Custom Garden Flags-Unique Personalized Christmas Garden Flags and Christmas Photo Gifts Thank you.


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## Zippy Doodah (Jul 10, 2011)

sewon said:


> Having an embroidery and heat press business for a long time, we ventured into the E-Commerce world this past summer. It truly is a whole new universe. We didn't realize how much work was involved in setting up and maintaining a website.
> 
> We hired someone to do our site through OpenCart. We are basically happy with the design of the site but HATE the way he set up the checkout. He had very little experience with retail sites and it shows. We have tried to get him to fix it, but he seems clueless. I have looked to try and fix it myself, but I am even more clueless. My question is...and this will really show my ignorance...Is the checkout set up in OpenCart? or in the CPanel? Also as far as adding text and/or images for sales or new products maybe in a side panel or at the top on our home page...can that be done without knowing HTML in OpenCart? or does that have to be done in the C-Panel? Our site is Custom Garden Flags-Unique Personalized Christmas Garden Flags and Christmas Photo Gifts Thank you.


As far as the check out in OpenCart, it's basically standard the way it works. Your site looks fine and the check out is pretty much the same as all OpenCart sites. I have 3 OpenCart websites and I think they are excellent for small e-commerce businesses. There are some things you can change in the check out area and that would be done in the OpenCart Administration. The web designer would need to give you the username and password to access it (eg. your web site.com/admin) or whatever he has named it. Your cPanel is for the Hosting aspect of the web site. Once you understand how OpenCart works, you don't need to know anything about HTML, java or php, but knowing the basics would help if you intend to change any of the file properties. That would be done by editing the file in your ftp client. As far as the web designer not understanding what you want, "go easy on him". I think you can see the complexity and amount of work that go into building a web site, along with the tediousness of uploading and configuring all the products. It's quite a bit of work and can take a long time, depending on the amount of products that you have. IMHO, if you are going to run an e-commerce web site, you need to understand how to manage it yourself. A web site is just like a retail store. It's not static and needs constant change and management. Go to OpenCart.com and look through the Forums and search for answers to your questions. There really seems to be an answer to just about any question you can have on the Forum. your web site looks good, but I think only you can tweak it to the point that you want it to be and that is going to require you to understand the basics of OpenCart. Good Luck..


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## sewon (Sep 4, 2007)

Thank you so much for both your advice and information.


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## TRMMarketing (Nov 22, 2011)

Just visited your site, I think you need to have your developers fix your featured products. I was trying to get to your checkout and hit the "add to cart" button on a featured items section of the store and it didn't add it. Tried in 2 browsers and same thing.

Also when I went father into the store and added a item then hit the back button it cleared the cart, just some areas you should check into.


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## Zippy Doodah (Jul 10, 2011)

TRMMarketing said:


> Just visited your site, I think you need to have your developers fix your featured products. I was trying to get to your checkout and hit the "add to cart" button on a featured items section of the store and it didn't add it. Tried in 2 browsers and same thing.
> 
> Also when I went father into the store and added a item then hit the back button it cleared the cart, just some areas you should check into.


Hmm? Everything worked fine for me. I put 5 different items in the cart and everything stayed there through check out. I'm, even, using a slow internet connection from my laptop. You might have tried to put an item that wasn't fully set up correctly, but everyting worked good for me.


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## printingray (Apr 4, 2012)

Its good deign, have your problem solved ?


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## TRMMarketing (Nov 22, 2011)

Went back and tried it again, went to the "our store" link and it takes you to http://www.customflagsandgifts.com/upload/

If you click on any of the featured items none add to cart, tried on mac firefox, mac chrome, mac safari, PC firefox, PC chrome, PC IE 8, PC IE9


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## Zippy Doodah (Jul 10, 2011)

TRMMarketing said:


> Went back and tried it again, went to the "our store" link and it takes you to http://www.customflagsandgifts.com/upload/
> 
> If you click on any of the featured items none add to cart, tried on mac firefox, mac chrome, mac safari, PC firefox, PC chrome, PC IE 8, PC IE9


I do see what you're talking about, now. It seems that some of the featured items have editable features, eg; upload a photo, add text etc. Not sure if they disabled them on purpose to force the customer to the item page. If you click on the image it takes you to the item page, where you can add your preferences and then add to cart. There's a lot that can be changed in OpenCart, but a lot of people, including myself work around some of the generic features. Just fyi for Custom Flags and Gifts. You can delete the Add To Cart Buttons 
by editing the code in 
/catalog/view/theme/your_theme/template/module/featured.tpl
And find this:
Code: Select all


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## sewon (Sep 4, 2007)

Thanks everyone for your input. You're right, some of the featured items can't be directly added to the cart because they have either optional or required elements that the customer has to either upload or type in. That might be a good idea though, to just remove the "Add to Cart" button entirely from the "featured" area.


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