Recently, we’ve been working on a few Magento sites where the client already has an existing e-commerce site. Rather than making the client spend time setting up all the attributes that are required for the products, we can build an import script to easily import the attributes from the existing site.

The input script makes use of the dataflow model by creating new EAV attributes for Magento.

As per the previous script I shared with you, the example below uses a CSV file as its input.

The format of this CSV should be the following:

attribute name, type of attribute

The type of attribute can be one of the following: text, textarea, date, boolean, multiselect, select, price, media_image, weee (fixed product tax) depending on how you want the attribute to behave in the Magento backend.

The main section of code is this:

/**
 * Function to create attributes
 *
 * @param string $code - seo safe URL string
 * @param string $label - nice label for the backend
 * @param string $attribute_type - textbox/select etc
 * @param array $product_type - what product types should this attribute be available to? simple/grouped etc
 * @return none
 */
private function createAttribute($code, $label, $attribute_type, $product_type)
{		
 
	// attribute data
	$_attribute_data = array(
		'attribute_code' => $code,
		'is_global' => '1',
		'frontend_input' => $attribute_type,
		'default_value_text' => '',
		'default_value_yesno' => '0',
		'default_value_date' => '',
		'default_value_textarea' => '',
		'is_unique' => '0',
		'is_required' => '0',
		'apply_to' => $product_type,
		'is_configurable' => '0',
		'is_searchable' => '0',
		'is_visible_in_advanced_search' => '0',
		'is_comparable' => '0',
		'is_used_for_price_rules' => '0',
		'is_wysiwyg_enabled' => '0',
		'is_html_allowed_on_front' => '1',
		'is_visible_on_front' => '0',
		'used_in_product_listing' => '0',
		'used_for_sort_by' => '0',
		'is_filterable_in_search' => '0',
		'is_filterable' => '0',
		'frontend_label' => array($label)
	);
 
	// grab the Magento model for attributes
	$model = Mage::getModel('catalog/resource_eav_attribute');
 
	if (is_null($model->getIsUserDefined()) || $model->getIsUserDefined() != 0) {
		$_attribute_data['backend_type'] = $model->getBackendTypeByInput($_attribute_data['frontend_input']);
	}
 
	// add data to the attribute from the array above
	$model->addData($_attribute_data);
 
	// set type
	$model->setEntityTypeId(Mage::getModel('eav/entity')->setType('catalog_product')->getTypeId());
 
	// set user defined
	$model->setIsUserDefined(1);
 
	try {
		$model->save(); echo '<p>Saved: ' . $label . '</p>';
	}
	catch (Exception $e) {
		echo '<p>Sorry, error occured while trying to save the attribute "' . $label . '" Error: '.$e->getMessage().'</p>';
	}
}

Let’s break this down a little.

The $_attribute_data array contains all the information required for the product attribute, and we just throw this at the resource_eav_attribute Mage model.

Any number of these array items could be added to the CSV to create a more rounded import, however, depending on the product, these default values should be acceptable.

Many e-commerce sites find getting the balance right between creating a brand identity and selling their products tricky, with most focusing on one more than the other. With so much choice and opportunity to shop around on the web, communicating the right brand message to your users and giving them the best user experience whilst making a sale, is vital.

Why is it important to create a brand identity online?

However widespread or popular a brand is; unless this is transferred successfully to the online world, their web presence won’t be as significant. A website is a platform for connecting with customers; and if they can’t work out what the brand is and what it’s about; not only are they unlikely to purchase from them, but they’re also unlikely to return.

This is fairly straightforward to implement on a company website; but when it comes to an e-commerce site; it’s a bit more difficult. This is because the focus falls with making sales, and increasing those all-important conversion rates.

Whilst this is good, it’s important that a brand conveys ‘who we are’ as well as ‘what we do’. This contributes to the overall brand experience, and helps create return customers. The customer service, the products, and the general order process all contribute to brand identity, and define reputation.

Burton:

Popular worldwide for being a leading manufacturer for snowboarding equipment and clothing; Burton have created a modern and well-designed website with a heavy emphasis on the world-class snowboarders who endorse the products.

Whilst the site is very well-made and extremely informative, little attention is paid to the e-commerce side, with only a small ‘shop online’ link in the top right-hand side. Any customer going to their site to purchase their products would find it quite hard to locate the online shop; confused by the lack of shopping categories in the navigation bar – as has become standard for most e-commerce sites.

Louis Vuitton:

Reflecting its refined and luxurious clothing and accessories; the Louis Vuitton site is sophisticated, with endless rolling pictures of their fashion shows. In the right-hand corner, the ‘e-shopping’ link looks like an after-thought.

Luxury brands have been much slower than others to embrace selling on the internet; wanting to keep that distance between the brand and the customer, reinforcing their superiority and unattainability. Whilst this is exactly the impression given from the site; it may not be an entirely effective approach when it comes to sales.

Iceland:

Unlike its food retailer counterparts; Iceland has decided not to have an e-commerce site, instead using their website as an information point; giving prices, history of the brand, and a store finder. Because food shopping online has become so commonplace, users will go to Iceland’s website expecting to be able to make an order, and become frustrated when they can’t find where to do this.

Morrisons:

Similarly to Iceland, Morrisons still don’t sell online, despite the opportunity to make billions of pounds. As well as losing out on sales, the brand reputation of Morrisons may be tarnished slightly every time a user lands on their web page expecting to be able to order food.

Burberry:

The Burberry website is an example of a brand which has the balance right. Burberry’s homepage is a montage of high-fashion and catwalk photographs, telling you immediately what kind of brand they are; and when you click-through; you can buy the product in the photo, making it a functional e-commerce design.

As you can see from the picture below, Burberry didn’t always sell online. Being a luxury brand, Burberry didn’t acquire the e-commerce aspect until 2006, but now they’ve embraced the benefits of an online platform and provided great brand interactivity with their customers, as well as making product sales clear and simple.

Converse:

Converse also has an effective balanced site. They’ve created an interactive site with hints dotted around as to what they’re about and what their shoes are for. The navigation bar includes options for ‘Music’, ‘Basketball’, ‘Skateboarding’, ‘Style’; giving you a strong idea about the brand’s style and purpose, whilst still being an effective e-commerce tool.

Why it’s important to get the balance right:

Although the overriding focus of an e-commerce site is to make a sale, this isn’t necessarily only achieved by simple navigation and a clear user-journey. Creating a brand identity ensures there’s that something extra or different from the other retailers, setting a brand apart from its competitors.

When a customer lands on a website, not only do they want to buy something, but they’re looking for some engagement from the brand. A good brand experience leads to trust and brand loyalty, which in turn leads to a good customer-base who will return to buy from the site again.

In this article I’m going to take a look at some of the top CMS platforms we’re working with, and the pros and cons they all bring.

The CMS platforms I’ll be comparing are:

• EPiServer CMS
• Sitecore
• Sitefinity
• Umbraco

I’ll start off by taking a look at each of the platforms and producing a summary for each one focusing on its benefits and features.

EPiServer CMS

An excellent enterprise-level CMS that focuses on robustness and simplicity to manage page level content, supported by their tag line: “Power through Simplicity”. It contains access control levels, user management, and business workflows to ensure that content is added and maintained in a controlled manner through its ability to closely integrate with Active Directory.

Its simplistic WYSIWYG interfaces allow administration from users with varying levels of technical ability. EPiServer contains some nice functionality to create visitor groups, meaning that you can segment and group content to specifically target certain visitors; out-of-the-box this includes geo-IP, visited pages and visitor groups.

EPiServer has a suite of add-ons which allow it to create a more integrated platform:

• Web Content Management (CMS)
• E-Commerce
• Social media and community (Relate+)
• Campaign and e-mail marketing
• Search-engine optimization (SEO)

Linking with Relate+, EPiServer can be configured to build a branded community; functionality includes forums, user groups and the ability for user-generated content to be implemented.

EPiServer can be extended to integrate with Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Salesforce allowing it to have seamless integration with lead management, client account history and contacts.

Sitecore

Sitecore is an enterprise-level CMS platform that has been developed over the past 10 years to become one of the industry leading CMS platforms. The CMS uses an easy to use WYSIWYG editor to create and manage content, this also features a Windows-like interface which makes working with the CMS that little bit easier.

Sitecore offers its fully integrated “Customer Engagement Platform” which allows seamless integration between its major components.

• Web Content Management (CMS)
• Customer Engagement Platform
• Digital Marketing System
• E-Commerce services
• Intranet Portal (Additional license required)
• Foundry Multisite Solution (additional license required)

The out-of-the-box functionality allows for full tracking and reporting on user behaviour, as well as close integration with the sales and marketing platforms, meaning that engagement automation of communications with customers across all channels can help maximise efficiency of moving prospects through the sales funnel.

The digital marketing platform helps to create an understanding of campaigns and site performance and helps you gain the insight needed to improve conversion rates and generate more qualified leads through web, email, mobile and social channels.

Sitefinity

The Sitefinity CMS has been developed by Telerik, a team responsible for some great Microsoft .net products and solutions such as RadControls. The core ethos of Telerik has always been to make software development easier and more enjoyable. Sitefinity uses .net standards such as MasterPages and Controls for template management all of which makes setting up the front end of the site is straight forward.

From an SEO perspective, Sitefinity has some simple yet effective ways of optimising a site from managing the URL structure, extension-less pages and meta information management. The URL routing and infrastructure is based on the Microsoft MVC engine.

Some of the enterprise features of Sitefinity comparable to the other platforms:

• Form builders
• Blogs
• Ecommerce
• Multi lingual
• Workflow management
• CMS Role management

Umbraco

Umbraco is a leading open-source CMS platform that has been developed using Microsoft .NET. The open-source licensing model means that the platform is supported by an active developer community who are constantly updating and adding to the main source code. Umbraco provides a full-featured web content management system that is easy to use, simple to customise, and robust enough to run the largest sites such as wired.co.uk and asp.net.

Umbraco focuses its offering on the ability to customise and extend its core platform. This functionality is realised through its easy to use APIs, ability to use commercial .NET controls, and support for DLR compatible languages; all of this means that the Umbraco solutions created are highly scalable but may require more investment to get the initial platform up and running.

In order to reduce the overhead of development there are already a large number of components such as galleries, calendars and back-office integration that can be added and customised to an Umbraco installation.

Feature comparison

To start off I did a simple check on our old favourite CMS compare tool CMS Matrix to see how the CMS platforms stack up against each other in terms of out-of-the-box or features from a standard install. CMS Matrix is a great tool that lists all the core features that are available across CMS platforms, and segments them into handy groupings: System Requirements, Security, Support, Ease of Use, Performance, Management, Interoperability, Flexibility, Built-in Applications and Commerce (Commerce is excluded on this post as all the platforms require an add on). The features are then evaluated and given a rating of Green (Fully available), Amber (Partial Feature or Add-On Required) and Red (Feature not available at all), below is a summary table of the ratings given for each of the platforms across the 126 possible features:

As you can see from the above table, the leader in terms of out-of-the-box core features is EpiServer CMS by just 2 features, closely followed by Sitecore and Sitefinity. However, if we look at the overall ability to offer the full range of CMS features is Sitecore which makes up its difference in base features with freely available add-ons.

So, looking at the stats it seems Sitecore gives the strongest platform for a full-featured CMS and for options in the future. It’s worth pointing out though, this is all only relevant if you need all of the features.

The Branded3 process is always to identify the objectives and requirements of a project and select the right tools for the job (including if a CMS is required!), so if you don’t need all of the features then it’s not worth investing in such an intense system.

Recently, we’ve been working with a couple of existing e-commerce sites that need to be migrated to Magento, so we’ve started putting together some scripts to automate importing categories, product information, attributes, options, cms page etc. I thought I’d put together a series of posts that go into a bit more detail about each of these scripts.

In this series of articles, I’ll be using the best tools available, putting together custom scripts and – to remain flexible – I’ll be looking on the forums to find out if someone’s coded it before!

Magento has a virtualised database relationship model which makes it very extensible, but this can also make it difficult to interact with the data directly (for example, stock levels aren’t kept with product information), so in order to help this data-integration process Magento provides Dataflow and a SOAP API.

So, as Magento stores all the sites information in the database such as content, categories and products, there’s a lot to cover, so in this first post I’ll take a look at CMS pages.

Magento contains some straight-forward CMS page management. It’s fairly basic, but this fact certainly helps – it lets you pretty much get away with anything – you can add any HTML you want and go to town on the layout. However, CMS pages aren’t currently included within the Dataflow / API, so we need another programmatic way to interact with the system.

Looking at the database structure for Magento, CMS controlled pages use only two tables – so it shouldn’t be too difficult to put something together.

The two tables in question, are:

m_cms_page
m_cms_page_store

Looking at the structure of these tables, all the columns should be obvious – the only ones you need to fill in to get a page to show are the following: title, root_template, meta_keywords, meta_description, identifier, content_heading, content, is_active

Knowing this, it’s just a matter of getting all of your data in the right order. In my example below, I’ve stored it all in a tidy CSV as it was the easiest way to extract it from the previous system, but you could easily amend this to read from a plain text file, a serious of form fields or some XML.

 
<?php
 
/**********************************************
// import CMS pages script
// for Magento 1.5.x
// input - CSV file
 
// this is doing some direct mysql queries as nothing is available via dataflow / api
**********************************************/
 
// database information
mysql_connect('localhost','root','');
mysql_select_db('');
 
if(mysql_error()){die(mysql_error());}
 
// up the memory depending about 
ini_set('memory_limit', '32M');
 
/**
 * Class to import CMS pages
 *
 * @category    Mage
 * @package     Magento Import Scripts
 * @author      Douglas Radburn @ Branded3 (http://www.branded3.com)
 */
class MagentoCMSImport {
 
	public function __construct($filename)
	{
		// set the filename of the CSV we're going to import
		$this->filename = $filename;
		// set the prefix for the database
		$this->prefix = 'dq_';
	}
 
	/**
	 * Parse CSV file
	 * @return none
	 */
	public function readInput()
	{
		if($file = fopen($this->filename, 'r'))
		{
			while (($line = fgetcsv($file)) !== FALSE)
			{
				$count++;
				list($title, $content, $meta_keywords, $meta_description) = $line;
 
				$data['title'] = $title;
				$data['root_template'] = 'one_column';
				$data['meta_keywords'] = $meta_keywords;
				$data['meta_description'] = $meta_description;
				$data['identifier'] = $this->seoSafe($title);
				$data['content'] = $content;
 
				$this->createCMS($data);
				sleep(0.5);
			}
		}
		else
		{
			die('A file was specified, but the file could not be opened.');
		}
	}
	// end of readInput
 
	/**
	 * Create a new CMS entry in the database
	 *
	 * @param array $data
	 * @return none
	 */
	private function createCMS($data)
	{		
 
		$sql = "INSERT INTO " . $this->prefix . "cms_page SET
		title = '" . addslashes($data['title']) . "',
		root_template = '" . $data['root_template'] . "',
		meta_keywords = '" . addslashes($data['meta_keywords']) . "',
		meta_description = '" . addslashes($data['meta_description']) . "',
		identifier = '" . $data['identifier'] . "',
		content = '" . addslashes($data['content']) . "',
		creation_time = NOW(),
		update_time = NOW()";
 
 
		try {
			mysql_query($sql) or die('Sorry, an error occured doing some sql. ' . mysql_error() . ' ' . $sql);
			$id = mysql_insert_id();
			mysql_query("INSERT INTO " . $this->prefix . "cms_page_store SET 
						page_id = '" . $id . "',
						store_id = '0'") or die(mysql_error());
			}
		catch (Exception $e) {
			echo '<p>Sorry, error occured while trying to save the attribute "' . $label . '" Error: '.$e->getMessage().'</p>';
		}
	}
 
	/**
	*
	* seoSafe() takes a string and returns a URL-safe version of it
	*
	* @param string $str The string to clean
	* return string Cleaned string
	*/
	function seoSafe($str) { 
 
		$str = strtolower($str);
 
		$allowed_chars = array("a","b","c","d","e","f","g","h","i","j","k","l","m","n","o","p",
		"q","r","s","t","u","v","w","x","y","z","1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","0","-","_", ".");
 
		$len = strlen($str);
 
		$new_str = "";
 
		// we'll allow spaces, but replace them with - so we know what we're doing
		$str = str_replace(" ", "-", $str);
 
		for($i=0; $i<=$len-1; $i++) { 
			if(in_array($str[$i], $allowed_chars)) {
				$new_str.= $str[$i];
			}
		}
 
		return $new_str;
 
	}
 
}
 
 
 
$filename = './import_cms.csv';
 
if($filename != '')
{
	// magento import categories
	$MagentoCMS = new MagentoCMSImport($filename);
	// go read the file, and import all the pages
	$MagentoCMS->readInput();
}
else
{
	echo 'No filename has been suggested.  Please enter a filename.';
}
?>

I’d recommend clearing out the existing pages that are in the database initially before import so that you don’t create any pages which clash. If you do import your pages, it’s a good idea to take a look over the database after the import so that you can ensure there aren’t any issues.

And there you have it. You should now have all your page data imported into Magento, and off you go!

Research and studies have actually found that quality copy can increase conversion rates by significant amounts, revealing a valuable tool for gaining the competitive edge against other e-commerce sites.

Because the content of an e-commerce site needs to be updated so frequently, online retail companies often just copy and paste the manufacturer’s description, creating an inconsistent tone across the whole site. Not only is this confusing to a customer, but it’s difficult for them to gauge the authenticity of the company and trust them.

Communication is the key to selling, and although a picture can say a thousand words, it can’t connect with the customer. Quality e-commerce copy should do three things; engage, inform, and persuade. Take a look at the following guidelines if you want to know how to write quality copy for an e-commerce site, and how it can help increase conversion.

Engage:

Firstly, the layout of your copy is important because it has to catch the eye. Bullet points are the best way of providing key information and details quickly, as the customer can quickly scan over it. A brief paragraph or two to support this is where you can engage with the customer; using short, descriptive sentences which are informative and positive about the product.

Play.com does this perfectly; each product has a good-sized image, with a clear price and availability status displayed next to it. Below is a short yet engaging paragraph about the product, and you can click across to a bulleted list of specifications:

Products on Play.com are marketed perfectly, making all the key information immediately visible, and compressing details and persuasive copy into bite-sized amounts.

The ‘Key Features’ paragraph tells you sufficient information about the product, whilst incorporating a positive and persuasive tone.

Being able to simply click through to the ‘Technical Specification’ section is an easy-to-use feature for the customer, and the bullet points are detailed yet short enough to be engaging, and informative at a glance.

Establishing the right tone from the beginning is essential to drawing customers in; be too enthusiastic, and they’ll feel patronised; be too bland and they’ll feel like they’re not valued as a customer. Engaging your customer is about pulling them in at first glance, and grabbing their attention with quality, unique copy.

Inform:

Your writing needs to be easily understood, so you should write clearly and simply, avoiding complex and technical words wherever possible. Be careful not to use jargon too, as customers will be confused and look elsewhere.

The primary purpose of accompanying copy is to inform the customer about the product or service being sold, and so keep descriptions straight-forward and to the point. Although your copy should be positive, it’s important not to be too enthusiastic as the customer could see it as exaggeration and feel like they’re being misled.

You should know your audience, and understand what it is they’ll be looking for. So for example, if your site sells digital cameras, your audience will want to know how many mega-pixels the camera is, the dimensions of it, and the level of zoom. Remember that selling online takes more effort; customers can’t pick up the camera up or try it out, and so they need as much information as possible before deciding to purchase.

However, it’s essential to find that balance between informing your customer, and engaging with them. The Debenhams website is an example of how too much detail can be off-putting. There’s no attempt whatsoever to connect with the customer, which makes the process seem detached and impersonal.

Whilst Debenhams provides plenty of detailed information on the specifications of their products, there’s no engaging or persuasive text to go with it.

Along with this specifications table, Debenhams provides user reviews, which can be very informative – but still provide no connection from the brand to the consumer whatsoever.

Persuade:

Before you add copy to your e-commerce site, decide on a tone of voice that reflects your brand and what you’re about, and then stick to it throughout the site, ensuring it’s consistent throughout.

However, although it’s important to be individual and original with your copy; don’t change e-commerce elements which have become a crucial aspect of the user journey. So, for example, don’t alter the ‘add to basket’ and ‘contact us’ copy, as these are things the customer now looks for and expects to find easily.

Your copy should inform and encourage users to find out more about the product or service, adequately explaining why each detail matters to them. For example, don’t just say: “This camera has 14 megapixels”, instead, say: “This camera has a 14 megapixels, ensuring the memories you capture are crystal clear.”

John Lewis include five or more paragraphs of copy alongside their product, explaining how the customer could benefit from it and what the specifications will mean to them. The result is an informative and engaging piece of copy, as shown in this text taken from a description of an LED television:

“In addition, surf the internet from the comfort of your sofa as well as staying in touch with loved ones, wherever they are in the world, courtesy of Skype. If you’re heading out for the evening, simply record your must-see programmes straight onto hard-disk via USB.”

And of course, checking there are zero spelling and grammar mistakes is an absolute must. This will only make you look careless, inexperienced and inept, and customer’s won’t want to give their money to someone they don’t trust.

Don’t forget…

The initial things a customer will be looking at on an e-commerce site is an image of the product, and a price, so make sure both of these elements are clear. Secondly, the customer will want to know more about the product, and why they should buy it. This is where your informative and engaging copy plays it part. Thirdly, the customer will want to know more about the payment, delivery, and returns process, so state these clearly and don’t make the user have to search the site for the details.

Flawless copy could be the feature of your site that makes you stand out from the rest. Put the time and effort into informing and persuading your customer to purchase from your site, and they’ll feel more compelled to invest their time and money into your products.

One issue of effective coding is code re-use. If you have 5 separate forms on a page for example, and all of them share one piece of information, then why would you want to repeat that information more than once?

This can be seen in a very common example – a product page on a website. You will probably find that each variation of the product has its own ‘add to basket’ button so that you can add it to your basket. Each ‘add to basket’ button for each variation is likely to be in its own form element. Depending on the complexities of the site, each variation may submit its product id along with its variation id to the script that will add the item to your basket. That means that you’ll end up with the following:

<form action="/basket/add" method="post">
<input name="product_id" type="hidden" value="23" />
<input name="variation_id" type="hidden" value="1" />
<input type="submit" value="Add to basket" />
</form>
<form action="/basket/add" method="post">
<input name="product_id" type="hidden" value="23" />
<input name="variation_id" type="hidden" value="2" />
<input type="submit" value="Add to basket" />
</form>
 
etc...

Ideally, the product id would be held on the page somewhere once, and referenced. The problem is, that the form will only submit values within it. This is actually possible currently by using javascript, but this of course has its own issues.

A new HTML5 element brings us one step closer to this ability, however, its still not quite there.

Let’s look at another, more simplistic example:

<form id="contactform" method="get">
 
    <label>Your Name:</label>
<input id="your_name" name="your_name" type="text" />
 
    <label>Phone:</label>
<input id="phone" name="phone" type="text" />
<input id="submit" type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>
<input id="your_email" name="your_email" type="email" />

Here, we have an element outside the form – email. It’s not a child of the form element, it’s a sibling, and also that the email input has a form attribute that matches the id of the form.

This way, you could also have elements in a second form that actually relate to the first if you wanted. It’s important to note that this will override default browser behaviour, so if you had an element in the second form that referenced the first form, submitting the second form would actually ignore that element.

This feature is fairly new, and as such isn’t supported by anything but the latest betas, but it will certainly be interesting to see how this progresses.