Instant E-commerce with OpenCart: Build a Shop Paperback – April 25, 2013

I have chosen OpenCart after reviewing several alternatives including Magento, PrestaShop, OSCommerce for my first online store. I think I have made the correct software choice and was able to fast launch the store using this guidebook in a very short time. It is a good, distilled book with enough details for beginners of such eCommerce software.Before telling you some details about the eBook, I should mention the apparent biased 1, 2 star reviews which were given on June 27 2013, on the same day by two different accounts !! (who also didn't buy the book at all).The 1-star commentator does not know that cPanel is standard in most hosting solutions. He also does not know that only a handful hosting companies have auto-installers for OpenCart system. Also, a graphical file transfer tool can differ in hosting solutions and it is impossible to include most of them in a book. I also disagree that the book is inconsistent. The eBook starts with the basics and builds to the more sophisticated areas step by step, such as integrating PayPal and shipping methods, offering coupon codes, applying SEO etc.Though, I would agree that the information about selling online goods is omitted. I don't need this function but someone can really need it. I would also like to see more content in more payment models, not only on PayPal.Still, it is a very good eBook with content embedded wisely in around 70 pages. I have used online Kindle eBook reader of Amazon on my PC and didn't have issues about the screenshot quality. I was able to follow all screen instructions clearly.A four star rating would be fair by considering the quality of the content and the low price.

quoted from the Preface:What you need for this bookBasic computer and IT skills are enough to follow the book easily. All extra information regarding the usage of several online services and tools has been provided with clear illustrations and step-by-step recipes.My Experience:The illustrations are very low quality screengrabs. Cropped too small, almost not readable. It's very hard to compare the screen your viewing on your monitor with the screengrabs the book is showing.It's common that tasks with 2 or more steps are combined into 1 screengrab image which makes it very confusing and hard to understand. Many screengrabs are marked up with red rectangle highlights, but often there isn't enough written detail about the importance of what's highlighted leaving it up to the reader to figure it out. It's confusing and often not helpful.Another problem with the instructions is that multiple steps are combined in 1 point. So 2 or 3 steps which should be separated have been explained in 1 point which isn't making things easier.Overall the concept of getting an OpenCart eCommerce shop setup fast is great. But the issue that prevents this from become a reality is the book is not very usable. With the extra effort the reader has to spend interpreting the screengrabs it becomes much easier to just give up and harder to continue following the books instructions. I was often confused and would become frustrated with the low quality screengrabs and step-by-step instructions. I wouldn't recommend this book to a first time user of OpenCart.

This book is clearly written from the perspective of a developer. The author relies heavily on cPanel for set up and configuration when most hosting control panels provide phpMyAdmin for database management and a graphical file manager whether they offer cPanel or not. Surely it wouldn't have hurt to mention FTP as the good old standby? This all ignores the fact that if the reader is using a cPanel host, he/she may very likely have access to an auto-installer for OpenCart that would eliminate most of the steps described anyway.The few examples provided in the text are inconsistent with how merchants actually use E-commerce features in the real world. The order in which concepts are presented is inconsistent with how a beginning merchant would or should go about setting up his or her on-line store. A significant ommission is that this text completely ignores the significant percentage of merchants who will want to offer electronic goods (e.g. e-books and music) for sale on their site. With such a superficial overview, surely it would have been trivial to devote a few pages to this scenario?