Tag: Private Shop

Why Do Businesses need a ‘Private Shop’?

Ever heard the word ‘Private Shop’? There are a few companies that allow you to see their products only when you register. The website content can be accessible after signup. 

While exploring articles and research papers, websites usually show a popup and ask for registration to access the entire content. They show you limited content to build up curiosity and for more details, you have no choice but to register.

Those websites were privatized and the same can be done for your eCommerce store. You can make your Opencart, PrestaShop, or Magento store private using ‘Private Shop’ modules. Why do you need a private shop? Go ahead and find out why.

This article is a compilation of 101s of ‘Private Shop’ for B2B businesses and other enterprises

What is a private shop?

When a store is accessible to registered clients only, the store comes under the ‘Private Shop’ category. Making a web store private allows you to effortlessly regulate the store’s sales. This way, the online store administrator can prevent customers from viewing the store, goods, or categories without first logging in or registering.

You can create a private customer group and allocate numerous private groups to each product/category, each of which is only accessible by the given group of consumers. Send emails to a specific group of clients about new offers, discounts, collections, and so on.

Why do businesses need a Private Shop?

If you have products for both B2B and B2C on your eCommerce site, you’ll need to create a private environment for each, which is where the Private Shop option comes in.

  • B2B businesses require private platforms

The wholesale group may get complete access to the store, whereas the general group is limited to a single product or category. You can create fully functional web pages and categories for restricted consumers and users.

The business works in a systematic manner and giving access to retailers for the wholesale prices will affect their business. A ‘Private Shop’ gives privacy to B2B businesses.

  • Increased registration and email subscribers

A ‘Private Shop’ can also benefit B2C businesses. If you run campaigns and tell your customers that you are running discounts on your store, it will influence them to register with your brand and get access to those discounted products. 

In a way, you are forcing them to register to get access to your store. This increases the registration on your store and builds up your email list.

  • Early access to registered customers for high-end products: 

Many businesses sales luxurious products or merchandise that have limited editions should go for a ‘Private Shop’. If you have a small set of audiences for your brand that purchases high-end products, you definitely don’t want everyone to access it.  

A limited group of people can be notified of this. As a result of which they feel privileged and you will be able to provide a satisfying customer experience.

How to convert your store into Private Shop?

You are just three steps away from converting your store into a Private Shop.

  1. Purchase the module and unzip the files and refer to the user manual
  2. Install the module on your respective website with the source code.
  3. Configure the Private Shop settings and begin!

Features you should consider before buying a private shop module

  • The store owner has the ability to construct a fully private shop
  • Create secret groups with IP addresses and only allow some of the clients
  • Visitors will not be able to see private products or categories
  • Also, work as a permissions extension for catalogs
  • Each product/category can have several groups assigned to it by the administrator
  • Customers can view their personal products/categories by a private group
  • Allow Google to crawl the private pages of your website
  • Each product/category can be made private by the administrator
  • In addition, the admin should have the ability to send emails to members of a private group
  • The product label/product label image can be changed by the administrator
  • Have a customized storefront with a registration form that allows changing background

Live Demo for Private Shop modules

Click here to see the PrestaShop demo

You can check the live demo for OpenCart here

Check the live demo for Magento from here

9 Underrated OpenCart Extensions To Look Out For

When we go through OpenCart forum, we come across many such questions where merchants put forward their requirements which we feel can be fulfilled by the extensions which aren’t popular or which they are not aware of.

Popular extensions are always on demand while other extensions get unnoticed. In this write-up, I will be covering those useful but highly underrated extensions that can be fruitful for the OpenCart merchants.

1. Preferred Delivery Time

OpenCart Preferred Delivery Time extension allows customers to pick a desired date and time slot for their order delivery. Many times, it happens that customers want to receive the product on a fixed date and time slot; majorly when they want to gift someone or when they do not want to miss on the product due to their unavailability. With this module, you can encourage users to choose the preferred delivery date and time as per their convenience and availability.

From the back-end configurations, you can adjust the time-slots, specify the non-delivery days and also allow consumers to update the delivery date and time even after they have placed the order.

2. Advanced One Page Checkout

If you do not want your customers to go through a multi-step checkout process and want to offer a short and seamless checkout experience, OpenCart Advanced One Page Checkout is the extension you need.

The extension adds a responsive one page checkout popup on your website and allows customers to switch between the checkout fields without requiring to load multiple pages or getting the URL changed. It offers guest checkout, social login, option to customize checkout fields, etc. and encourages a quick checkout.

3. Store Locator and Pickup

OpenCart Store Locator and Pickup extension encourages the in-store pickup facility and allows your customers to self-pickup the items from your stores at their desired date and time slot. They can locate the nearby stores and choose the pickup date and time accordingly.

You can add (manually or through CSV upload) multiple stores, adjust the pick-up timings and perform various other tasks from the back-end.

4. Spam Blocker

On the forum, many OpenCart merchants complain about receiving spam traffic on their website. This can be avoided by OpenCart Spam Blocker.

OpenCart Blocker lets you restrict bots coming to your website from various IP addresses. You can specify those IP addresses and block them. Similarly, you can prevent spammers from different countries or User agents (Mozilla, Chrome, etc).

In case if you block a genuine customer, they can raise an unblock request which you can check from the back-end. The extension helps you keep your website safe and secure with real users.

5. Free Shipping Manager

Consumers crave free shipping. They get delighted if they do not have to pay the shipping price but offering free shipping isn’t easy especially for small and mid-scale companies.

With OpenCart Free Shipping Manager, you can create certain free shipping rules, such as Free shipping on a certain amount and certain weight. You can specify the amount and weight of the order which needs to be matched for a customer to get free shipping on his/her order. You can also specify countries which will be restricted from the free shipping rules.

The extension helps in increasing the average order value on your store.

6. Private Shop

OpenCart Private Shop extension allows merchants to make their shop or store private. They can restrict access to their store and let only selected customers or wholesale members explore it.

You can privatize the entire store or restrict access to some specific pages only. Users are required to sign-up initially and only after the admin’s approval from the back-end, they will be able to access the store.

7. Product Availability Check by Zipcode

OpenCart Zipcode Validator extension adds a “Check Availability” tab on your product pages, using which shoppers can check whether the product is available for delivery at their location or not by specifying their area zip code.

This saves a customer’s time as they do not need to head to the checkout page, put their address and then confirm whether it is eligible for delivery or not at your location. A customer cannot proceed to the checkout page without checking the product availability.

8. PDF Invoice

OpenCart PDF Invoice extension allows merchants to send customers their order’s invoice in the PDF format in the order confirmation email. They can also download it from their order history.

The extension comes with multiple options to customize the invoice.

9. Cash on Delivery with Fee

OpenCart Cash on Delivery with Fee extension lets you charge some additional fee to your customers on their COD order. It is helpful for those shoppers who do not want to share their card details with the website and are ready to pay some additional amount for cash-on-delivery mode. You can charge customers with a fixed or percentage-based fee.

For any queries or assistance regarding these OpenCart extensions, kindly contact us at support@knowband.com