Virtuemart templates, themes and styles for your virtuemart shopping cart!

Hi everybody - I've just compiled an easy way to deploy your first Virtuemart e-commerce shop. Have a look around and find this guide near the bottom of the page! The guide to HOW TO BUILD YOUR VIRTUEMART SHOP IS HERE!

If you wanted some help in developing a shop quickly - have a look at this guide. Its a rough and out way to get a shop deployed quickly and we'll be showing you how to get your shops deployed with speed and style whilst stripping out the headache and uncertainty when you start your first shop. Read on for more info.......

How to make your first virtuemart Shop - a Guide on setting up shop

VirtueMart Themes

VirtueMart Themes

This has got to be one of my favourite places to buy those time saving modules and templates which suite my needs, whilst this place is quite small. its like one of those cute little shops you find in the big cities... well ok this is cyberspace and there is ALOT of companies purporting to selling quality templates, but this place has got to be that niche place where you can find some truly original work which will give your shop that extra shine in the market place. Also with prices starting from 5 Euros, that cant be a bad thing, especially when you can re-use what you bought! Whilst some other companies purposely dont allow that!

The best thing about Virtuemart is the fact that its FREE. Yes Freeeeeeeeee. Also it has a userbase which is big enough to allow it to continue development and also provide updates when necessary,

And if this is not good enough, with the right knowledge you could be running a virtuemart powered shop in under a week or for the masterful in a few hours with the correct knowledge so you don't actually need to pay expensive web developers to design the layout or theme, nor do you have to know how to 'build' webpages for each product, with Virtuemart - you can literally get going on the internet with the click of a button!

WORD of WARNING though - We are opening a business here, not a get money for free scam or a get rich quick project. I said this was a shopping cart made for people who wanted to open an online BUSINESS. Wit the help of shopping cart solution like virtuemart, it should bring your costs down in the long and short term because you will become familiar with what you need to deploy a shop (the technical and web side of things) along with handling the business side of

So do expect the usual tussles and toils of running a business but the thing is, I'm just helping you make that transition that little bit easier!

E Commerce can be a very big minefield especially if you start trying to make it yourself, the biggest challenge is to get the look right, 9 times out of 10 its not to your liking when the shopping cart comes out of the box (Arguable for virtuemart as its newest skin/template that comes pre-bundled with the newest deployment) Thats why if you want to get your shop up quick then the best alternative to making the looks yourself is to buy into a template club!

By investing into a club you get a template every month, made by a helpful designer who can help you implement it into your CMS system (content management system, in this case this would be Joomla - Virtuemart sits inside joomla operating as a shopping cart!) With a skin every month you can keep your site looking fresh whilst also benefiting from the ease at which you can easily customise your shop when you've got it up and running.. My favourite club has to be shape 5 this would be down to the quality of their templates, ease at which they are to deploy --------> The developer has made it so easy now, that when you install this website (yes install it onto a web server) all you have to do is one click to make it all deploy!

Virtuemart can also be easily themed - once again you can do this by photoshopping or you could just buy the theme pack and have it installed in a jiffy once again without much money outgoing to someone doing it for you.

This may seem like the LAZY way to do things but having run up the mountain of xperiance - not the normal experiance but a damnwell proper xperiance... you start to find out what your really good at and what your really great at. Whilst i could say i have more photoshopping skills then the average grad - I would say that my time running a business rather than handling the equally important yet time consuming customisation of the e-commerce shops look should be given over to a professional, simply because they do this everyday and it'll be easier and you'd get a piece of quality and you dont have to be weighted down to this one bit of the project!

My second port of call then was to find a place which helped me deliver some very kickass templates/themes for virtuemart - well truthfully, most that i found were horrendous, simply because they lacked any sophistication or elegance. Also it would have been better just to use the default template inside virtuemart! But i did find some VERY cool bits n pieces to go on your site, from having a shopping cat which can display pictures of the itemsthey have in the cart, to different colored greeting boxes come up to tell the customer their order is in the cart now! Check out these VirtueMart Themes and tell me your not impressed :)

1) Find a product - there are literally hundreds of companies where you live who would love to put you on their books.

I'm dealing with furniture, beds and mattresses along with environmental technologies. But I use my website to do the hardwork so you dont have to!

First its to find a product or make your own! There are trade directories, trade fairs or even associations which you can join to make a business out of!

2) Get a Joomla deployment - its important to always have an up to date shopping cart as it reduces the risk of hacking and keeps you up to date with performance and security patches. NEVER neglect this as it WILL bite you in the ass later.

3) Even better, goto virtuemart.net and get the latest deployment with virtuemart already integrated, its easier like this and saves the hassle of a manual installation ( btw this is also an eye opener as you may well need to reinstall virtuemart manually on occasions as to solve certain access problems which may or may not occur [depending on if you circumvented them or not] more on that when we bump in to it! hopefully you wouldnt ever!)

4) Have a form of credit processing ready, rather using merchant services from your bank or using the humble paypal (I dont like using it much, mainly because I think its an evil little contraption which is basically a middle man processor rather than a credit processing portal..... but its up to you but make sure you have the right thing suited to your business!

Remember you have to balance out the time it takes to get the money and how fast it can be checked so you can put it safely into your bank!

5) Hosting - Makes sure, for gods sake, his sanity and yours, that you choose the right webhost, forget getting shitty $1 per month hosting, it wont work the way you need it and the webservice will undoubtably make it so that its 10x harder for you to conduct SEO (search engine optimisation) work - i've got my seo set onto automatic thanks to a tool called sefSH404 but god help you if your host does not allow you control over certain functions like SEO!

I will come up with some very good - and cheap hosts for you in the future but I would recommend that you go with the best that your money can afford, whatever you do... please dont go with false economic thinking, being cheap now will really give you a head banger in the future, i know i made that mistake!

(webhosts who pass the mark... to be announced!)

6) Upload joomla/virtuemart + upload your products!

This is the bit where you can upload your website and start putting the products online, my biggest problem was getting the order of things to do right... AND I AM TELLING YOU... GET THE PRODUCTS ON!

it doesnt matter that the website looks like a dump and its on its last breath of html before imploding on itself, you must get the products on as they are the life blood of your website! Make sure the products are entered in reliably and responsibly without rushing! It may look ugly now but thats because we're making our way to the fun part!

7) NOW We can REST! :D

hahah this would have been 12 or 15 points long... 20 if i wanted to be a little bitch and get you to run around doing the maintainance work etc etc etc but thats literally it!

If you've checked out yagenddo from one of the links on the banners, you would find a few bits n pieces which really resonate with your shop and what your trying to promote, once again its not about who has the biggest or loudest or wackiest website, but who sells the most that counts.

Keeping your shop trim, fast and good looking is every business persons dream if it dont need too much maintainance after, and this is it! :D get those extensions and bits that you want and you should be laughing at your competition!

8) Join a template club -

This would allow you to get some really nifty templates released to you monthly and you wouldnt need to worry about styles or revamping your shop any more! If you'd like... you could start a hobby of making your site look nice whilst also running your shop as well, i've started out this way and telling you the steps i took as i really did get into a tail spin, trying to do everything myself and saving those $$$ and pennies. But its all false economies!

Just let the big pro's do what they do best so you can concentrate on minding your business rather than the look of it!

9) Start your marketing plan

Have a decent marketing plan, and if your not sure then let me point you in a direction - I started to read rich dad poor dad and it seemed to me that those books are worth more than gold with the disciplines they have to teach, also Robert Kiyosaki was very straightforward, as to be verging on insulting but it comes to me as being the best of what a teacher can give, which is to break down a complex subject for their students to learn quickly.

Ok enough of the bull-fluff - basically read his books and you've got a winning edge on how he runs his business so you could use his tragedies and triumphs as a basis for your business/marketing plan. But Get his book Guerilla Marketing ------------> its the Mc Shizzle in cheap but super in your face effective marketing. I like marketing this way as its creative and gets people or yourself motivated to do that 'nuts' thing to not only make you feel alive and doing something positive but also because you can laugh about it with mates and it wouldn't be such a drab day/job/activity for you :)

10) The SEO Search Engine Optimisation

This is the golden rule of all business, ALWAYS try to stay on the edge without cutting it! You must by gods commandent, blessed by his angels and securing your financial success against the Kingdom.... YOU MUST learn how to do SEO properly and please dont tell me you've got books on this, have a look around squidoo and you'll get this idea that the people who make money online do not sit on their ass and rub their backsides until a golden nugget comes out......

No they are at the forefront of a very hard and enduring race which funnily enough is quite easy to get an understanding on, its just we're clouded by the pomp n fluff of internet marketing without anyone telling us what it actually is.

What i've found is people leaking out worthless material telling you how they can make you millions, or you can find the people who really do know what they are talking about and learn how to market properly and in a TEAM! more on that later but make sure you get the sefSH404 plugin for your virtuemart/joomla deployment as its vital for your success!

Here we have another excellent toy which has been knocking around for quite some time now. This is an excellent CMS (content management system) which is so superb that you can technically run a website right out of the box with just this alone.

OF course some learning has to come from using joomla but that's an adventure for you to handle because after becoming familiar with the joomla administration panel, its off to the great pastures of Virtuemart!

So what are the actual requirements of running a shop?

1) First we have to be sensible about this - and the answer is not to get Joomla first!
Hell no - the first thing we need to do is draw up a sensible business plan, if the whole business is unclear from the start what chances are there for this blurry haze of an idea coming into focus when you've spent $$$$ £££ !!!!! and TIME yet you think your going to go through your business life with hazy glasses? NO!

So start today by writing out a plan which is clear for your BUSINESS not clear for you so you know what your doing for next wednesday but properly do a plan for atleast a year with projections for the following 3 - 5 years. If you cannot achieve this then please roll over and go to you tube or some other site where you can fill your life with more meaning as the rest of the things I've got to say has no value or meaning to you.

some complain that business plans are redundant that business now moves in a more dynamic and fast paced way which may render the plan unfunctional in the future. But whatever answer you come up with to exempt yourself of doing a plan is just a 24k certified lesson in how to plan on failing. If you cannot unite your own mind behind a plan how can you even start to dream about building a business?

What i'm offering is a chance to evolve and expand yourself, whether its to gain financial interdependance or funding a way to escape your own rat race, its always good to have a plan so you can use it to manage risk, you wouldnt start a LONG journey with no map but we all know that with the right map or tools we can significantly manuever or skip our way to the destination with greater enthusiam, brimming confidence and with a trusted map.

2) Good Self Management - Get a good old fashion diary so you can jot stuff in. From contacts to telephone numbers to appointments.

Then you've got to get KeePass as its the best password manager out there - with its 256bit blowfish encryption it should keep all your passwords safe with inbuilt keyscrambler to defeat keylogging also you can store it on a usb stick so your database of passwords is mobile. Also the best thing is its all controlled by one Master Password :) makes life a whole lot easier when you know where to get the best things! Best of all its FREE.

3) Go to joomla.org and get yourself the latest deployment.

3a) You may want to check out the extensions - the modules and plugins saved me the most TIME of all - thats the one true thing about joomla, its got plug n play bits in it, some are hard to use and users tell you to avoid them whilst others are free and require you to mess around with the code to achieve your perfection - overall i managed this quite easily by myself but this is where you may need to have a savvy php programmer or family member on hand. This is where you may consider stopping right now as i did. Until i decided that I wanted to cmplete this challenge and well :) i'm running my shops now. But check out the extensions as they save you time!

4) Go here for the virtuemart shopping cart its a very well made site and the downloads are easy to find. Also whilst some may be very savvy with computers, for those who are just starting out the forums are a good place to get problems solved and FAST. Mark Callf among the admins and users has helped me on occasions where it seemed that the problems were too big and i should just chuck in the towl... But persevere! Once virtuemart is downloaded (and heres a tip - get the download package which has virtuemart pre-installed inside joomla! its saves time!)

For the better part of this exercise, we come to making the shop look GOOD! Yes, graphic designers love this part, whilst i hate it, not because its long or tedious (well actually its both if you ignorantly thought you could do all this by yourself - Cough cough wink wink nudge nudge) But what caught up with me was time and i had already borrowed too much, so I ended up modding the look of the main site, whilst i was unhappy with the minor details like buttons and how the CSS (cascading style sheets - control the 'look' of the website by dictating how the site is displayed to the user) works, but this took in excess of 2 weeks to learn and get a good understanding over.

Luckily for me i treat these tedious things like a challenge n puzzle, whilst it may very well put you off from ever trying to set up a shop! (Sorry i must apologise for talking about CSS and stuff like that, sometimes for perfection to be achieved you must join in as an artist :) and inject some of your own goodness into the code but we're here because i've learnt of a faster n easier way to do it.

If you think about it - your not just making A SITE - infact if i was you'd i'd pick up a piece of paper and pencil down EVERYTHING that you know your great at, start off with your greatness and move down to what your good at and then take a rest.

We'll deal with the bad stuff later on, first we get the shop or its structure pitched up.

Product entry is done by first sorting it into catagories and then assigning the different values like price, quantity, size etc into the database.

Tedious work which is why I always advocate - BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP - you dont want to find out why your shop is down or why its not working, when the best solution is to ASK! WHERE IS THE BACKUP!

Anyway besides that point you can get your products sent to you by the manufacturer or supplier in CSV format (comma seperated values) which looks like a very complicated txt file, or you can use excel to create one or even import it using virtuemarts import facility - just make sure you can get the file, otherwise its the old fashion keyboard mashing way of doing it!
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After this is done, its where you can start playing with your fly page and making it
fit your site perfectly, currently at Shape 5 - Shopper Frenzy Template they have a few VERY GOOD templates which work with virtuemart giving it a nice elegant look, also if you join the template club, you'll get a new template each month which helps you keep your sites looking fresh, or you could mix n match to your hearts content as this place is very good with its modules and help with modding the template for Virtuemart and Joomla!

Whilst looking for a flypage, your journey stops at I LOVE VIRTUEMART
this has got to be one of the best places i've been to buy a flypage - with such great design and saving you a whole lot of hassle (finding a competant coder who is reliable, finding the funds, making sure the amendments are there, re-coding if a part does not work properly.... the problems flow on...) you can just bottle that all up with modules made by seasoned pros!

1) Are we going to establish our brand?

I think you should at least have a logo which you can call your own, or make it so that you have continuity with other shops you may establish. This is because for recognition and guerrilla marketing purposes, it helps to have something which saves you from having to describe yourself when your logo could do that for you. Also it serves a much more noble endeavour as snappy looking logos garner alot of attention on the internet, especially if your internet business appeals to people who really like the logo... Look at the pirate bay, you wouldnt want to call yourself a privateer but you damnwell would want to wear that t-shirt with the cassette n crossbones ;P

Without too many words, people know who you are.

2) How are we going to let people see our product?

The worse kind of modding, is where someone wants ot show off the TOY they just bought and not use the Toy to make them more money. I've seen some people guilty of this or maybe its because the module/toy/widget thingy was so damn awesome it just eclipsed their mind and blew their brains out across the desk... anyway point is no more HIDING your best or hottest products, have a way for your products to be cycled and shown to your customers! No more static spreads across the screen which run for weeks on end/months on end. Internet business is supposed to be snappy, fast and efficient, along with the marketing!

Do have a plan on doing SEO and marketing your website with creative measures, but remember to make the products available and buy'able! That means making sure they see it!

3) How will they SEE it?

Once upon a time ago, a very wise lady who I didnt get the chance to meet, once said if you present someone with a $1000 gift but only put $10 worth of time and preparation towards it, they may just smile and thank you, but get a $10 gift and give it a $1000 worth of presentation and pomp and vigour and they may very well love you for life...

Its the effort you put into presenting your products or service and i'm telling you right now, if those monkeys who make those get rich quick sites a little more convincing by bringing their websites out of the 1990's then they may just may create that confidence that is needed! Ok sounds like i'm trying to sell you a bigmac which dont look like the one on the mcdonalds picture menu, but what i'm saying is make an effort in letting your customers SEE your product in its splendour! If your doing it willy-nilly style then you may as well do the Ebay thing and take anyold poorly shot photo and sling it on ebay instead...

I've got to tell you... I've sold products just purely on presentation alone and yes i knew it was a great product but I had to let the consumer know that too by putting that much more effort into making it nice n easy for them to find and have a great/easy time viewing it.

Once again you can search all over the joomla extensions and maybe find something which is free or we can invest some money into our internet business and purchase some pre-made and easily configurable modules from: Yagendoo (Click on the picture below for a sneak peak at their stuff!)

Ok - This may have to be split into several parts if I run out of space to write,

First I will outline several things - I am using this, and I am making money from it. It was a small outlay and I will be giving you a ball park figure of costs and on how to keep your costs down. Mostly its the web building part which may give you some groans but this should help you get there, I took a learning path and its something that all of us have to go through, I'm just giving you one of the sensible paths to take although there is even easier options, this one ensures you are self sufficient in setting up shops.

By the way - some may not approve of it and some may argue other softwares and programs are better. Well BOO TO YOU! SET UP your own Squidoo Page and talk about it if its so great! Ahem - trying to save space here!

Ok heres a run down of what we will be using

1) Joomla - grab a copy at www.joomla.org (YOU DONT HAVE TO DO THIS JUST YET)
If you havent heard of this, then you should be hit with a stick and pay attention 007! Joomla is a content management system (CMS) this means its a database driven website and can be accessed anyway with your username & password to add articles, check mail and do web maintainance! Also you can do all the stuff in one place and add on extra plug ins and modules to improve and enhance your 'website'.

Yes - its not a website builder, but you are buidling the website using this content management system. Its easy and all you have to do is install it onto your server. (See the section on installing joomla onto your server)

2) Virtue Mart - Get an upto date version of virtuemart at http://virtuemart.net/ (YOU STILL DONT HAVE TO DO THIS JUST YET)
Virtuemart is the heart and soul of your shop, its your shopping cart and the place where you'll process your orders. I got lost in the detail here, but once you get a good looking around, you'll start to understand how to use virtuemart with slick ease. Just find out where all the buttons lead and you'll be fine. Seriously exploration is key here, since this is OPEN SOURCE software, its free and VERY POWERFUL in the right circumstances. This works beautifully with Joomla which is also FREE.

This is the reason why I am using these two in a combination - I like to use a CMS to build my websites and I love the functionality and community of Virtuemart. (Because they are free, dont expect much in the manual, there isnt one per say, rather you can read up on alot of guides and can track down most problems because so many people use it and develop it, which is great for support)

ok - we now have the bare workings of our shop, this needs to be installed onto a server - I will be writing up a seperate guide for that later on but more on that later on. Its actually pretty easy.

You can get a deployment package from http://virtuemart.net/ which already has joomla integrated with virtuemart - but we have an easier way to deploy virtuemart with joomla but thats with the help of shape 5. I too will explain this later.

3) Webserver
We must have a webserver to host our pages. Please dont have a mindset of "I'll get the cheapest piece of sh!t I can and make do..." No brother this mentality was tasted and tested and smashed about by me and its a test of skill rather than a cause of convenience. Whilst your proving to yourslef how much of a genius you are at working around difficulties and feeling very accomplished, you'll be wasting away the minutes setting up a webserver to host your pages and making work arounds. CHOOSE A HOST THAT WORKS RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX! That means sometimes you have to pay just alittle more but I'll give you two resources which gives a good honest deal and I promise you wont have many problems with them, their support and help is a phone call away and their techies know what they are doing. These people are Justhost. I installed Joomla just fine on their webserver and they are FAST with fewer complaints than most competition.

This is seriously 100% Head ache free hosting. My joomla sites run perfectly on their system and for you who get acqainted quickly, you can use their own system to install joomla or lots of other quick and useful programs to install. Best thing is its LOW in price, you get unlimited traffic and umlimited storage and ITS WORKING FOR ME! Trust me - I've heard alot about these crappy unlimited etc etc hosts and I totally 100% agree that there are some unscrupulous fools out there who would say anything just for $1 or a quick commission but these guys are cheap enough to warrent a venture with - I'm using them right now and just found their support to be good and the system works very quick - especially when you consider them serving up to 100,000 domains already. Quite stunning for the price as well - Check out the Just Host link (picture) for the juicy details of how much you get - all of it is quality! Justhost.com - Click to look at their amazing offers

Features

VirtueMart offers a lot of Features, some of the standard Features are listed here. Please note that you can extend the Functionality of Joomla! and VirtueMart using Plugins, Components, Templates and Modules to make them do what you need!

Don't forget to visit extensions.virtuemart.net for more Features & Extensions.
General Features

* capable of using Secure Sockets Layer (https) Encryption (128-bit)
* flexible Tax Models
o Model 1: ShipTo Address-based Tax Calculation
o Model 2: Store Address-based Tax Calculation
o Model 3: EU Mode (Store Owner based Tax Calculation when Customer comes from an EU Country)
* Shoppers can manage their User Accounts (registration required)
* Shipping Address Management (Customers can enter their own Shipping Addresses)
* Order History: Shopper can view all their previous Orders (and Order Details)
* Order Confirmation Mail (customizable!) is sent to Shopper and Store Owner
* Multiple Currencies (you can allow Customers to change the Currency and buy using an alternative Currency)
* Multiple Languages (using the Joomla! Component Joom!Fish or Nooku).

Product Catalog Features

* Powerful Web-Administration Interface (Javascript-powered)
* Manages an unlimited Number of Products and Categories
* Can be used as a Shop or just as an Online-Catalog (you can even turn off Price Display)
* quick Search for Products, Categories and Manufacturers; filter by features or discounted Products
* Product Ratings & Testimonials (moderated or auto-published)
* feature specific Products by setting them "on special"
* Product Availability: show how fast a Customer can expect delivery
* Handles downloadable Products (virtual Goods)
* "Product is back in Stock"-Notification for subscribed Customers

Administration Features

* multiple Images and Files (like Spec Sheets and Flyers) per Product
* Product Attributes (like Size or Color) can be added to Product
* Product Types for Classification (like "Car", "Motorbike" or "Music Album")
* Shopper Groups for Customers (allows different Price Levels and Payment Options),
* multiple Prices per Product (Quantity-based and/or Shopper Group-based Prices)
* flexible Price Display (number & currency formatting; including or excluding tax)
* On-the-Fly Price Conversion between different Currencies using Live Rates from the ECB or other banks
* Shop Statistics / Control Panel with a Summary of new Customers, new Orders....
* Stock Level Control for Products and Item
* Order Management with Order History, Customer Notification and Order Edit Functionality
* basic Reporting Feature: sold Items, monthly/yearly Revenue
* Order Status Management
* manage different Currencies, Countries & States

Payment Modules

* capable of live Credit Card Processing
* pre-defined Payment Gateways like authorize.net®, PayPal, 2Checkout, eWay, Worldpay, PayMate and NoChex
* extend your Shop with other Payment Modules using the Payment Module API!

Shipping Modules

* flexible Shipping Carriers and Rates Configuration
* Live-Shipping Rates using Shipping Modules (e.g. InterShipper, UPS, USPS, FedEx or Canada Post; Modules can use the Shipping Rate API).
* extend your Shop with other Shipping Modules using the Shipping Module API!

Ok - I wouldnt say work is boring, but sometimes you must know how to set up a webserver yourself, if you listened to me and went with Justhost.com then you've done yourself a favour and cut past this part. Not only would you get a nice sweet piece of webserver hosting - but you'll have bought yourself a 'get out of headache-land free card' simply because setting up a webserver can be daugnting and you would save me from writing this paragraph.

Ok heres for those who like the education route and want to learn how to install Virtuemart on your Joomla Installation ---> WTFBBQ! Yes Virtuemart lives inside joomla, its like an applet sitting inside a bigger applet (your CMS) which sits on your webserver.

*Reverses back to 'Easy Street' and continues lecture....*
So ahem - we here we go... cough - This is the easy way:

Follow my instructions and get an account with Justhost.com. Ok you've completed 75% of the task. Wiw you worked your @ss right there, your probably ready to give up now eh? (literally... your near the end)

Now - once your webhosting is activated (nowdays it should be within the next 30 mins even if they do say it takes 24hrs - the internet has speeded up and improved alot since webhosting become cheap n mainstream) you sign in with your username and password. All of this information should be in your email address when you signed up with Justhost.com



Once inside you should see near the bottom of the control panel that icon circled in red. This smiling guy is your shortcut. Click on it. Once inside you choose to install Joomla 1.5.x (x is whatever version is the newest, sometimes these guys may not upgrade this so make sure you get the latest deployment and upgrade your shop if its out of date! Thats why the joomla.org link was for!

Tada - after you clicked on install you fill out the relevant details - not alot at all - THATS ITS you've done it! Joomla is now installed and we need to install virtuemart now. Thats the easy way, for you cheapskates who love to walk the line of wisdom and education... well I just want to say I walked the same path so respect and a slap on the head for you... omg productivity tools were made for a reason, wise up and start working EASY. Learn to do it the hard way - so it lets you graduate to using these easy tools as you'll be able to fix stuff if you havent got access to the fantastico.

Thats it Joomla is Installed - or should be :)

Next you have to set up the SQL Database - dont give up just yet, this bit is also quite easy. Look at this picture and find the wizard:


Now all you have to do is click on it and fill out the relevant details - and remember your sql database name, along with your database username and password.

Write this down somewhere and keep it safe! I would use KeePass as a passwords databank. Its free and I love the security it offers. Its got 256bit Encryption and can be operated from a thumbdrive. Go get it to remember all your passwords! http://keepass.info/

Remember your details and REMEMBER to give yourself FULL PRIVILEGES when it asks you to assign the level of access privileges.

Phew now progress to the next stage of actually Installing Joomla manually. We havent even got to the virtuemart yet!

I use both the easy way and the hard way - I'm just trying to get you guys to do it the easy way - but for you die hard learners, heres how to do it the manual way...

Ok first you login to your websites FTP - that would be something like ftp.yourwebsite.com (replace 'yourwebsite' with the actual webaddress, like ftp.joomla.org or ftp.google.com) FTP is a protocl known as file transfer protocol, its as old as the internet and needs an FTP client - OMGWTFBBQ WHATS one of THOSE?! see I told you to choose the easy route...

*grrrr grumble grumble, stops the lecture and switches the slides* WHERE TO GET AN FTP CLIENT?

Google is your best friend, I just like using Cuteftp but you have to pay for that and you can also get a free version of it along with other opensource softwares which provide excellent FTP abilities. File Zilla is free and very nice to use - you can get it from http://filezilla-project.org

Ok input all your details and get into the FTP! Navigate to /public_html - its just like looking through your 'my computer' and looking into the hard drives, this is just looking at your files on your web hosting server. Once in get inside you need to upload your files to the /public_html directory. Unzip your Joomla/virtuemart deployment you got from Shape 5 (the explanation on why this is easier is coming... wait alittle longer) or the joomla/virtuemart deployment you got from virtuemart.net.

If you use the file manager on your justhost control panel - you can upload from here aswell as unzip - its got all the functions in one place! However if you want to do it the harsh way, your going to have to unzip the files on your desktop and then upload them manually to the server, which takes considerably longer and the nature of FTP is that is uploads sets of files at a time, whilst if you could upload a zip file and unzip it, it works out as a major time saver!

When its finished uploading - you want to do the following:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Installing Joomla through a Web Browser

Now for the fun stuff! You need to type into your web browser: www.yoursitename.com/install thiswill initiate the installation onto the server.

Using your browser of
choice (Firefox of course), navigate to the location of all the
localhost/Joomla.
You will see the first installation screen.

Choose Language:

Here is the first look
at some of the internationalization features of Joomla 1.5, you can
select amongst many languages for the installation instructions.

Pre-Installation Check

A critical part in the
installation process, this checks if all the minimum system
requirements are met.

The first set are
required minimums, if they are red (not met) then you need to find a
new environment (change hosts), talk them into changing their
environment (upgrading PHP for example). Note that the last item is a
permissions issue on a file that is much easier to rectify. You can
usually change permissions through the cpanel provided by your host.
This tool is generally an industry standard.

The second set is
recommended settings. If you don't meet them you can still install
Joomla but it you experience problems with functionality and
security.

Once you are green to
go, click next.

License

Joomla is released
under a GNU/GPL license. One of the most common questions regarding
this license is “can I remove the footer link that says Powered
by Joomla”. It’s actually perfectly OK to do this, you
just have to keep the copyright statement in the source code.
However, I would recommend that you keep the link.

Why?

Joomla is an open
source project, it receives no funding from any kind of revenue from
selling its software. The bottom line is that thousands of developers
around the world are developing this software that you are using
right now. If you had to buy it from a commercial company, it would
cost tens of thousands of dollars, but you are getting it for free.
In return, keep the link, it will help the project gain in popularity
and grow. Don’t hide the fact that you are using Joomla, be
proud of it! And don’t be concerned about any kind of SEO
dilution with an extra link off your page. Links to authoritative
sites actually help you SEO!

OK, I’ll get off
my soapbox now…

Database Configuration

This is one of the main
pages of the installation process, it’s where you need to enter
important information about the database that your Joomla site will
use. Note you will see a drop down for the database type. Joomla 1.5
only really runs on SQL, but some of the foundation has been laid for
the next release, 2.0, to use more types, for example Oracle.

The hostname will
almost always be “localhost”

The Username and
password will have been provided by your hosting company, usually in
an email you got when you created the account.

If you are installing
on a localhost using WAMP or XAMPP, the Username is usually “root”
and the password is nothing/blank.

Once you have entered
this information, click Get Privileges and the Joomla installer
checks to see if that user has rights to create a database. You
should see this message:

If you made an error,
or the user does not have sufficient permissions, then you get this
message (after a small delay):

If the user you have
does not have permissions then you can ask your hoster to pre-create
a SQL database for you to use.

Available collations
refer to various character sets available for different languages.
When you click the button you get a list of what is available:

Pick a Database name
for the SQL database that Joomla will use. Use some sort of name that
is not confusing. Other scripts use SQL databases and before you know
it you might have several on your server and will need to tell them
apart. Don’t use spaces in the name.

If you are running
several Joomla sites but only have access to one database, you will
need to use a table prefix to distinguish them. You’ll need to
enter the prefix in the advanced settings (below)

Note if your user did
not have database creation privileges and you were provided with a
database instead you would obviously put that in as the name.

The advanced settings
are concerned with what content the site starts with and also the
table prefixes mentioned above.

If you have an existing
site and you are reinstalling over the top, you will need to select
Drop Existing Tables. If you need to keep a back of them, select
Backup Old Tables. Using “jos” as a table prefix is
conventional unless you have multiple sites in the same database.

Main Configuration

The Main Configuration
page determines how you will insert content into your site. You have
three choices:

• Install Sample Data
  This installs the default Joomla content that you have probably seen all over the web with “Welcome to Joomla. Note that is also includes all the menus, navigation links and sections/categories. If you are learning how to use Joomla this is highly recommended. Its easier to adapt and revise than to start from scratch.


• Load SQL script
  
  This is a SQL file that might have a customized set of content


• Migration from previous versions
  
  This is a special function that is part of a process to migrate a Joomla site running on 1.0 to 1.5 and requires a special component to do so. This is discussed more in the Appendix.
  
  

Give your site a name (pay attention to SEO keywords) and then enter the super administration information. This will be the first user in the site and automatically gets that status. Note that if you dont change the password, it will use the one shown on the left. Make sure you write it down!

Cross your eyes, close your fingers and click next. Hopefully you will see this screen

If you do get this result, you can investigate different language options, view the site or jump right to the administration of your site.

If you don’t get this page, then you have some work to do. Often issues arise because of server environments. If the solution is not obvious, a useful step is to copy the error message or the main part of it and then search for it both on the Joomla help forums, forum.joomla.org and in Google. The chances are if you get an error, someone else has before you.

Firstly - you dont need to actually worry about this being hard - this is easier than installing joomla but it does involve logging into your Joomla CMS system and exploring it abit - just to get comfortable and understand how it works. There are loads of guides online and Joomla is pretty safe to click about and you'll be able to use it quickly once you know where all the buttons lead.



This picture shows you where you have to be - to install Virtuemart but we are going to do it the EASY WAY first!

BTW - DO NOT GET A NIGHTLY BUILD - THATS ONLY for the daring and the downright wisdom seekers who want to be on the edge and help develop joomla, dont get nightly builds unless you really can sort your own problems.

Ok - basically we should know where the INSTALL section is on our Joomla content management system (CMS) - you need to get the Remote Virtuemart Installer located at:

Virtuemart Remote Installer

There has always been a nice possibility to transfer the files directly to your server instead of just downloading them to your computer and re-uploading it to your Server, this takes up alot of time just like uploading joomla using FTP. The VirtueMart Remote Installer helps to locate and install the newest copy of virtuemart without much hassle and does it quite efficiently and solves most peoples problems if you need to install or reinstall virtuemart in case of a problem!

GRAB THIS FIRST AND INSTALL IT INSIDE JOOMLA!

1) Webhosting + Web Address
Click on that banner for more info - these are the cheapest and best. Of course there are other premium services but we'll get onto them when we got more money! Get your web address and hosting from here as its cheap and not at all low quality, I quite like them alot and have great expectations for them!

2) Now - You can either follow this guide and do all of the HARD WAY stuff or you can have an easy life and follow my recommendations: Firstly I am a photoshopper at heart but I cant make so many pretty templates n pictures, and code them. Thats why I RECOMMEND you JOIN Shape 5 - Their templates are AWESOME and you can get some good help from these guys!

Their templates have Site Shapers - which means you just click a button and a custom template is installed! With all the settings done and EVEN Virtuemart is installed with the E-Commerce Templates, now how easy and cool is that? 5 Min install - thats the reason why I like Shape 5.



Seriously consider using them - its fast and helps you to deploy shops quickly and takes all the development off you. 3 Years worth of templates you will get and I guarantee you wont be disappointed, all Shape5 templates are unique and they have a wide range of choce with different modules which can be mixed and matched. Definitely endorsed and I find their support VERY GOOD!

3) Get a Good Virtuemart Theme -
Your shop needs to look good and once again I salute you if you want to program stuff yourself - its enlightening and can be a very rewarding challenge, however for you who want to get past this and just make your shop look fantastic without spending much at all. Then please consider using Yageendo. I dont know why they changed their name from I-love-virtuemart, but they havent changed the quality of their products, they are cheap modules and components along with fantastic virtuemart themes and extra things to make your shop look that much more better than your competition. Check them out with link below:


4) Having installed the Shape 5 Site shaper, which is literally download your favourite look/template then install it with a click of a button, you then put in your favourite yagendoo templates and themes. Once you have your shop look done, its time to input the shop products.

5) Its time to do marketing... time for the fun stuff! SEO TIME! :D