In an effort to focus on enhancing its Enterprise, Community, and Go editions, Magento announced this week that it is phasing out Magento Professional.

Different Magento Editions

If you are currently using the Magento Professional Edition, you will have a few available options when your license comes up for renewal.

1. Maintain your existing license for another year, after which you will need to switch to Magento Go or Enterprise editions ($2,995)

2. Remain on Magento Professional in perpetuity ($5,995)
Note: You will not be provided with any support and maintenance by the Magento team.

3. Upgrade to Magento Enterprise at an introductory price of $5,995

Magento also announced that as of March 1, the price for the Enterprise Edition will increase 11%. If you are currently using Magento Community or Professional editions and you’re considering moving to Enterprise, there’s never been a better time to upgrade! Contact Eyemagine, a Magento web development agency, today to learn how we can help you take advantage of all the features offered by Enterprise and secure your license before the price increase.

Likewise, if you currently use the Magento Professional Edition and have any questions about how Magento’s announcement could impact your business, contact us and we’ll gladly go over all your options in detail.

Your Opinion

Give us your opinion about the retirement of Magento Professional and the 11% rate increase of Magento Enterprise. Thanks so much for your contribution!

E-Commerce Special Offer

For a limited time only, we will install Magento Enterprise on your server(s) for FREE if you sign up for Magento Enterprise. Contact us today!

At the X.commerce Innovate conference last week (October 12-14), eBay announced ground-breaking integration across multiple platforms that will ultimately benefit Magento store owners by tighter integration with PayPal and eBay, increased sales channels, additional tools for payment processing and online marketing, and much more.

We are excited about the announcement because merchants on the Magento platform will be fully integrated with eBay, PayPal, and other sales channels without making a single investment in integration software; it will all be included.

We took the X.commerce Pledge

We are so excited about X.commerce, we took the pledge to optimize customer experience across the entire commerce ecosystem.

Along with powerful new developments in commerce, The Shins played an amazing set to bring the first night of the conference to a close.

Stay tuned for more developments regarding Magento, x.commerce, eBay, and PayPal.

The tunnel into the evening's festivities

Developers and Merchants Mingling at Innovate

The Shins were the Headliners at this year's x.commerce Innovate Conference

EYEMAGINE is offering free installation of the latest stable release of Magento Enterprise Edition to customers that purchase or upgrade Magento Enterprise Edition. Contact us to find out how.

INKnBURN at the OC Marathon

Other e-tailers are seeing similar success with a powerful e-commerce presence supported by a physical storefront.  Although not a guaranteed formula, the combination does boost sales and raise brand awareness.

As Google optimizes search results for local results, a physical store can boost consumer confidence, especially when it comes to purchasing apparel.

As you can imagine, this level of control over customer lists can be incredibly powerful for targeted email campaigns.

In addition to being able to separate lists of customers with Magento Enterprise Edition, customers can be provided with targeted content based on their customer attributes and/or past purchase behavior.  If you want to promote a certain product to a customer that has not yet purchased it, Magento Enterprise Edition makes it easy as a few mouse-clicks.

Contact us to find out how Magento Enterprise can help your business target customers accurately and effectively.

Would you like to see all of your closed/completed sales in a single Magento report that includes: Order ID, Order Date, Shipping Date, Merchandise Amount, Tax Amount, Shipping Amount, Tracking Number, Refunded Amount, Net Amount?

We have created a custom Magento report that includes all of the information above for each report within a time frame that you can specify.

Now available for Magento v1.4.

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If you have lots of products to manage in a single category, this module is going to save you hours of sorting and organizing. Instead of tediously tracking position values, simply drag and drop the product to automatically change the position and see instant results. View the screencast below for a visual demo.

Merchandising Made Easy: $299 USD

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EyeMagine is an authorized OneStepCheckout partner and we highly recommend the OSC to all our clients. The OSC is the new must-have Magento extension that is taking the market by storm.

OSC is a total revamp of the standard checkout process in Magento. The core feature is that it reduces the six standard Magento checkout steps down to one. Totals and prices are dynamically updated via AJAX when shipping/payment method is selected. The user simply fills in their address and chooses delivery/payment methods on the same page, rather than having to do a separate step for each.

Improving the checkout process results in more customers completing their sales, and this has an immediate impact on your bottom line. It is the single most effective technical change you can make to reduce shopping cart abandonment.

Contact us to find out how to add OneStepCheckout to your Magento store today!

Currently, there are entire institutions dedicated to performing usability tests that serve to demystify the user experience and explain how a website visitor interacts with a site. Several years ago, virtualhosting.com posted a fascinating article about website visitor eye tracking studies that revealed some very interesting tidbits on how your website design affects your visitors. Despite its age, I feel that many of its findings are quite relevant to the modern web and how visitors interact with websites. I hand picked several of their main points to discuss further here, you may view the list and their explanations in full at: 23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies

1. 1. Text attracts attention before graphics.

   I instinctively want to disagree with this one. After all, everyone loves pictures and good photography can make or break a website’s design. However, when a visitor is coming to your website, the majority of the time they are looking for information about what you do, who you are, or how you can make them better informed. Your visitors want real substance, not just visual fluff.

2. 2. Users initially look at the top left and upper portion of the page before moving down and to the right.

   This point touches on the F shape of a user’s eye movements over a website. You can use this to your advantage and lay out important calls to action and headlines along this shape to maximize their visibility.

3. 3. Readers ignore banners.

   This should come as no surprise to many of you, users have been bombarded with banner ads on many of their favorite sites, and users are learning to completely tune these out. Because of this, it isn’t wise to design calls to action that resemble banner ads too closely in either shape or design.

4. 4. People generally scan lower portions of the page.

   This is a big one in my experience with client relations. All too frequently I get requests to try and stuff everything up on the page to keep the information “above the fold.” With the invention of the scroll wheel on mouses, it has become normal behavior for a user to scroll through a page. An excellent article that expounds on this point can be found at: Life Below 600px

5. 5. Shorter paragraphs perform better than long ones.

   Your visitors are lazy, they want to get the answer to their question as quickly and easily as possible. There is a challenge in balancing the need for text for SEO purposes, and the need to present your information as plainly as possible for your visitors. Users don’t read big blocks of text, the shorter and more succinct you can state your point, the more likely it is going to be read. In short, use lists.

6. 6. Lists hold reader attention longer.

   Lists present information in short phrases that make it easy for users to scan and find what they want quickly. Lists are the most efficient way to get your information to your users.

7. 7. White space is good.

   White space is vital to making your content more digestible for the user. By giving your information space to denote its importance, you make it easier for the user to find what they are looking for.

The main goal of user experience studies are to determine how to make your content more accessible and readable by your users. If you would like to find out how EyeMagine can optimize your site’s content to allow you to better communicate with your audience, please contact us today.

Calculating taxes based on city instead of postal code can be a straightforward process as we show in this article. We will take advantage of the tax_postcode column in the tax_calculation_rate table. This is a relatively quick and simple solution for creating a new database column and modifying the Admin HTML blocks.

Directory Structure:

app/
  code/
    local/
      Eyemagine/
        Taxbycity/
          etc/
            config.xml
          Model/
            Calculation.php
            Mysql4/
              Calculation.php
          sql/
            taxbycity_setup/
              mysql-install-0.1.0.php

Configuration

File: app/code/local/Eyemagine/Taxbycity/etc/config.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
 <modules>
   <Eyemagine_Taxbycity>
     <version>0.1.0</version>
   </Eyemagine_Taxbycity>
 </modules>
 <global>
   <resources>
     <taxbycity_setup>
       <setup>
         <module>Eyemagine_Taxbycity</module>
       </setup>
       <connection>
         <use>core_setup</use>
       </connection>
     </taxbycity_setup>
   </resources>
   <models>
     <tax>
       <rewrite>
         <calculation>Eyemagine_Taxbycity_Model_Calculation</calculation>
       </rewrite>
     </tax>
     <tax_mysql4>
       <rewrite>
         <calculation>Eyemagine_Taxbycity_Model_Mysql4_Calculation</calculation>
       </rewrite>
     </tax_mysql4>
   </models>
 </global>
</config>

Mage_Tax_Model_Calculation and Mage_Tax_Model_Mysql4_Calculation are the one two classes we will overload. This module will affect how the tax rate is queried from the database and the criteria used to search for the tax rate.

The Setup

File: app/code/local/Eyemagine/Taxbycity/sql/taxbycity_setup/mysql-install-0.1.0.php

/**
 * mysql-install-0.1.0.php
 * @author EyeMagine
 */
/* @var $this Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Setup */
$installer  = $this;
$db         = $installer->getConnection();
$installer->startSetup();
$installer->run("
ALTER TABLE {$installer->getTable('tax_calculation_rate')} CHANGE `tax_postcode` `tax_postcode` VARCHAR( 32 ) NOT NULL
");

The tax_postcode column by default has a 12-character limit, which presents problems for city names such as “Rancho Santa Margarita.” The setup for this module simply increases the limit to 32 characters.

The Request

File: app/code/local/Eyemagine/Taxbycity/Mode/Calculation.php

/**
 * Calculation.php
 * @author EyeMagine
 *
 */
/**
 * Overload the tax calculation class
 * @author EyeMagine
 *
 */
class Eyemagine_Taxbycity_Model_Calculation extends Mage_Tax_Model_Calculation
{
    /**
     * override the getRateRequest to add the city information to the request
     * @see Mage_Tax_Model_Calculation::getRateRequest
     */
    public function getRateRequest($shippingAddress = null, $billingAddress = null, $customerTaxClass = null, $store = null)
    {
        $address = new Varien_Object();
        $session = Mage::getSingleton('customer/session');
        $basedOn = Mage::getStoreConfig(Mage_Tax_Model_Config::CONFIG_XML_PATH_BASED_ON, $store);
        if (($shippingAddress === false && $basedOn == 'shipping') || ($billingAddress === false && $basedOn == 'billing')) {
            $basedOn = 'default';
        } else {
            if ((($billingAddress === false || is_null($billingAddress) || !$billingAddress->getCountryId()) && $basedOn == 'billing') || (($shippingAddress === false || is_null($shippingAddress) || !$shippingAddress->getCountryId()) && $basedOn == 'shipping')){
                if (!$session->isLoggedIn()) {
                    $basedOn = 'default';
                } else {
                    $defBilling = $session->getCustomer()->getDefaultBillingAddress();
                    $defShipping = $session->getCustomer()->getDefaultShippingAddress();
 
                    if ($basedOn == 'billing' && $defBilling && $defBilling->getCountryId()) {
                        $billingAddress = $defBilling;
                    } else if ($basedOn == 'shipping' && $defShipping && $defShipping->getCountryId()) {
                        $shippingAddress = $defShipping;
                    } else {
                        $basedOn = 'default';
                    }
                }
            }
        }
 
        switch ($basedOn) {
            case 'billing':
                $address = $billingAddress;
                break;
 
            case 'shipping':
                $address = $shippingAddress;
                break;
 
            case 'origin':
                $address
                    ->setCountryId(Mage::getStoreConfig('shipping/origin/country_id', $store))
                    ->setRegionId(Mage::getStoreConfig('shipping/origin/region_id', $store))
                    ->setPostcode(Mage::getStoreConfig('shipping/origin/postcode', $store));
                break;
 
            case 'default':
                $address
                    ->setCountryId(Mage::getStoreConfig(Mage_Tax_Model_Config::CONFIG_XML_PATH_DEFAULT_COUNTRY, $store))
                    ->setRegionId(Mage::getStoreConfig(Mage_Tax_Model_Config::CONFIG_XML_PATH_DEFAULT_REGION, $store))
                    ->setPostcode(Mage::getStoreConfig(Mage_Tax_Model_Config::CONFIG_XML_PATH_DEFAULT_POSTCODE, $store));
                break;
        }
 
        if (is_null($customerTaxClass) && $session->isLoggedIn()) {
            $customerTaxClass = $session->getCustomer()->getTaxClassId();
        } elseif (($customerTaxClass === false) || !$session->isLoggedIn()) {
            $defaultCustomerGroup = Mage::getStoreConfig('customer/create_account/default_group', $store);
            $customerTaxClass = Mage::getModel('customer/group')->getTaxClassId($defaultCustomerGroup);
        }
        $request = new Varien_Object();
        $request
            ->setCountryId($address->getCountryId())
            ->setRegionId($address->getRegionId())
            ->setPostcode($address->getPostcode())
            ->setStore($store)
            ->setCustomerClassId($customerTaxClass)
            ->setCity($address->getCity());
        return $request;
    }
}

The calculation method, getRateRequest(), is nearly identical to the core method.  We will add the city to the request object from the address object.

The Look Up

File: app/code/local/Eyemagine/Taxbycity/Mode/Mysql4/Calculation.php

/**
 * Calculation.php
 * @author EyeMagine
 *
 */
/**
 * Overload the mysql4 calculation class
 * @author EyeMagine
 *
 */
class Eyemagine_Taxbycity_Model_Mysql4_Calculation extends Mage_Tax_Model_Mysql4_Calculation
{
    /**
     * override getRates method to add city to where clause
     * @see Mage_Tax_Model_Mysql4_Calculation::_getRates
     */
    protected function _getRates($request)
    {
        $storeId = Mage::app()->getStore($request->getStore())->getId();
 
        $select = $this->_getReadAdapter()->select();
        $select
            ->from(array('main_table'=>$this->getMainTable()))
            ->where('customer_tax_class_id = ?', $request->getCustomerClassId())
            ->where('product_tax_class_id = ?', $request->getProductClassId());
 
        $select->join(array('rule'=>$this->getTable('tax/tax_calculation_rule')), 'rule.tax_calculation_rule_id = main_table.tax_calculation_rule_id', array('rule.priority', 'rule.position'));
        $select->join(array('rate'=>$this->getTable('tax/tax_calculation_rate')), 'rate.tax_calculation_rate_id = main_table.tax_calculation_rate_id', array('value'=>'rate.rate', 'rate.tax_country_id', 'rate.tax_region_id', 'rate.tax_postcode', 'rate.tax_calculation_rate_id', 'rate.code'));
 
        $select
            ->where("rate.tax_country_id = ?", $request->getCountryId())
            ->where("rate.tax_region_id in ('*', '', ?)", $request->getRegionId());
        $city = $request->getCity();
        if (!empty($city)) {//add city only if we know we have it, default to old behavior otherwise
            $select->where("LOWER(rate.tax_postcode) in ('*', '', ?)", array($request->getPostcode(),strtolower($request->getCity())));
        } else {
            $select->where("rate.tax_postcode in ('*', '', ?)", $request->getPostcode());
        }
 
        $select->joinLeft(array('title_table'=>$this->getTable('tax/tax_calculation_rate_title')), "rate.tax_calculation_rate_id = title_table.tax_calculation_rate_id AND title_table.store_id = '{$storeId}'", array('title'=>'IFNULL(title_table.value, rate.code)'));
 
        $order = array('rule.priority ASC', 'rule.tax_calculation_rule_id ASC', 'rate.tax_country_id DESC', 'rate.tax_region_id DESC', 'rate.tax_postcode DESC', 'rate.rate DESC');
        $select->order($order);
 
        return $this->_getReadAdapter()->fetchAll($select);
    }
}

Minor modifications to the _getRates() method, in the Mysql Calculation Model, will be required. In this method, we will ensure that the city has been set in the request and add it to the list of values to search for in the tax_postcode column.

A side affect of this is that the Estimated Shipping and Tax result will no longer be as accurate. The input for this form is a postal code, which is passed to the shipping module. Taking advantage of Magento’s flexibility makes it simple to enhance its core functionality without too much code modification.

If this article was helpful or if you would like assistance with your customizations, please feel free to contact us.