When the product catalog is ready, it is time to test the user registration and order management functionalities. We are going to discuss how to manage customers and orders in a three part series. This is the first part that covers VirtueMart's Customer Management. In this article, we will:

• Configure the user registration settings for VirtueMart
• Manage users for a VirtueMart shop
• Create and manage fields for a customer registration form

Note that all VirtueMart customers must be registered with Joomla!. However, not all Joomla! users need to be the VirtueMart customers. Within the first few sections of this article, you will have a clear concept about user management in Joomla! and VirtueMart.

Customer management

Customer management in VirtueMart includes registering customers to the VirtueMart shop, assigning them to user groups for appropriate permission levels, managing fields in the registration form, viewing and editing customer information, and managing the user groups. Let's dive in to these activities in the following sections.

Whenever you create a Zen Cart based e-commerce site, you need to change one thing, at least. It is site’s look and feel. If you use Zen Cart’s default theme, that will show your site in a common look, which is a barrier for branding your shop. You need to change the look of your site. You can do it by two ways: use some third-party templates designed for Zen Cart, or develop a template for Zen Cart at your own. In my book Zen Cart: E-commerce Application Development, I have tried to describe how to build a Zen Cart template. A full chapter is dedicate on building a template and customization of existing templates. My publisher, Packt Publishing, has kindly made the chapter available to public. Please read the article Creating a new Zen Cart template.

One of the great features of Zen Cart is to configure coupons and sending those to the customers. The coupons in Zen Cart can be used for discount by the customers. In Zen cart, you can also sell coupons as gift certificate. To learn, how to create a coupon in Zen Cart, view the video below.

Zen Cart - Create Coupons
Learn how to create coupons in Zen Cart shopping cart.

For a step-by-step guide on building a Zen Cart e-commerce site, including configuring coupons and gift voucher, read the book Zen Cart: E-commerce Application Development, published by Packt Publishing.

Drupal is a Content Management System. That's all. This site is built with Drupal. Stop. Many sites are built upon Drupal. Drupal won Best Overall 2008 Open Source CMS Award by Packt, consecutively for second year. Why? Because Drupal is simple, Drupal is elegant, and Drupal is powerful. If you are not that familiar with Drupal, you may look into its features at demo Drupal site. Also watch the following video to get an overview of Drupal CMS.

Drupal Overview: A nice video showing Drupal's power

There is a full site, DrupalDojo.com, dedicated to Drupal learning. Many videos are there, and these easy to follow video tutorials will help you get started with Drupal soon. Here is another video to know the benefits of using Drupal.

I authored the book on Zen Cart last year, and it was published by Packt in July 2008. At first, I didn't think how it sell - and how readers will take it. I have written as I wrote other books in Bangla. But there was some little hesitation on writing the book first in Bangla. It is my first book written in English and that's why I was little bit worried about my style of writing.

When the book came out in July 2008, many readers expressed their thought on the book. Some reviewed the book on their blog. So far I know, the first person who reviewed the book on his blog is That Software Guy - a 'micro-consultant' with mega-knowledge on Zen Cart. Anybody interested building a shop based on Zen Cart may hear his name, he has some important contributions for Zen Cart. The review by ThatSoftwareGuy really inspired me. The first line of his review is very motivating - as he understood how difficult to write on Zen Cart  due to its different audiences. Here is the quote from his review:

Creating a WordPress template is not so easy. There are many tutorials which you can use to learn designing a WordPress template. There is a complete book on WordPress template/theme design, published by Packt Paublishing. Recently I found this excellent video tutorial which will show you how to design a custom WordPress page template. Remember that it is designing a page template, not the full theme.

How To Create A Custom WordPress Page Template

Wordpress.com is a popular blogging platform. You can use it free of cost and from any operating system. You don't need to bother for setting up the software, hosting the blogging software, and registering domain names. This video tutorial shows you how to start blogging with WordPress.com.

WordPress.com - Step-by-Step Tutorial on How to Blog

Blogger is a free blogging platform, and many of the bloggers use it. If you don't have a blogger account yet, you can create one. If you are using GMail, it's very easy. Follow the video tutorial to start blogging with Blogger.

Blogger Tutorial - How to Start Blogging with Blogger

Drupal is one of the most popular content management systems. It is modular, extensible, customizable and powerful. Unlike Joomla!, which uses Object Oriented Programming (OOP) approach, Drupal uses fully procedural approach. Drupal’s code base is minimal and simple to understand. Like Joomla! you can develop modules (equivalent in Joomla! is called extension) to extend Drupal’s functionalities.

Drupal 6 is the latest stable release available now. One thing to remember is that there are lots of differences between Drupal 5 and Drupal 6. Drupal 7 will also be different by architecture. After releasing Drupal 6, the main problem users face is inadequacy of Drupal 6 modules. Most of the Drupal 5 modules don’t work in Drupal 6. Matt Butcher’s latest book on Drupal 6 Module Development would help others to develop more and more Drupal 6 modules.

Now let’s come to the book on Drupal 6 module development. As per the publisher – Packt Publishing - the book is targeted to ‘PHP developers who want to add features to Drupal 6.” This book should enable PHP developers to develop functional Drupal 6 modules.