Who wants a Zen Cart ADMIN app for mobile devices?

With the iPhone app store, the recent release of the new Blackberry and of course the Google supported Android, Mobile phone apps are becoming more and more popular. Would Zen Cart users be interested in seeing an app for any of the Mobile phones. For example, maybe an app to track incoming orders when you are away from your desk.

Any thoughts on this.

I think it would be nice to have zencart display stuffs on the iphone and other smart fone nicely so people can buy stuffs from their phones.
May be a stripped down version of the cart when user visits from a phone?

yellow1912:

I think it would be nice to have zencart display stuffs on the iphone and other smart fone nicely so people can buy stuffs from their phones.
May be a stripped down version of the cart when user visits from a phone?

I 2nd that thought. It would be huge for customers to be able to purchase from a zencart site with their mobile phones, not just iPhone.

I'd be interested in seeing some of the admin functions like sales reports and order status via blackberry.

wilt:

With the iPhone app store, the recent release of the new Blackberry and of course the Google supported Android, Mobile phone apps are becoming more and more popular. Would Zen Cart users be interested in seeing an app for any of the Mobile phones. For example, maybe an app to track incoming orders when you are away from your desk.

Any thoughts on this.

Wilt,

If I understand you right you are asking this question more for the business owner than the customer as people can already make orders for our stuff on their phone (at least it seems I have received a few that way). Yes, I would love to know how the business is doing while I am away from it. I would like to know the number of orders coming in by day, and hour. I would like to know order totals by day and hour. I would like to know if the customer traffic volume has gone down during some time period or traffic by the hour (maybe an outage is occurring?).

Oh! and also conversion percentage by the hour.

Shrimp

I just came on to the forums to look and see if there were any apps available for the Iphone. I got one a couple of weeks ago as a gift to use for my business.

I would love a mobile friendly version of the admin screen for starters. It doesnt fit that great even in landscape mode. So a mobile admin center would be great, featuring things that would be handy to do on the go.

Mobile alerts of orders. Right now I set up a seperate email address that I added to all my email settings so that I at least get emails about the business while out and about.

Target and Amazon and Ebay all have mobile friendly versions of their websites. But they dont have to worry about a bunch of different templates etc so I dont know that such a thing is practical as they have total control over the look of their sites. Would take a lot of work I would think to make this happen.

Sharni
https://www.nappyshoppe.com

I am currently working on a couple iPhone apps. If interest is high enough, a Zencart/osCommerce app may be my next project. It would be very handle for my existing stores, and clients.

Small note: There is no way, at this time, to notify you of new orders thou an iPhone app. The iPhone OS will not let you run processes in the background.

Ryan

I get notified quite nicely of orders by setting up an email with gmail just for that purpose. I added it to all my email settings. So today for instance, while out running errands I got a couple of emails that told me I had orders. Worked nicely.

The one thing I cant seem to get to work is sending messages from the contact us page to more than one email address. I want it to go to the regular business address that comes to my machine in my office and to the address I have set up on my iphone.

Anyone?

Sharni
https://www.nappyshoppe.com

Sharni, that would really be more appropriately asked in a separate discussion, rather than hijacking this one ;)

Wilt,

A mobi version of ZenCart would put it above most available carts.

wilt:

With the iPhone app store, the recent release of the new Blackberry and of course the Google supported Android, Mobile phone apps are becoming more and more popular. Would Zen Cart users be interested in seeing an app for any of the Mobile phones. For example, maybe an app to track incoming orders when you are away from your desk.

Any thoughts on this.
Be it frontend or backend I think the idea is excellent.

What I'm curious about is the Thread Title includes "BB" which I interpret as "Bulletin Board". Can't see how that would apply or is there another meaning for "BB"?

the recent release of the new Blackberry

Maybe he is referring to BlackBerry ?

kobra:

Wilt,

A mobi version of ZenCart would put it above most available carts.

As mentioned elsewhere, this thread is more concerned with an application that provides a store owner access to backend information, rather than template customization for mobile browsers

My thinking is to Keep It Simple. Basic customer and order lookup. Would you need any other info or features?

I see alot of people have made great suggestions about a backend iphone app that allows you to check your admin, however; I believe a iPhone/BB front page and store is even more important.

Without customers being able to buy, there is no need to check the admin because there are no orders in there. Anything that helps a customer purchase is always, im my opinion, more important.

We can always check the admin when we get to a standard computer when we have the chance. Although it will be nice to have the admin function after the front end comes.

Sure, a slick front to the cart for iPhone users would be nice. Much of that is template specific. It is possible that a user is using an iPhone and then present the proper template to that user. But, depending on the template, the iPhone does a pretty good job with there web browser. I use it regularly. Just some thoughts.

Currently I am using the Desktop Data add on to get a basic overview of orders, number of customers and customers online. Desktop Data was written to output it's data to the desktop, but it happens to work quite nice on SymbianOS phones as well.

I also hacked this add on to be able to update all my "Ready for shipping" orders to "Shipped" at the end of the day using my phone.

It would be great if a future Zen Cart version would include similar features :smile:

I agree that a backend for mobile phones would be incredibly handy. Mobile phones are taking over in many areas and are going to be a large part of the future of ecommerce. In some countries, like Estonia, you can pay for things in stores or a parking garage with a mobile phone. Way more advanced than the US, for sure, but the rest of the world will be catching up before long.

With regards to the frontend being viewable on a cell phone, I just had someone check my site with their iPhone and it looks fine. I haven't done anything special to make it look good on a mobile, so I guess there are no worries from that point of view.

I want an app, I have even considered coding it. Certainly it could, and should, be sold at a price. I want one for Android because that is what I have.

i got 24inch wide screen and i still think is too small to brows the net :blush:

how people could do stuff on tiny little screen ? umm, maybe i should go into prescription eye glasses for my new zc store :frusty: