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How to Create an online Store for Free Using OpenCart and Openshift

 Openshift-OpenCart-Logo

The e-commerce industry is booming worldwide. The United States, the world’s largest e-commerce market, generated $395.28 billion in e-commerce sales in 2013 (internetretailer.com). This tip will present a step by step tutorial on how to setup your online store for free, the only skill you’ll need during the tutorial is your ability to use a web browser.

In a previous “How to” a step by step tutorial was presented on how to create an online store using Magento and Openshift. This tutorial will present a step by step guide on how to create an online store OpenCart as a commerce Management system and Openshift PaaS (Platform as a Service) as a hosting service, without further ado let’s start

Requirements

  1. A free Openshift account, just go to Openshift website and register using your email, no credit card is required. 1 - create openshift account

 Steps

  1. After registering; go to Openshift home page and click on the “MY APPS” on the top of the screen.2 - open Openshift Account
  2. You’ll be directed to your log-in window and enter your credentials, you’ll be directed to a new window click on the blue “Create your first application now” link.3-create openshift application
  3. You’ll be directed to a window, select the “PHP 5.4” tab from the “PHP” menu.PHP-on-Openshift
  4. You’ll be directed to a new window, in the public URL; type the name of the project/application name (e.g. MyAmazon, AmazonCart, etc.) in the first space and the domain name (it’s not your real domain name, just any identification name e.g. AwesomeGuy/AwesomeGal) in the second space.5 - openshift application name
  5. Under the public URL, there’s the source code slot, just copy and paste the following  link “https://github.com/Atriedes/openshift-opencart.git” and it should look like the screenshot below:opencart source code
  6. Leave everything as it’s and click on “Create Application” tab at the end of the page.Create-an-Application-on-Openshift
  7. It will take a while then you’ll be directed to a new window, just click on the blue “Not now continue” link.2 - continue to your thinkup application
  8. You’ll be directed to a new window where you should add MySQL just by clicking the blue “Add MySQL” link.Add-MySQL-to-Joomla-Application
  9. You’ll be directed to a new window, just click on the “Add Cartridge” tab. Add-MySQL-Cartridge
  10. You shall be directed to anew window where you shall find all of your “MySQL” credentials. Joomla-MySQL-Credentials
  11. Now you’ll need to add phpMyAdmin; click on the blue “Add phpMyAdmin” located at the bottom of the same window. add phpmyadmin gear
  12. You’ll then be directed to a new window to confirm the addition of phpMyAdmin, just click on the “Add Cartridge” tab.joomla phpmyadmin add cartridge
  13. You’ll be directed to the main window again and it’s time to go to your “OpenCart Website” installation window, to do that simply click on the blue link at the top of the screen (that’s your URL).opencart website link
  14. You’ll be directed to the “OpenCart” installation window, first you’ll need to accept the license of agreement and then click on the “Continue” tab. You’ll then be directed to a new window just click on the “Continue” tab.
  15. You’ll be directed to a new window, where you should enter your credentials “name, email, password, database username, database password”, you can get this data from step “10”. You should leave the database prefix field empty.opencart credentials
  16. In that window,  you should provide your database credentials, there’s a small trick here which is getting your database server IP, the easiest way to do so is to return to your application and click on the small arrow at the phpMyAdmin tab. 4 - getting database server IP Address
  17. A new window will popup just copy the number shown in the below screenshot. 6 - thinkup database host
  18. Paste that number in the database host field in the OpenCart installation, then fill in the rest of the  information from your database credentials that you can find in your application, then click next.
  19. You’ll then be directed to a new window, just select the “Go to You Online Store” option.opencart online store re-directing
  20. You’ll be directed to your online store.

opencart online storeNow, you’ve a fully functional online store that is scalable and free.