Bestseller or best selling product is one of the features people tend to ask for when it comes to Magento™.
There are multiple ways to implement this feature.
In this example, I’m not using controller or model directories at all; I’m going to show you how to implement this feature using only one file: the View.
Basically, what you need to do is to create the directory inside your template directory and place the bestseller.phtml file in it. In my example, I’m using the custom-created directory /inchoo. All of the screenshots provided here …

I recently answered a question on the magento forums about how to remove the callout images in the right / left columns.
This is a pretty easy task, but finding them required a small bit of digging (as usual).
My first recommendation when trying to find any thing in the front end is to turn on Template Path hints in the admin section

Admin > System > Configuration
Switch your “Current Configuration Scope” to your store (’Main Website’ on a stock build)
Click on the Developer Tab (bottom left) and find the Debug area
Template Path …

Hi all – Here is my solution to a question I’ve seen asked many times: How to move the cart sidebar into the header area. You can use this technique to move it anywhere. This is not the only way to do this, but it is a useful one.
1) Copy the the block for the cart side bar:

//design/frontend/default/default/layout/checkout.xml
<block type="checkout/cart_sidebar" name="cart_sidebar" template="checkout/cart/sidebar.phtml"/>

//there is also this full code in my version 1.1.3
<block type="checkout/cart_sidebar" name="cart_sidebar" template="checkout/cart/sidebar.phtml" before="-">
<action method="addItemRender"><type>simple</type><block>checkout/cart_item_renderer</block><template>checkout/cart/sidebar/default.phtml</template></action>
<action method="addItemRender"><type>grouped</type><block>checkout/cart_item_renderer_grouped</block><template>checkout/cart/sidebar/default.phtml</template></action>
<action method="addItemRender"><type>configurable</type><block>checkout/cart_item_renderer_configurable</block><template>checkout/cart/sidebar/default.phtml</template></action>
</block>

2) Open up app\design\frontend\default\default\layout\page.xml (assuming you are using the default design or didn’t create …

If you try to ask this question on some forum or newsgroup, you will surely get many replies. Everyone will present you his favorite. My first developed online store was created with standard osCommerce platform. After three or four projects, I started to work with CRE Loaded and used it frequently for years.  Although it was also an osCommerce fork, it had many advantages. I switched to Magento™ early this year and this is my final choice.
Let’s look at the popularity of those platforms now.

Google™ Trends is a great …

Those of you who know what SVN is, feel free to skip this article. Those of you who are not familiar with SVN, this is a must-read. If you use standard FTP to upload all Magento files, you may find this process very time consuming. Magento 1.1.8 has over 6.700 files in over 2.200 folders. FTPing can sometimes take few hours on some servers. Let’s look at alternatives.
Both alternatives require SSH access to the server. I’m aware that some low quality webhosting providers do not provide you with SSH info …

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been working on Magento quite actively last two months. I noticed this negative trend in my blogging; more I know about Magento, the less I write about it. Some things just look so easy now, and they start to feel like something I should not write about. Anyhow…. time to share some wisdom with community
Our current client uses somewhat specific (don’t they all) store set. When I say specific, i don’t imply anything bad about it. One of the stand …

Quite a few people have asked me for a price filter functionality that comes with Magento. Mostly, the questions are same: How does one put the price filter anywhere on the page? How does one set it’s on price ranges in that filter? What defines default price ranges. Is it possible to set price filter for all my products instead of just single category? Lot of questions. The answer might be simpler then you might think.
There are two ways to approach this problem. Head trough wall or stop and think …

You got a Magento project to develop, you created a Magento theme, you placed initial products and categories and you also placed some test orders to see if Shipping and Payment methods work as expected. Everything seems to be cool and the client wishes to launch the site. You launch it. When you enter the administration for the first time after the launch, you will see all your test orders there. You know those should be deleted. But how?

If you try to delete orders in the backend, you will …

If you worked with osCommerce, Zen Cart, CRE Loaded or any similar eCommerce platform before, you might find Magento database structure quite confusing when you see it for the first time. I advise you not to rush too much figuring out what is what by glancing through database. Try to spend first few hours getting familiar with some background. For purposes of flexibility, the Magento database heavily utilizes an Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV) data model. As is often the case, the cost of flexibility is complexity. Is there something in Magento that …

One of the most edited file in Magento is the template file View.phtml file. Reason for this is that a lot of clients would like to rearrange it differently on their online stores. Here is the analysis of that file and the list of all the methods it uses.
Magento product view page analysis (ready for print PDF)
Document above reflects Magento 1.1.6. methods and classes.
One thing to keep in mind, this document shows you the View.phtml block file and shows you it’s inherited methods. All of the Magento block files have …