K2mart - Integrating K2 and Virtuemart

November 04, 2010 | Joomla Tutorials | Written by 2ez2build

k2Mart Joomla K2mart is a new product from Joomlaworks, the people who created K2, the wonderful content component for Joomla (read Part 1 and Part 2 of our introduction to K2).

What is the purpose of K2mart? It allows you to import your Virtuemart products into K2. Why is this a good thing?

You can really improve your product listings by adding image galleries, videos, tags, social bookmarks, comments and many of the other wonderful features of K2.
You can create much more sophisticated designs for your product pages - K2 is very easy to design for whereas Virtuemart is notoriously difficult.

K2mart does replace all the design and layout features of Virtuemart but it doesn't replace the checkout process. Customers will still pay through Virtuemart,

Here's how to use K2mart:

Video on Using K2mart

Install K2, Virtuemart and K2mart

In order to get started with K2mart, make sure to install all three components:

K2: http://getk2.org (Free)
K2mart: http://www.joomlaworks.gr/content/view/86/42/ (20 Euros)
Virtuemart: http://virtuemart.net (Free)

Importing Virtuemart Products into K2

Go to Components >> K2mart >> VIrtuemart Migrator. You can decide where in K2 your products will be imported to:

Either leave the "Catalog root category" empty so that the Virtuemart categories will become top-level K2 categories or:
Enter a new category name in "Catalog root category". All your Virtuemart categories will be imported there

Click "Start Import" in the top-right corner.

Now when you go to Components >> K2 >> Items you'll see all your Virtuemart products. Open one up and you'll see all your Virtuemart information has been imported:

Seeing Your Products

In order to see the products live on our site, let's make a menu link to one of them. Go to Menus >> Main Menu >> New >> K2 >> Item and choose Item.

On the right-hand side choose one of your products in Virtuemart and enter a title for your menu link. Click Save.

When you visit your product page it should look like it does above, plus a lot more of K2's features. If you click on the "Add to Cart" button and then "Cart" you'll be taken to the normal Virtuemart page for payment:

K2 Mart Settings

In addition to all the settings you get in K2, K2mart does have it's own features to manage. Go to Components >> K2mart >> Settings to configure them. K2mart also comes with a dashboard so you visually track the progress of your Virtuemart sales:

Comments

#1 Alastair Coleman 2010-11-17 04:21

Fantastic Tutorial. Thanks heaps!

#2 Bruno Amaral 2010-11-22 12:38

how i can use the virtuemart categories list??
i received this msg:
404
Category not found

#3 Chuck 2011-03-03 21:23

What about virtuemart shipping api that connects to the usps? When someone checks out with the k2mart installed, will shipping methods used in virtuemart still be functional. They automatically calculate shipping cost according to the usps API.

Chuck

#4 Devin 2011-06-10 10:01

Excellent tutorial!

#5 Tiago Magno 2011-09-15 14:36

every day I have to add a new product in virtuemart. the k2mart this new product updates for the k2? because the tests I did I should only use once, but when I add a new product, it will not appear in k2, what do I do?

#6 donye 2011-12-04 12:15

fantastic tutor thanks for your tutorial

#7 Nick 2011-12-05 06:13

You're welcome, Donye! :)

Kind regards,
Nick

#8 Nick 2011-12-05 06:14

You're welcome, Alastair! :)

Kind regards,
Nick

#9 Nick 2011-12-05 06:14

Hi Bruno,

Sorry for the delay. It's hard for us to monitor support requests in the comments of blog posts, so if you're a student at OSTraining please use the support forum where we answer all questions within a business day.

Kind regards,
Nick

#10 Nick 2011-12-05 06:15

Hi Chuck,

Sorry for the delay. It's hard for us to monitor support requests in the comments of blog posts, so if you're a student at OSTraining please use the support forum where we answer all questions within a business day.

Kind regards,
Nick

#11 Nick 2011-12-05 06:15

Hi Tiago,

Sorry for the delay. It's hard for us to monitor support requests in the comments of blog posts, so if you're a student at OSTraining please use the support forum where we answer all questions within a business day.

Kind regards,
Nick

#12 Nick 2011-12-05 06:15

We're glad to hear it was of help, Devin! :)

Kind regards,
Nick

#13 pierre 2012-01-17 03:30

I cant believe you call virtuemart a fantastic piece of software!

As far as Joomla components go, I cant really think of anything worse than virtuemart.

Hard to style, ugly, tables all over the place. Buggy, unpredictable. Which is exactly why if k2mart is good this is a big leap forward.

It still bothers me that it uses VM for checkout. If it was a total replacement I would feel alot better about it.

Still, Im probably gonna buy it and give it a go.

#14 Nick 2012-01-17 04:57

Hi Pierre,

I think you may be a bit mistaken. Please re-read the tutorial :)

Hope this works out for you! Though, there are a lot of other e-commerce solutions for Joomla that are worth checking out as well. For example, Hikashop is one of my favorites:
ostraining.com/.../hikashop

Kind regards,
Nick

#15 Sergio Belarus 2012-04-27 07:35

Thank you very much for this usefull article!

#16 sadique 2012-06-07 04:59

really helpful...nice tutorial..thank z

#17 Jon Siddall 2012-08-09 07:40

Is there any way to import k2 items into k2mart ?

I cant find any documentation on how to do this. Trying to change a catalogue site to an online shop.
Thanks

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