Selling your products online or want to start? Learn how to create an online store with AbanteCart online store builder. Fast, secure installation with HTTPS and backups.
Why Create A Website For Your Web Store
There are several third-party e-commerce store tools you can use to launch your online store.
This include:
and host of other ones.
Often these come with an online store with a shopping cart, payment processing, and essential e-commerce features.
But the question is, do you really own your online store?
The answer is simply no.
You do not own the content of your store or the data that underpins your e-commerce business.
To truly own your data.
To truly own your online store.
To truly call this a true business, you need to have an e-commerce website that you own.
And you can create a beautiful eCommerce website within minutes with an online store builder.
You can do this while still taking advantage of the reach that these third-party markets.
What is AbanteCart?
One of the easiest online store builders you can use is called AbanteCart.
AbanteCart is an open-source shopping cart application that you can use to set up an online shop & start selling your products online.
It is designed to be simple to use and make the process of setting up your eCommerce shop fast.
AbanteCart is search engine optimized, 100% responsive for computers, mobile, and tablet devices, and free to use.
But more importantly, it has no licensing fee, no subscriptions, no transaction fees.
It is simply yours to use as long as you need it.
How To Install AbanteCart With Minimum Fuss
Our goal with this guide is to show you:
- the easiest way to install AbanteCart even with minimal technical knowledge
- and how to create an online shop with AbanteCart as a developer for your customers
1. Web Hosting Core Requirements
To complete the process of creating an online store, you will need:
- a domain name (If you do not have one, visit the domain registration page to search and purchase a new domain name for your shop)
- a web hosting account (If you do not have one, you can visit our Web Hosting Packages page, select a hosting plan and create an account. If you are not sure what web hosting package is good for you, send an email to business@webhostingmagic.com)
- your cPanel username and password (If you are not sure what these are, visit What is my cPanel username? to learn more)
- an HTTPS ready website (we provide SSL/TLS certificate to every domain we host at no extra cost. But you can opt to use an EV SSL for your online shop and can get that at SSL Certificates page.)
- an hour of time.
2. AbanteCart Installation Requirements
- Apache Web Server (recommended)
- PHP 8.0 or above with OPcache enabled (required). You may run into issues with v7.4 if OPcache is enabled on the server.
- MySQL 8 database which works with PHP 7.4+ (required)
- GD Graphics Library (required)
- fileinfo extension (required)
- ziparchive extension (optional)
- PHAR extension (optional)
- curl support
We have taken care of these for you on our web hosting platform.
Option #1: Automatic 1-Click AbanteCart Installation (recommended)
The best, easiest and fastest way is to use the AbanteCart one-click installation.
As AbanteCart web hosting service, we do offer this option right on our cPanel.
cPanel is a Linux-based web hosting control panel and automation tool that simplify the process of hosting a website.
With this option, you can install AbanteCart with a few clicks.
Step 1. Search your inbox that was sent to you after your web hosting account was created. In it will be the URL of your cPanel server, your cPanel username, and password.
Step 2. Once you have logged into cPanel, scroll down to the Software section of your cPanel.
Step 3. Click on the Softaculous icon. When the page loads, you will see all available applications that you can install on your website.
Since we are specifically looking for AbanteCart, use the search box to search for it. Or just scroll to the E-commerce section and look for AbanteCart.Step 5. Before clicking the Install button, there are things you need to consider:
- Check DNS and SSL
Ensure that the sub-domain is reachable online and that our system has installed a valid SSL certificate on it before proceeding.
Our system requires the DNS configuration to be valid (must match the records found at cPanel >>> Domains >>> Zone Editor) before it can install an SSL certificate on it.
You can check visually check your DNS setting with:
- Leaf DNS
- dnschecker.org
- dnspropagation.net
- whatsmydns.net
Or simply use the “dig” command.
- Determine AbanterCart Installation Locations
If you are using the website (webcomm.dev) as the store, then you need to remove the auto-generated “abante” sub-folder.
If you go ahead and install it using the auto-generated option, your store will be located at webcomm.dev/abante.
If you are installing AbanteCart to a sub-domain such as shop.webcomm.dev, ensure that you have created the sub-domain (cPanel >>> Domains >>> Subdomains) before initializing the installation.
If you are installing on a sub-directory or folder, then either accept the one auto-generated or rename the folder to whatever you want the store to be called.
Step 6. Fill in all required fields and then click on the “Install” button.
That’s all about it.
Softaculous will create the MySQL database, MySQL user, get and copy the AbanteCart files to your websites, install it and give you the admin panel URL, username, and password.
Option 2: AbanteCart Manual Installation
Step 1. Create A MySQL Database
Our service includes MySQL & PostgreSQL as part of your hosting plan.
To create a new database, log in to your cPanel.
Scroll down to the Databases section and click on MySQL® Database Wizard.
The MySQL® Database Wizard is designed to guide you through the setup of a MySQL® database, user accounts, and user privileges.
In the New Database text box, enter a name for the database and click Next Step.
Please note that we enabled database prefixing on our systems.
So make sure that the cPanel account’s username, database name, database prefix, and underscore character do not exceed the maximum length of 32 characters.
In fact, keep it within 16 characters if you can help it as that helps you visually manage the database better.
In the Username text box, enter a name for the user who you wish to allow to manage the database.
Enter and confirm the new password in the appropriate text boxes.
Click Create User.
For now, select ALL PRIVILEGES.
You can adjust the privileges that you want to grant the user later after you have completed the AbanteCart installation.
For more information about user privileges, read the MySQL 8.0 documentation at https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/privileges-provided.html
Click Next Step to complete the process.
Save the information that the system gives you.
This will include the MySQL User, MySQL Database, MySQL Password as you would need these later.
Step 2. Download AbanteCart
Download the latest AbanteCart version by either visiting http://www.abantecart.com/download or using wget or curl.
If you are using wget or curl, then visit the Advanced section of your cPanel and click on the SSH Terminal for cPanel.
This interface allows you to access an in-browser terminal application for direct command-line access within a cPanel & WHM session.
SSH network protocol allows you to connect to another web server over the internet via a command-line interface (CLI).
You can use this network protocol to remotely manage your server, configure scripts, and perform other tasks.
Many modern operating systems, such as macOS® and Linux® distributions, include SSH which you can configure when you want to access your system via an external machine.
cPanel has this as part of its core features. Terminal video
Once the page loads, you must read and accept the warning notice. Click I understand and want to proceed.
At this point, you need to figure out where you want to download the AbanteCart files to.
If you are installing on the main website and using wget then:
wget -O AbanteCart.zip https://github.com/abantecart/abantecart-src/archive/master.zip
If you are on a slow network, consider using the “wget -b” flag or tmux or screen terminal multiplexers.
You can check if you have wget installed by running:
which wget
On our systems, these are installed by default.
If you are using curl, then:
curl https://codeload.github.com/abantecart/abantecart-src/zip/master --output AbanteCart.zip
Note that if not told otherwise, curl writes the received data to stdout.
In the command above, curl is instructed to instead save that data into as AbanteCart.zip using the -o, –output or -O, –remote-name options.
The file will be saved in the current working directory.
If you want the file saved in a different directory (e.g. sub-directory/folder), make sure you change the current working directory before invoking curl with this option.
If you get an error, use the -S, –show-error, or -v, –verbose flags to make curl show the error message.
Step 3. Unzip the AbanteCart Archive
It is important that you test the compressed folder and check the structure before unzipping it.
unzip -t AbanteCart.zip
Let’s see the structure:
zipinfo AbanteCart.zip
Now that we see there that there is no error, let’s go ahead and unzip it properly.
unzip AbanteCart.zip
The abantecart-src-master result will give us a file structure like this:
drwxr-xr-x 10 docker
-rwxr-xr-x 1 install.txt # Installation Instruction.
drwxr-xr-x 21 public_html # AbanteCart installation files
-rwxr-xr-x 1 LICENSE.txt # Open Software License ("OSL") v. 3.0.
-rwxr-xr-x 1 release_notes.txt # New Features and improvements highlight.
drwxr-xr-x 3 tests
cd abantecart-src-master
Let’s take a look at the installation instruction:
cat install.txt
You can actually chain these commands:
cd abantecart-src-master && cat install.txt
We are going to ignore the Docker folder for now (unless you want to run the DockerFile locally and just proceed with the installation instructions which tells us to:
We need to upload or copy all the files and folders to our server from the public_html folder in the archive to either public_html or public_html/store
Since we are already in the public_html/abantecart-src-master/public_html, we need to just recursively copy the directory’s contents to public_html.
cp -vR * /home/$username/public_html/
We are using the copy command in case you need to install AbanteCart on another directory.
Do remember that you can use:
- SFTP “merge”
- scp -r (back up first, do the scp and then copy the existing files back)
- rsync -avzh or rsync -avzhe ssh (remember to –dry-run)
to move these files to your public_html if the download was done on your local machine.
Step 4. Visually Check Permissions
While cPanel & Softaculous must have set the proper permissions for these folders, visually check to make sure the following folders and files are writable:
chmod -R 0755 image/
chmod -R 0755 system/cache/
chmod -R 0755 system/logs/
chmod -R 0755 download/
chmod -R 0755 extensions/
chmod -R 0755 resources/
chmod 0755 system/config.php
Step 5. Run AbanteCart Installation Wizard
We are going to use our web browser to run the installation script.
So visit the site using the browser of your choice: e.g. https://webcomm.dev or https://webcomm.dev/store/
Since we have placed the AbanteCart files directly in our cPanel webroot, we need to open https://webcomm.dev/.
Please replace the webcomm.dev part with your real domain name.
Follow the on-screen instructions for installation.
Step 6. AbanteCart License Agreement
Tick the ‘I agree to the license‘ check box and click on the Continue button.
Step 7. Compatibility Validation Check
Take a look at the compatibility validation.
This checks your PHP configuration and version, MySQL configuration, checks for PHP CURL, PHP ZIP & GD, PHP, fileinfo support on the server.
If all tests are passed, you should click the Continue button.
If not, please contact our technical support team for help.
Step 8. MySQL Host And Database Configuration
Before proceeding, check that you have the MySQL database details you earlier created.
Type in the information you saved before when you created the MySQL user and database.
- Database Driver: leave this with the default setting.
- Database Host: leave this as ‘localhost’
- Database Username: username for your MySQL user account
- Database Password: MySQL user account password
- Database Name: MySQL database name
- Database Table Names Prefix: MySQL database prefix. You can leave with the default setting.
- Admin section Unique Key: visit https://1password.com/password-generator and generate a key. This will be used in the following address: http://www.webcomm.dev/index.php?s=your_admin_key. Only administrators need to know this to access the control panel of the shopping cart application.
- Admin Username: login name to your admin panel
- Password: password to your admin panel
- Admin E-Mail: enter an e-mail you have created into the field. These are used as the default administrator e-mail, company e-mail, and contact form recipient’s email.
Step 9. Push AbanteCart Installation with Demo Data
Click “Install Demo Data” to install demo products, orders, categories, banners, etc.
This will form the basis of your initial configuration or an example.
If you don’t need the demo data, skip it before installing AbanteCart.
Once the installation is complete, bookmark your control panel link.
Step 10. Delete Install Folder
Go back to your cPanel and click on the File Manager.
Look for the install directory and delete it from your AbanteCart installation. You can also do this via command-line.
First, check your present working directory with:
pwd
Then use:
rm -rf install
That’s it.
You have successfully manually installed AbanteCart on your website.
AbanteCart Installation Service
We do understand that while you are more than capable of doing this, you may simply want to out-source this task.
In that case, we do offer a FREE AbanteCart installation service to customers hosting their website with us and want to create an online store.
If you are an existing customer, create a request for this and it will be done.
If you are a new customer, visit our Web Hosting Packages page to create a new hosting account.
Then open a ticket request and ask us to get this done for you.
AbanteCart Next Steps – Configuration & Settings
To make AbanteCart yours, you need to tweak and configure it.
Here are useful URLs that will help you do that: