Can you modify the homepage for CoreCommerce (digishop) sites to include widgets on the home page?

Question

How do you create a homepage that has three widgets in the central area. The widgets I need are featured products and beneath them SPECIALS and TOP SELLERS.

A site which does this is http://earthfriendlytots.com/

Our sample is http://yart.com.au/junk/party/MPE_home.jpg

I thought we could directly by modifying the home page file which appear to be this:

<?php

require_once('/var/www/corecommerce/conf/paths.inc.php');
$lang = $language->getSelectedInstance();

if (!Util::isCC() && !TEST_MODE) {
    require_once('lib/error.prepend.inc.php');
}

if(Util::isCC()){
 require_once('lib/PageContent.class.php');
 $page = new PageContent(null, PCSPLASHPAGE_FLAG);
 if(!$page || !$page->isActive()){
  include("/var/www/corecommerce/cart.php");
  exit;
 }
}

if($config->getBoolValue('searchEngineOptimization') && (Util::isCC() || ($config->getValue('searchEngineOptimizationType') == SEO_TYPE_MOD_REWRITE))){
 $delimeter = $config->getModRewriteSEODelimeter();
 $url = $config->getValue('merchantURL') . '/splash' . $delimeter . 'page.html';
} else {
 $url = $config->getValue('merchantURL') . '/cart.php?' . CMD_PARAM . '=' . SPLASH_CMD;
}

header('Location:' . $url);
exit;

?>

But it seems to redirect to cart.php which we have no access to.

Is there another way to modify the home page to add my desired widgets?