| Q: |
What do I need to do first to get my eCommerce Shopping Cart setup? |
| A: |
To start you need to enter some basic information about your online store before you can begin to list products or services to sell.
You will need to enter your Username and Password. (See the Welcome Email you received when you signed up for hosting with Bookfella & SecureSiteShopping.com)
Once you are logged in you can access some of the Administrative functions from the initial menu. After you click one of the options presented you will be able to access other functions from the menu box presented on the left of your screen.
The first part of the Configuration section is My Store. Below is a brief explination of each field in this section.
· My Store
· Store Name -> The name of your store.
· Store Owner -> The store owner's name or can be the name of the store. This value will be in the "from" field of the email that is sent to the customer after purchasing.
· E-Mail Address -> The email in the "from" field of the email that is sent to the customer after purchasing.
· E-Mail From -> The store general email address.
· Country -> Your country or the country your store is based in.
· Zone -> The state or zone where the store is located. This is necessary to setup for taxes later.
· Expected Sort Order -> The sort order used in the expected products box.
· Expected Sort Field -> The column to sort by in the expected products box.
· Switch to Default Language Currency -> If there are several currencies being used this setting will automatically switch currencies when the language is changed.
· Send Extra Order Email to -> The email address where you will receive orders. There can be several email addresses here for backup.
· Use Search-Engine Safe URLs -> This is still in development so it should be left OFF as it will cause the product pages on some systems to not be seen.
· Display Cart After Adding Product -> If set to "true" this will show the shopping cart page when a product is put in the cart and then the customer has to click on "continue" to go back to their product page to continue shopping. They will also see their items in the shopping cart box. If this is set to "false" then the customer will stay on the same page of the item they are putting in the cart and will be able to see their items in the shopping cart box on the top right column (if you move this, then wherever this box is).
· Allow Guest to Tell a Friend -> Allows the customer, when shopping, to tell-a-friend about your site.
· Default Search Operator -> Gives "and' or "or" to use to search in the store.
· Store Address and Phone -> The name of the store owner's store, phone, and other information that will be seen by the customer when they use check/money order to checkout.
· Show Category Counts -> Set to "true" to show the counts of products in each category. Set to "false" if you do not want to show the number of products in each category.
· Tax Decimal Places Display Prices with Tax -> Set to "false" and prices will not display with tax. Set to "true" and prices will display with tax.
Next select the Minimum Values options to configure. The values set for Minimum values are any fields filled out by the customer plus the minimum amount of text for reviews, minimum number of best sellers, and minimum number of products a customer purchased.
The minimum values set the minimum number of key input required and are any field that is filled out by the customer. Set these accordinly, usually these are left as is but they can be changed.
The next section is the Maximum Values. Continue setting values where needed. Continue setting values in the Configuration section of your Shopping Cart Administrator.
Be sure to enter fields like Postal Code (your store or shipping from zip code) so Shipping Charges can be correctly calculated.
View an Online Tutorial on this subject here!
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| Q: |
I want to show product images, can I do this? |
| A: |
Yes. The settings for all the image sizes in the store are listed and editable from the Shopping Cart Admin.
Initial product listings display a thumbnail size image and your shopper can select a product image to enlarge.
Edit Images
· The "Small Image Width & Height" are the image sizes of your products on the product listing page.
· The "Heading Image Width & Height" are the image sizes that are uploaded for each category folder.
· The "Subcategory Image Width & Height" are all the sub-category image sizes.
If the images are going to be all different sizes a tip is to totally remove all the "width" measurements. Do not put a "0" in the space ... totally remove it and leave a blank space.
Then, on all the images in the store, the shopping cart will resize them according to the "height" measurement and constrain the image so there is no distortion.
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| Q: |
When a new customer registers there are fields that I do not what to prompt the customer for, like 'Gender'. Can I remove these? |
| A: |
Customer detail values are the values when a customer creates a new account. These can be turned off or on at the store owner's discretion.
Customer Details
In the Customer Details section there are 5 listings:
· Gender
· Date of Birth
· Company
· Suburb
· State
Set to "True" to turn on and "False" to turn off by clicking on the "i" with a circle around it next to the field that is being edited.
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| Q: |
How many products can I list in my inventory or is there a limit? |
| A: |
There is no limit to the number of products you can store in your database inventory other than the available disk space you have in your domain. Most sites (average web site) have enough space to store 100,000 products or items in inventory. You use disk space with emails and attachments saved on your server as well as any web or web application files. You also use disk space as you add data to your database. With that said and as stated above most web sites have enough space to store 100,000 items or more.
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| Q: |
How do I change the order that line items are displayed in during checkout? |
| A: |
Most modules within the Admin allow you to set the sort order of items, like Shipping and Order Totals.
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| Q: |
Can I determine what fields are displayed for a product listing? |
| A: |
Yes. The Product Listing Configuration section shows a listing of the different columns available for the product listing page. Each listing can be turned on or off and can be sorted to an order from left to right.
To change a listing click on the "i" with the circle around it on the same line as the listing and click "edit".
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| Q: |
How do I add Products? |
| A: |
The individual products for the store are listed in the Catalog/Categories/Products section. Products can be added in their respective folders.
Add Products
To add products to a Category Folder click on the "yellow folder graphic" of the Category Folder to get inside that folder. After getting inside the folder the products are added.
Clicking on the "new product" button will make a new product.
In the "new product" section you have the ability to:
· Show the product in or out of stock.
· Date the product will be available to purchase which corresponds with the "Products Expected" module.
· Product's Manufacturer
· Product's Name
· Tax Class which is used to charge tax on each product according to the tax schedule setup in the tax section.
· Product's Price (net)
· Product's Price (gross) - The gross is automatically set after you set the net price according to your tax schedule to show cost plus tax to those customers who would pay tax.
· Product's Description
· Product's Quantity in stock which corresponds with the "Configuration" "Stock" section settings.
· Product's Model Number - Number of characters for a model number is 12 but can be changed in the orders_products and products database tables in phpmyadmin.
· Products's Image to Upload - click browse and upload your image for that product.
· Product's url if you need to link the product to another site.
· set product weight which, if you are using "weight" for your shipping schedule, each product will need to have a weight listed.
You can also 'import' products using our Import/Export option. This will import products via a delimited file like those you create from Excel using Save As and saving the file as a CSV format file.
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| Q: |
Is there a limit to the number of books or products a bookseller or online merchant can list in your ecommerce packages? |
| A: |
There is no limit to the number of books you can store in your database inventory other than the available storage space you have on your domain. Most sites (average web site) have enough space to store 100,000 products or books in inventory. You use disk space with emails and attachments saved on your server as well as any web or web application files. You also use disk space as you add data to your database. With that said and as stated above most web sites have enough space to store 100,000 items or more.
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