1. Introduction

Our system allows you to set up an online shop so that your users can buy products directly from your website. They can pay online via your PayPal account (see appendix below if you're unfamiliar with PayPal) or offline if you prefer, or a combination of both. IMPORTANT. It is vital that you have validated your registered email address with us before using our ecommerce facility!

 

2. Adding a shop

2.1 Select a template with a shop

The easiest way of creating a shop is to select a template that already has one. You can do this by clicking on Styling  Site styles. To see the ecommerce templates, left click next to By features and select Ecommerce. Left click on the first one to view and then scroll your way through. Click on the USE TEMPLATE icon when ready.

IMPORTANT When you upload a new template you will lose any content you may have uploaded. If you have already built your site - or have uploaded a lot of content already which you don't want to lose - you can still add a shop section as in 2.2.

2.2 Or add a shop section

If your template does not have ecommerce you can still add a shop section by going to Content  Sections  Click on Add new section  Select Type Online shop  Under the field Display mode select either Product grid, which means the system will show your products in a grid format. Or select Products list, in which case they will be listed one on top of the other  SAVE. If you Preview you will see the system has added a Shop section and a Shopping cart section.

3. Setting up your site for ecommerce

3.1 Set up/edit your PayPal account

Set up a PayPal account. If you wish to take online payments you can do so via a PayPal Business or Premier Account account (PayPal personal accounts will not work):

*Go to www.paypal.co.uk or www.paypal.com. Opt for either Business Account or Premier Account. Take a note of your PayPal email address, as you will need this when you go back into the Admin system.

Activate 'Auto return. We also advise you to set up Auto return in your PayPal settings, so that your customers will automatically return to your website once they have finished their payment in PayPal. Log onto PayPal  Under the My Account tab select Profile  Select My selling preferences  Under Website preferences (nearly half way down), click on Update  Tick On for Auto return  Under Return URL, enter your domain, eg http://www.joebloggs.com or http://www.clikcraft.com/joebloggs  Scroll down to the bottom and Save.

3.2 Your ecommerce settings

Click on Ecommerce  Payment integration in the admin system  Complete as follows.

i. Payment options

Use shopping cart. This is usually ticked, so that your visitors can add items to the cart and proceed to a checkout, rather than a separate order for each item. When you tick this option, a new section is automatically added to your site, which you can edit in Sections.

Show product image in cart. If ticked, an image of the product appears in the user's cart (basket).

Currency. Select your currency, which your prices will be quoted in. If you are using PayPal, this currency must be available from them.

ii. Shipping options

Shipping charge type. If you would like the system to add a shipping cost, choose whether you want to apply a flat rate per order, or a staggered one depending on the total order value. If you select Staggered then the system will prompt you to enter the staggered fields you would like further below.

Shipping flat rate charge. If you have selected a flat charge, enter it here. Remember, do not enter a currency sign.

iii. Payment methods

Accept offline payments. Tick this box if you want to accept offline payments, eg payment by invoice, cheques, etc (handy for business to business users where invoicing is usually done separately). You can choose to accept both offline and online payments, so your customers can choose which is more suitable for them. See 4.3.2 below for details.

Accept PayPal payments. Tick if you are using PayPal.

Merchant key. If so, enter your primary PayPal e-mail address.

Use PayPal Auto return. Tick if you have set up Auto Return in PayPal (recommended, see 4.2.3 above).

Click on UPDATE. You are now integrated with your payment provider! The next step is to set up your product categories and then start uploading your product data.

3.3 Selling without PayPal (or as well as)

Some users prefer visitors to contact them directly if they are interested in placing an order, and will typically accept payment by bacs or cheque. You can still use the integrated shopping cart to do this. You can even combine online payments with offline, in which case your customer will be offered a choice when buying. Instead of making a payment at the end of their order, your customers will be taken to the checkout page where they can enter their details and the order will be saved for you to view in your admin system (see 5. below for details). You then process the order and arrange payment yourself.

For this to work, all you have to do is go to Ecommerce  Payment integration  Tick Accept offline payments  UPDATE. If you are using both offline and online, you will also need to follow the procedures in 3. above.

4. Setting up product categories and uploading product information

4.1 Adding product categories and deleting the default ones

Our system allows you to group your products into product categories, eg Paper crafts, Wooden crafts, etc. If you do not need these skip to the next section. Otherwise, go to Ecommerce  Product categories  Click on NEW at the top or edit one of the default ones by clicking on the pencil icon to the right.

You are only likely to need to enter data in the Product category field and Order (don't forget to use a high integer such as 10, 20, etc). Create as many Product categories as you like.

If you do not want any categories, eg all of your products fit into the same category, then delete them all except any Best seller ones (or similar wording). Incidentally our Simple shop templates do not have any product categories by default other than the Best seller one.

WARNING DO NOT DELETE THE 'BEST SELLER' CATEGORIES! These are used to assign whichever products to the Best seller panels, typically on your home page.

4.2 Adding products

Now you can start adding your products at Ecommerce  Products  Click on NEW at the top. The fields are self-explanatory but it's worth pointing out the following: