[ main menu ] Before you can open your store for business, you must first setup the basics of the store. These basic configurations define how your store will look as well as function. You can setup some of the configurations or all of the configurations. You can come back to this area at anytime to customize more or make changes to your store. If you are new to the Hostahoy Shopping Cart you may want to start with the Simple Form. You can switch to the simple form by clicking on the link "Simple Form" in the yellow cell at the top of the basic administration page. The simple form has all the configurations required but leaves out the advanced features that may confuse the novice. At anytime you can switch back and fourth between the simple and advanced forms. Name of store - The name of your store appears at the top of each page. You can use HTML tags to further customize the look of the store. If no HTML tags are used, the name of the store is displayed between the <FONT SIZE=+4><i> and </FONT></i> tags. If you do not choose to enter a name, the top of the store will be left blank - this option is mostly used when using frames or a top logo. Use thumbnails - This option when selected to "No" will enable the instant ordering feature. This bypasses the display of thumbnail images throughout your store and lists full details and ordering information without requiring the shoppers to click on an icon to see details of a product and to order. Logo - This is the filename of your logo that you are about to (have already) uploaded. Both .gif and .jpg images are allowed. Upload Logo - Use the browse* button to select your logo from your local PC file system. Make sure the pop up window on your local computer is set to show all files and not just html files. The name of the file will be overwritten by the filename specified in the "logo" field above. After your logo has already been uploaded, this field will appear blank - there is no need to re-upload your logo again. Where do you want your logo to appear? - Your logo can appear in the upper left hand corner of the store (in the left cell), this is best for logos that are taller than wide and do not want to be over emphasized, or it can appear in the right cell at the top of the store in place of the store name. If your logo is to appear in the left cell, you can now choose to constrain the logo to the cell width. If you do not constrain the logo, the cell will expand with larger logos. The latter choice is better for logos that are wider than they are tall, and do want more emphasis. You can also choose not to have a logo displayed anywhere. Link to logo - This is the URL (if any) that your logo can link to. It is suggested you link your logo to your home page or a place where shoppers can find out more about your company. There is an optional target variable. This can be helpful if using frames or just if you want the clicking of your logo to open a new window, in which case you would set the target to "_blank". Custom HTML on menu bar - You can now add links, text and even your own icons to the bottom of the left menu bar. Just add your HTML code in this area. Remember that this code is displayed on the color cell. Suggestion: if using link colors that clash or are hard to see in the background color, start by creating a table with a white background. Company information - This should be similar to what you would include on a letterhead. This field does accept HTML so you can make your company name bold and phone italic, etc. This information will appear in the Vendor Information area on the shopper's checkout page and receipt. No need for the <br> tag... line breaks will do the same thing. suggested format: <b>Companyname</b> Store introduction - This is the text that will appear on the first page of your store to welcome shoppers. Plain text or HTML can be used. .Choose color scheme - Color schemes make up table background colors, link colors, button colors, and Hostahoy Shopping Cart images (like the "review" and "check out" graphics). You can choose from a selection of over 20 pre designed colors and images, known as a "color scheme" or choose "custom" at the bottom of the list and create your own. Use the "preview color scheme" link to launch the handy preview tool which allows to you see what the different schemes look like before applying them to your store. Use background image with current color scheme - The background image can be either a .gif or .jpg image. If the "Yes" checkbox is selected, the last background image uploaded will be displayed im place of a white background color. You can always change the background by uploading a new image, or de-selecting the "Yes" button to no longer display the background image. Transparent background for color cells - If you want your background image to show through the cells that are a color by default, then select this option. .Transparent background for white cells - If you want your background image to show through the cells that are white by default, then select this option. It will make the product cells transparent plus the review page, checkout page and credit card entry form. This option should only be used with very light backgrounds. Custom color scheme - If you have chosen "custom" in the field above, you would enter your link, visited link, cell background and text colors in these fields. This is done in hexadecimal format. Custom images - Use the browse* button to upload your custom images to the server. You can only have one custom color scheme at a time so any image you upload will overwrite previously upload images. The names of these files does not matter because they will be renamed at the time of upload. Do make sure that they are valid .jpg or .gif images however. Redirect user when finished - Once the order process is completed, the final page will have a "thank you" message followed by a link. This link should be the full URL of either a home page or the store front. There is an optional target variable. Thank you message - Once the order process is completed, the final page will contain this message to the shopper. You can include HTML . Price schedules - If you have a large number of products that are priced similarly, you many want to setup a price schedule for each product. A price schedule lets you assign a name to a specific price, then instead of changing each price for each product, you simply change one price in the price schedule and all the products prices using that schedule will be updated. For example, if a store sells 50,000 CDs, there may only be a few different prices - 9.95, 11.95 and 14.95. By creating the following price schedule you can easily change all of the prices at one time if you ever need to: A:9.95 Once you have created the price schedule, you just need to select the schedule name in place of the price in the product database. Discounts based on total price of the order - If you offer discounts based on the total price of the entire order (excluding shipping and taxes and after credits or gift certificates are applied) then this is where you set up the discount schedule. Enter one price/discount per line. Format - total amount of order:discount. Discount can either be expressed as an absolute amount (ex. 25) or a percentage of total order (ex 25%). Example: 100-199.99:10%
This would mean that any order totaling between $100 - $199.99 (assuming US dollars) would get 10% off. $200 - $499.99 would get 25% off. And any orders totaling $500 of more would get $100 off (because there is no % it is assumed to be an amount). Product categories - Categories are a great way to organize your products. They can be any descriptive name that would describe your products. For example, a department store may have hundreds of categories such as men's clothing, women's clothing, shoes, etc. where a specialty store may have a few categories that are more specific like running shoes, tennis shoes, hiking boots, etc.. Product categories should be listed one per line. These categories appear in a pull down menu on every page of the store. They appear in the order they are listed in the basic administration area. You can even have sub-categories off your categories to allow users to find exactly what they are looking for without having to browse all the products within the entire category. To do this, simply create the sub-categories directly under the category using the following syntax: - category/sub-category The dash, space, category, forward slash, sub category syntax is important to follow otherwise you may have errors when selecting the main category. Example: Drinks Where do you want the category pull-down menu to appear? - It can appear in the left cell of each page or at the top of the page under the title or logo. It is suggested you keep the category descriptions short in length (number of categories can be unlimited) so the menu can remain on the left side. If even one category name is too large, the menu will need to be at the top center or it will extend the left cell too far into your store. Specials - The Hostahoy Shopping Cart gives you the option to include any number of products to feature on your first page of the store for better exposure. These are known as "specials". You can change your specials as often as you wish. The specials box is a multiple select box, meaning you can use your keyboard's control and shift button with your mouse button to select more than one product as you scroll through the available products. When you come back to this page, your current specials will be both listed above the select box and highlighted in the box itself. You cannot setup specials on products that are not first entered in your product database. If you desire only the specials to appear on the home page of your cart, select the "Show only specials on homepage" checkbox. You can always deselect this at anytime. Make sure you have specials displayed if using this option or no products will appear on your homepage. Number of products to display per page - You can control the number of products that are displayed per page. This number defaults to 10 however you will want to change this depending on the size of your thumbnail images and the length of your product descriptions. If you have more products than the number you have selected per page, a link at the bottom of the screen will instruct the shoppers to click to see next page. There will also be a "previous page" link so users can navigate back and fourth through your pages. Default width of thumbnail images - If this is left blank, it will default to 35 pixels. Depending on the detail of the products you may wish to enter a larger or smaller number here. This number can be overridden by the product thumbnail image width field in the product database. Truncate product descriptions in thumbnail listings - By default, the Hostahoy Shopping Cart uses full descriptions in thumbnail listings of each product. If you have very long descriptions for your products this will increase download time of your store and give shoppers more information than they really need. We suggest setting this value to around 300 - this will truncate any descriptions longer than that to 300 bytes and append a "continued..." after the description. E-mail address(es) to send orders to - Once a order is placed through your store it is sent to orders file in your admin area. These orders can be accessed through the admin page. You can also have a copy of the order information sent to you and/or a third party via e-mail. Only non secure information will be sent. Even when orders are sent via e-mail, they are still sent to the orders file in the admin area. Message details - You can further customize your e-mail message by entering a "From" address (must be a valid -email address) and a "Subject" for your e-mail. You can also include a custom message that will be prepended to the order information in the e-mail. Send vendor confirmation message - You have a choice of when to have vendor e-mails sent. This option is most useful for those using 3rd party credit card processors like CSI or AuthorizeNet for secure transactions. Since these services send out their own e-mails once orders are completed, you may choose to disable the mailing for credit card orders only. Confirmation message details sent to customer immediately after ordering - The customer is sent a full order confirmation after they have ordered. The information included the e-mail is identical to the information on the checkout page. You can customize this message by entering custom "From" headers, "Subject" headers and a custom message to be prepended to the order details. Send customer confirmation message - You have the choice of when to have customer e-mails sent. This option is most useful for those using 3rd party credit card processors like CSI or AuthorizeNet for secure transactions. Since these services send out their own e-mails once orders are completed, you may choose to disable the mailing for credit card orders only. Add to information page - The Hostahoy Shopping Cart comes with several pre written policies used by top businesses on the Net today. You can add these to your information page simply by selecting the policy/statement then pressing the "Add now" button. Remember: these are general policies and statements and will probably not match your policies exactly. You will need to modify the wording in the information page textbox below once added. Information page - This is the HTML page that is linked to your "Information" button in your online store. The left menu bar and title (or top logo) will be included in HTML page. The information page should contain general information about your company, shipping policies, return policies, privacy policies, etc. Return characters will not show as new lines in this field - it is pure HTML. Some basic HTML: <BR> - line break <B>bold</B> <i>italic</i>. Do you want to display banners? - The Hostahoy Shopping Cart comes with a banner rotation program that allows the store owner to display banners on either their first page or all their pages in their store. Banner rotation may not be available if you are not the owner of the software - check with your provider. Display frequency - If you choose to display banners on every page of your store this could have a significant impact on loading times (depending on the number of banners you are rotating). A more sensible option might be to display banners just on the first page. You may choose to display banners on every page if you are only using one banner or if the income from the banners is more important to you then the income from store sales. (Banner) URL [space] image name OR banner code in HTML - This is the field that links the URL that the banner should be linked to with the name of the banner. The format is simple: URL followed by a single space followed by the name of the image (no path information needed). You can also have code in this area that will call up a banner program or link exchange program. Just enter the code in place of the URL/imagename format. Note: You cannot include server side includes in this area since the shopping cart runs from the CGI area. Upload banner - You can upload up to three banners at once. Make sure the names of the files match the names you have given the files above. If you need to upload more than three banners, just return to this screen after uploading the first three and upload more. If you have your own copy of the software, you do need to make sure the banners array is uncommented in the customize.pl file and the value is set to "all" (or your username) and "yes". Addl customer information - Once a customer is taken to the checkout page, they are prompted to enter information necessary for completing an order. This information is set by the program and cannot be changed. You can however have as many additional information fields as you like by adding them in this area. This is where you would add fields for a separate shipping address as well. The "comment" field is an acceptable field type. This allows you to keep your descriptions short and be descriptive by adding a comment under the field. Comments should be added right after the field you are commenting. For example: How did you hear about us?:textarea The
format is quite simple - there is one information field per line including the
description of the field, the type of field and any choices for that field.
Information fields supported are
Keep in mind you can have unlimited addl information fields and as many choices per option as you wish. Not the " _ checked" option after a choice. This will cause that choice to be selected by default for radio buttons and checkboxes only. For select menus, enter your selected choice as your first choice in the list. Banned e-mail addresses - Today with E-commerce you must be careful with fraudulent orders. Most fraudulent orders come from e-mail addresses that are obtained free on the Net - this way crimes cannot be traced back to the criminal. You can now block any e-mail address or entire domain name from placing orders by using this area to enter the addresses or domains you wish to block. For example, if you choose to block all "hotmail.com" addresses, any user placing an order using any hotmail address will receive an error message telling the shopper that orders are not accepted from their e-mail address. This will force the shopper to enter a new e-mail address or quit the order and move on to another victim. * File
upload capable browsers (almost all recent versions of I.E. and Netscape) will
display a "Browse..." button to the right of the field. |
