E-shop Tutorial¶
This tutorial is designed to show how to set up your own online store. It is intended to walk you through the most important steps one by one so that you can create your e-shop really quickly, simply and without any problems.
Step 1 – Set up your system¶
At first you have to go to the Administration module and set up the absolute basis for your e-shop: countries in which you want to sell your products, currencies you want to use languages in which your products will be, shops localized, also regions in case you need to work with bigger units than the countries are.
Run the Administration module.
Run the Countries application by simple clicking on it. Use the New button, select the country you want to add to the system and click the ADD button. Repeat this for every Country you want to work with in your system (and e-shop). Remember that Regions are also formed by particular Countries which you have to add in this application.
Run the Languages application and add all languages you want to use on your e-shop just as you added the countries in the previous step. The only difference lies in the Default Language flag. This setting (set to YES) makes the added language default. It means that you will be inserting all information in this language automatically. For example a name of a product will be inserted in this language as first.
In case you want to use regions, run the regions application also. Region consists of two or more countries that are grouped together. A good example of region can be The European Union or countries grouped together on the basis of geography. To add a new region, click the Add button located in the toolbar and fill in all required fields and select countries which will create this region. In case you want to use a country that is not available on the list of items, you have to go back to the Countries application and add it here first.
Run the Currencies application located in the Administration module and add all the currencies you want to work with. Currencies are necessary to define branches, pricelists, vouchers and another settings.
Step 2 – Create your website¶
Now you need to code a website – an e-shop that sells your products. This is the most difficult and longest part. In case you will be facing some trouble, you can also use the tutorial specialized for websites and their creation. Before you start with the website, you have to create cultures. Culture is a connection between Zone (country or region) and language. You create particular content in a culture. The language and location for every visitor to your e-shop is detected and depending on this the content in a culture that fits the visitors’ needs is displayed. For culture creation you will use the countries, regions and languages added in the first step. Cultures are necessary for creating websites.
In case you want to create a multilingual online store, you have to use a culture tree. Culture tree is a hierarchical structure of particular cultures. For every language you want to use on the created website you have to add one culture into the tree.
Step 3 – Add products¶
You created your website – online store. This is the time to add products you will sell in it. There are two main possibilities of how to create your products (and you will probably use both of them). The first one is product import (a XML or Excel document that contains all products’ info). The second way is to add all your products manually.
Run the Products module by selecting it in the right upper corner (or run it directly from the dashboard).
Run the Category Tree application and create particular categories for your online store. Into these categories you can add products which you will create in the next steps. Category tree (and names of particular categories) is visible to your customers and are also a part of an URL address of products.
Click the Add button and create the first category. You have to insert its Name, Name in URL (a name that is displayed to visitors in URL address of this category or all products located in it), Internal Name (serves only for internal system purposes and is never visible to visitors). Images and description can be visible to visitors in case you will add them into your website. Parent Category allows you to select the category that is above the actually created one because the category tree is a hierarchical structure. You can also reorganize the category structure by dragging categories with your mouse.
Step 4 – Communication with customers¶
You have your e-shop and all the Products you want to sell. Now you need to provide your customer with some helpful information about their orders – with documents (Invoices and Credit Notes) and e-mails (Purchase Confirmation E-mail and Order Confirmation E-mail). In this step you will code templates for these documents and e-mails and later in the next steps you will set up the their sending.
Run a particular website editor by clicking the right upper corner.
Go to the Tools and Settings and run the Templates application and create a new one by clicking the New button. Create all the templates you need.
Step 5 – Make your e-shop functional¶
There is still a lot of work to do. One of them is to set up your e-shop. You need to define branches, methods for payments or how the products will be delivered to customers.
Run the Administration module.
Run the Branches application. Branches define particular branches of your company that are responsible for selling products in one or more zones (countries or regions). You will set this later in the E-shop Settings application, now you have to add branches. Insert its name, address, other contact information and home currency. In the VAT information tab you can insert VAT information (in case you are a VAT payer) and in the bank information tab you can set information about bank account of the created Branch.
Run the Payment Gateways application. This application allows you to define payment gateways you want to use on your online store (your customers will be able to use them for their payments). Click the New button, select the desired gateway and click the Add button. Insert its name (only for your own purposes, never visible to visitors) and currency. Payment Methods tab offers you instruments your customers can use for their payments. You can use all of them or specifically select only some of them. The Last Gateway Settings tab contains fields for your identification. This information is provided to you directly from the Gateway, so if you have some trouble or questions about these fields, you have to contact the Gateway provider. These steps you can repeat until you have added all the gateways you want to use. The offerings of gateways and their instruments are dependent on the system and on the gateway itself.
Run the Delivery Services application. Such as payment gateways, delivery services allows you to select some delivery services from the offered possibilities and make them available for your customers.
Run the Checkouts application and define the usage of payment gateways and delivery services you have added before. Click the New button and fill in both required fields on the first General tab. On the next tab add the particular payment gateways (if you want to use some, you have to add it in the payment gateways application first) which you want to use for this checkout setting. Do the same with the delivery services on the next tab. The last tab (payment and delivery combinations) allows you to connect payment gateways and delivery services that can be used together. To allow (or disallow) some combination click in the grid.
The last step is to run the E-shop Settings application and set up the behavior of your e-shop. Here you will connect all the settings you created before. Click the New button and insert its name (never visible to visitors) and website on which is this e-shop running. Also select the Branch you have created before that is responsible for selling products for the zones you need to select bellow. Select the checkout setting you want to use in this e-shop. If you want to sell your products in particular zone, you need to create an e-shop setting for it. Otherwise customer won’t be able to buy anything.
On the second (Documents) tab you connect the documents templates you created in the website settings with particular documents types. Do the same with the e-mail templates on the next (E-mails) tab.
Accounting tab sets calculations of prices, invoices, document sequences (generating of numbers for your orders, invoices and credit notes) and information for accounting software in case you use some.
Step 6 – Set up the Taxes¶
Now you need to set Taxes that will be automatically added to the final price of products (and services) you sell. Taxes are dependent on zones and you will use them in the next step in pricelist creation.
Run the Administration module.
Run the Zone Taxes application and add a new Zone Tax. For every zone in which you will sell your products you can add taxes you want to use. Insert its name, abbreviation, zone and the rate of the tax as a percentage.
Run the Customer Tax Categories application, name it and select the zone. If is this added customer tax default for the selected zone, set it as a default.
Run the Product Tax Categories application and create category for product (and services) taxes. These created categories are subsequently used in the pricelist creation, where you will add particular products to this category.
Run the Tax Rules application where you use all previously created tax settings together to set the behavior of the taxes.
Step 7 – Time for pricing!¶
This is the final step. You create the pricelists and then your e-shop is finally ready for shopping.
Run the Pricelists module.
Run the Pricelists application and create a new one by clicking the New button located in the toolbar.
Select the type of pricelist. If you want to create a special pricelist for a marketing campaign, use the Sale Pricelist type. Otherwise use the Regular Pricelist – this is the normal pricelist for your products and services.
Select the zone for which this pricelist is valid. Every pricelist is bound to one zone. In case you will not create a pricelist for a zone, the customers from this zone won’t be able to buy anything.
Now insert the Name, Internal Name and Description. All these fields serve only for your and system purposes and are never visible to visitors or customers.
Validity Period determines if the pricelist is active. In case you set Active field to option NO, the pricelist is not active and your customers are not able to buy the products from this pricelist. In case you will not set the validity period and set the Active option to YES, the pricelist will became active without restrictions.
The other tabs allows you to add particular products and their prices. You can also specify the delivery methods and payment methods and restrictions of their usage.
Remember that for all zones you select in the E-shop Settings you have to create pricelists. Otherwise customers from this zones won’t be able to buy anything.
Pricelists you want to use have to be active (and can have the validity period set). Otherwise they can’t be used and the customer won’t be able to buy anything.
You have to set tax rules for all combinations that can occur.