Setting up a Shopping Cart (printable tutorial)

Shopping Carts contain several components:

  • Catalogue Manager - this feature allows you to add products and their prices. Products can also be grouped into "Categories" to make your catalogue easier for you and your customers to navigate.
  • Catalogue View - this is the area of your website where your customers can see your product range. The catalogue view is divided into category selections, product lists, and then product detail pages.
  • Shopping cart - customers add products they want to a shopping cart, and just like a real shopping cart, they can either continue browsing and adding to their cart or...
  • Checkout - the customer clicks the "Checkout" button to proceed to the checkout process.
  • Freight calculator - during the checkout process the shipping cost must be calculated.
  • Payment options - After submitting their order, the customer is given a range of options to pay for their order.


Adding a shopping cart / page to your website:

If already have a shopping page without a shopping cart, then you should change the page type to "shopping cart" in the page options. If you don't already have a shopping page...

  1. Click [add a new page] under the blue page buttons on the left menu
  2. Click [Shopping cart layouts], select an appropriate shopping page. Shopping gallery is very photo centric, allowing customers to see a lot of product photos quickly, with just a small description under each. The other shopping page types have a thumbnail on the left, and a longer product description on the right, possibly with a buy button on the product listing pages.
  3. You will now be presented with [How to manage your catalogue] page.  Note the grey buttons on the top right have changed, giving you easy access to all of the components of your shopping system.  The grey button "Setup" is a good place to start as it list all the steps with links to setting up your shopping cart, simply start at the top and work down.


Setting up product categories:

  1. Click the E-COMMERCE button in the main menu

  2. Find the section called Categories the options available

  3. Click the Add Category button to open the add category option

  4. You can have multiple levels of categories for big catalogues. For the top level categories, just use a blank "Subcategory of" field 
  5. Enter a category name
  6. Optionally enter a category description.
  7. Optionally enter a category photo. If you enter a photo, then this will change the way that categories options are displayed.
  8. Save the category.
  9. All the categories will be in a list, in order of their parent category, then their name.
  10. Click the [view] button under your shopping page to see your new categories

  (Alternatively, you can create up to 5 categories at a time in the "Add Several New Categories" fields)


Selecting Currencies, Export Currencies and Sales Tax

  1. Click the E-COMMERCE button in the main menu
  2. Find the section called Payments / Tax in the options available
  3. Click the Currencies button to set your currency
  4. Enter the main currency you wish to trade in, e.g. NZD, USD, AUD or EUR
  5. You can also define additional currencies and fixed exchange rates for export order  via a plugin if you wish.
  6. If you mainly sell to other businesses, and typically advertise tax (GST, VAT, ABN ect) exclusive prices, then you should enter a tax rate for domestic sales, you may also wish to enter your sales tax number.
  7. Changes are automatically saved.


Adding Products:

  1. Click the E-COMMERCE button in the main menu

  2. Find the section called Products in the options available

  3. Click the Add New Products button to add a new product

  4. Choose the type of product to add e.g. General Stock Item
  5. Enter a product category(optional), title, description, code etc following the on-screen prompts and help
  6. Enter a domestic price on the top right (either tax exclusive or inclusive depending on whether you prefer to calculate this immediately before checkout or not)
  7. You can also enter a different price for export customers if you have a different currency for export orders via the pricing tab.
  8. Add photos or additional information such as product codes.
  9. Changes automatically save.
  10. Repeat this process a to add more products.
  11. Click the [view] button under your shopping page to see your new products (you may have to navigate categories first)


Freight Options:

During the checkout process a customer is asked to select their shipping destination, e.g. country, island, suburb, fast post, standard post etc. Lets assume we sell chocolates and have 3 shipping freight options, "Metropolitan - Same Day", "National - Next Day" and "All other countries".  (All of the following prices are examples only)

  1. Click the E-COMMERCE button in the main menu

  2. Find the section called Delivery / Freight in the options available

  3. Click the Freight / Shipping Fees button to add a freight rule.

  4. Scroll down and read the instructions on how to define a freight option.
  5. Enter the first description "Metropolitan - Same Day"
  6. Enter a base shipping fee of $10 for courier
  7. Enter a per unit fee of $1 for additional packaging per box of chocolates
  8. Tick Domestic option
  9. Click "Add New Freight Fee".
  10. Scroll down and enter the second freight description "National - Next Day"
  11. Enter a base shipping fee of say $4.50 for courier-post
  12. Enter a per unit fee of $1 for additional packaging per box of chocolates
  13. Tick Domestic option
  14. Click "Add New Freight Fee"
  15. Scroll down and enter the third freight description "All other countries"
  16. Enter a base shipping fee of $9 for international air post
  17. Enter a per unit fee of $2 for additional packaging per box of chocolates
  18. Tick International option (as tax might be calculated differently on this item.
  19. Click [Add New Freight Fee]
  20. You will see all your freight options at the top.
  21. There are additional freight calculation options, you will need to trial and error these to understand how they work. You can only use weight fees if you have entered weights for your products. You can place minimum and maximum caps on your freight fees.


Payment Options/Credit Card Payment Gateways

You can have multiple payment options for your customer, e.g. pay by cheque, or online banking, or credit card, or by customer account, or just allow customers to place an order as an enquiry that can be invoiced later after discussion.

  1. Login and click on the [edit] button under your new shopping page
  2. Click on the [Setup] button on the top menu
  3. Click option 3 - [Credit Cards and other payment methods]
  4. To setup cheque or online banking options, or to disable customer accounts or enquiries, please click one of the [other payment options]
  5. Tick or untick your favoured options and then click save changes.
  6. If you want to accept credit cards, then you need to click option 3 again, [Credit Cards and other payment methods]
  7. If you have selected a payment gateway already, then click the appropriate credit card payment gateway for more instructions on what to do.
  8. If you already have "over the phone" credit card processing facilities at your business, then you can select the [Secure Form] option, then select which cards you accept. We will collect credit card details from the customer using a secure web form with industry standard SSL encryption, then we will email the details to your secure email address. Please note, you must provide us with an email address specifically for this purpose where we can send you a secure email. We do not store the details, and it is up to you to treat the details with the utmost care. This option is frowned upon by most banks, so we really promote that you obtain a payment gateway, which are as cheap as $10 per month in NZ.

More detail on all of the above processes is contained elsewhere in our Shopping Cart FAQ perhaps in more detail.  It will be very helpful for you to read more and become familiar with the systems as it will make the process of setting it all up much easier

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