Newest KB Articles in Catalog

My Catalog > General Configuration

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:17:28 GMT

The information below consists of descriptions of the fields present on the "Configuration > General" page in the admin.

E-Commerce -

Catalog pages e-Commerce enabled:

This checkbox lets you enable or disable customers from adding products to their cart. You want to leave this field checked at all times. The only time you would un-check this field is if you want customers to be able to view your product info, but not to make any purchases from your site.

Show “View Cart” link on website navigation:

When this field is checked, the “View Cart” link will display in the left navigation menu of your site, enabling customers to click the link to view the products they’ve added to their cart.

When this field is un-checked, the “View Cart” link will NOT be displayed in the left navigation menu of your site.

Show Mini-Shopping Cart:

When this field is checked, a small window will display in the top left area of your site displaying the following:

All products currently added to your shopping cart.
The total order price.
A link to view the cart and checkout.

This makes it easy for customers to keep track of the items they are adding to their cart while they browse your website.

When this field is un-checked, the “Mini-Shopping Cart” window will NOT be displayed on your site.

Show “New Items”:

When this field is checked, a small window will display in the top left area of your site displaying information for a new product that was recently added to your catalog. This is a good way to advertise new products to your customers. The displayed product is randomly chosen each time a page loads on your site. This means that every time someone visits a different page on your site, this window will display a different “New” item.

You can manually mark an item as “New” by editing it (“Products > View/Edit Products”) and checking the “New Item” field. Only products that are selected as “New” will be displayed in this window.

In addition, you can automatically select “New” products by checking the “Automatically show products created less than X days ago” field. Read below for more info.

Show Category List:

When this field is checked, a dropdown will appear in the top left area of your site listing all of your product categories/classes. When a customer selects a class from the dropdown, the page will display all products that belong to that class.

Show Manufacturer List:

When this field is checked, a dropdown will appear in the top left area of your site listing all of your product manufacturers. When a customer selects a manufacturer from the dropdown, the page will display all products that belong to that manufacturer.

Show Navigation Menu:

When this field is un-checked, the navigation menu will be hidden on your site. Always leave this field checked unless you do not want customers to be able to navigate your website.

Automatically show products created less than ‘X’ days ago (from today’s date) as NEW:

When this field is checked, the system will automatically select newly created products as “New”. “New” products display in the “New Items” window that appears on the top left area of your site.

You can specify which products are to automatically be labeled as “New” by entering the number of days from it’s creation date.

For example, if you type ‘10’ days, then all products that were created within the last 10 days will be labeled as “New”. Once a product as existed in your catalog for more than 10 days, the system will automatically remove its “New” status.

Order Confirmations –

This section has three areas: This information is used to configure where you want your product order information sent. You will need to input a valid e-mail address such as, sales@yourdomain.com.

Send FROM this address when sending TO CUSTOMER:

This is what the customer sees and is a verification of an order email sent after the order has been completed including products purchased.

Send TO this address when sending to ME:

This should be sent to you and is a notification that an order has been placed and includes the Order ID number.

Send a copy of the items ordered to:

This can be used to send a copy of the order to a drop shipper or other source. All of the order information is sent including products purchased and customers contact info for orders that were placed on your site.

Orders Confirmation Page –

Once a customer submits the order, they will be redirected to this page on your site. You may choose any page in the drop down box for them to be redirected to.

Checkout Instructions -

Enter instructions below that your customer can reply to about the order or specific products. These instructions will show up in the checkout area and will have a text box below for customers to respond. The text your customer enters will be added to the order details page.

Note: When you are finished making changes click ‘Submit’ at the bottom.

Classes (How Many?)

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:16:33 GMT

Its hard to say how many classes are considered to be too much.

This is because it will all depend on what type of products you will be selling on your site, and therefore, how many classes you may need to accommodate all your products into categories.

For example, if I were selling Computers, then some of my classes may include "Desktop", "Notebooks", "Storage", "Accessories", "Memory", etc....

It really depends on what you are selling and how exactly you would like to categorize your products.

Setting up classes would be your personal preference and you will need to first figure out what you will be selling and based on that, try to come up with a list of classes that you can use to categorize your products properly.

If you have any additional questions, please let us know.

Organizing Products by Classes/Sub-Classes using DHTML

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:14:55 GMT

In order to organize your products by Classes/Sub-Classes, you will need to do the following.

Example:

Main Classes / Sub Classes:

Computers (Main Class)

- Desktops (Sub Class)

- Laptops (Sub Class)

- Accessories (Sub Class)

- Storage Devices (Sub Class)

Step 1

You will need to create all your sub-classes by going to Classes > Add a New Class for each sub-class that you would like to add to your site. In our example above, these sub-classes would be “Desktops”, “Laptops”, “Accessories”, & “Storage Devices”.

Step 2

Now that you have added all the sub-classes to your site, you will need to go to “Products > View/Edit Product” to ensure that all of your existing products are placed into the appropriate sub-class. You will notice this by clicking on any of your products and then looking at the “Class” field (Drop-Down Box). You can select the appropriate class from the drop-down box and then click on “Update Product” at the bottom of the page when you are done.

Step 3

Now that you are done placing your products into the correct sub-class, you are ready to create your main class pages. To do this, you will need to click on “Add Page” from your admin area, and then select “COOL Cart / Catalog” as the page type that you would like to add to your site. Next, type in a name for your page. You should name your page according to your main classes. For example, in the given scenario above, “Computers” will be the page title. Click on “Add Page” when you are done entering a page title. From the next screen, you will need to select “Class List” from the options given. Finally, click on “Submit” when done.

For each main class that you would like to setup on your site, you will need to repeat the above instructions.

Step 4

You will now need to add individual catalog pages to your site, for each sub-class that you have created previously in “Classes > Add a New Class”. For example, in the scenario above, you will need to add a new catalog page for each of your sub-classes, which are “Desktops”, “Laptops”, “Accessories”, & “Storage Devices”.

You can repeat the process from the step above (Step 3) to add each of the individual catalog pages to your site. Once again, you will name your new catalog pages according to your sub-classes.

When you get to the screen where you can select from the four types of ways to categorize your products, click on the radio button corresponding to the "Show Products" choice. Then, select the corresponding class from the drop down box and leave all other settings intact. For example, if you named your catalog page "Desktops", you would select "Desktops" from the list of classes.

Note: when you are finished making your selection, click "Submit" at the bottom of the page.

Repeat Step 4 for each individual (sub-class) catalog page that you would like to add to your site.

Step 5

You have now setup and configured the catalog pages for your main classes as well as your sub-classes, and are ready to proceed to the final step. The last step would be to organize your pages into a DHTML Navigation Style. See below for an example of the DHTML concept and how to setup your pages as such.

We have added a new Drop-Down (DHTML) Menu function to our system. The DHTML Menu feature will allow you to create a mouse-over type effect for sub-pages within a main page. For example, lets say you currently had the following pages listed on the navigation menu on your website:

- Desktops
- Laptops
- Accessories

- Storage Devices

- Computers

Using the new DHTML feature, you can have these pages organized in a drop-down menu style as follows:

- Computers
> Desktops
> Laptops

> Accessories

   > Storage Devices

As you can see, with the above menu structure your clients will see "Computers" listed on the left navigation menu on your website. However, when they mouse-over to that page, "Desktops", "Laptops", “Accessories”, & “Storage Devices” will drop-down as sub-pages. This effect is very similar to that which is currently in the admin area of your website. For example, in your admin area, you will notice that when you mouse-over "Products", you will see sub-pages such as "Add a New Product" & "Upload a Product Photo".

Using the < (left) and > (right) arrows next to your page names, in the "List Pages" section of your admin area, you will be able to set your pages as sub-pages under main pages. You can still use the up and down arrows under the "Rank" column to move pages up and down accordingly.

*Note: In order to use the DHTML feature, you will need to click on "List Pages" and select the option for "Drop-Down (DHTML) Menu" under 'Navigation Style" and then click on "Submit"

How to Setup Catalog Product Pages

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:13:12 GMT

How to Setup Catalog Product Pages

In your admin area under My Website choose Pages .This will give you all of your current pages. Click on the name of the catalog page that you would like to configure your products with. You can choose from four types of ways to categorize your products. Click on the radio button corresponding to the choice you would like. (A, B, C, or D)

A) Show Products
This will allow you to show certain products following the criteria you specify from the four fields as listed.

Manufacturers: set to show all or one type of Manufacturer
Classes: set to show all or one type of Class
Priced Between: set a price range and the products in that range will be shown
Containing text: specify any text the product may contain from descriptions, etc

B) Class List
This will let you display your catalog page as classes with links to products in those classes. You can choose more than one class by holding down the ‘Ctrl’ Key and clicking on additional classes.

C) Manufacturer List
This will let you display your catalog page as manufacturers with links to products in those manufacturers. You can choose more than one manufacturer by holding down the ‘Ctrl’ Key and clicking on additional manufacturers.

D) Featured Products
This will let you display your catalog page with products that you have selected as featured items. You can choose a product to be a featured item when adding the product or working with an existing product and applying the checkbox for featured item.

Note: when you are finished making changes click ‘Submit’ at the bottom.

Catalog Pages to show Individual Classes

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:12:44 GMT

In order for you to link your products in a more organized way, you will need to create individual Catalog pages for each of your product classes. For example, you might want to create individual catalog pages and name them according to the classes you have currently defined:

ATVs and Dirt Bikes

Camping Equipment

Electronics

Firearm Accessories

Fishing Tackle

General

Knives, and Accessories

When creating the catalog pages, you can select which class you want your customer to see when they click on that particular catalog page.

For example: If you created a catalog page called "Camping Equipment", then you would want your customer to see only the products that fall under that category (class). You would not want them to click on "Camping Equipment" and see any products associated with the other classes that you have defined, such as "Electronics, etc..."

How to create individual catalog pages and have them show products from the corresponding class :

In your admin area, click on "Add Page" and then select "Catalog". Next, type in a name for your page (the best name to use would be the actual name of the class that you have defined. For example, call it "Camping Equipment") and click on "Add Page.

From the next screen, you can choose from four types of ways to categorize your products. Click on the radio button corresponding to the "Show Products" choice. Then, select the corresponding class from the drop down box and leave all other settings intact. For example, if you named your catalog page "Camping Equipment", you would select "Camping Equipment" from the list of classes.

Note: when you are finished making your selection, click "Submit" at the bottom of the page.

You can now view your website and you will notice that if you click on the "Camping Equipment" page from you navigation menu, you will only see the products pertaining to that class.

*You will need to repeat the above steps in order to create additional individual catalog pages and associate them with the corresponding class.

If you have any other questions, please let us know.