The Online Shop Designer Blog

In Viart Shop all products can have options assigned to them. For example a product option name could be ‘Size’, and have option values such as ‘8oz’, ‘10oz’ and ‘12oz’ etc.  When a visitor views a product that has those size options assigned to it they would be presented with a drop down box to make their selection.

Options can be set up for all manner of things: colour, size, weight, style . . . just to name a few.

There are two key parts to creating options:

• Create the option name
• Assign actual options to the name.

Creating an option name for a product

• In admin, navigate to the category in which the product you want to create options for is located
• In the ‘Products in (name) category’ box click the ‘Options and Components’ link, just under the required product. e.g.

• The option names, if there are any, will be listed in the ‘Options and Components’ box
• To create a new option name click on the ‘Options’ link under the option name list
  
  • Option order: if there is more than one option name assigned to a product use this field to indicate the order in which the option drop down boxes will be presented to the customer.
  • Option name: e.g. ‘Colour’
  • Option control: can be left as ListBox in most situations. This will show a drop down box to the customer.
  • Add option values (see below) then [Update]

• To add a new option value to an existing option name click the ‘edit’ link to the right of the option name row, then add the new option value under the ‘Options Values’ heading.
  • These entries are fairly self explanatory but be aware that the price entries are variances from the base price. e.g. the base price of a standard item may be $100.00. If the Chome plated option was $20.00 more you would enter $20.00 in the price field. The options box presented to the customer it would then list [Chrome (+$20.00)]. In their cart the item would indicate the full price of $120.00
  • Repeat for all option values then [Update] to save.

See also:

• Viart Shop Quick Start Guide
• Viart Shop Information Pages

If you found this article helpful please feel free to leave a comment.

It is a fair question, but unfortunately one that is often surrounded by misplaced assumptions.

Is it the web host? Surely they do backups and can restore a site if there is any problem.

Is it the the web designer? Surely they can simply re-instate it from a copy of the original.

Is it the owner? Surely they would realise the value of their online investment.

Unfortunately, so often the bare truth is that it is none of the above. Quite simply, no one is taking the necessary steps to ensure that a website is protected from either accidental or intentional harm. Let’s look at these situations one at a time:

• Web Hosts are responsible for providing the servers (computers) that host a web site. In most common situations a server is configured to host multiple accounts, or websites, that each belong to different owners. To use an analogy, a server can be thought of as a building full of rooms that are rented out to different tenants. The web host’s responsibility is to maintain the server as a viable platform for all the users who share it. To guard against system failure (for example a hard disk crash or faulty power supply) web hosts back up the entire server and all its contents. In the event of such a failure, the server can then be repaired and all user accounts restored to full operation. The important thing to realise is that the web host’s backups are of the whole system, not individual user accounts. If they do a restore, then they must restore all user accounts. They will not do that for a problem that has occurred to just one account, because it would affect all users on the same server.
• A web designer will usually have a copy of the application files that are associated with a web site, however that only addresses a small part of the problem. The most valuable (and difficult to replace) part of a web site is the data that has been added since it was initially created. And in most cases that is stored in a database – not the file structure. The normal situation is that web designers have nothing to do with a web site’s data (content) after the site is handed over to the owner. So they do not have a copy of any content that has been added since that time.
• Which brings us to the owner. Clearly they have the responsibility for their web site’s content, and they would certainly like to think that it was secure, but unfortunately, from an owner’s perspective,  the steps to be taken to set up a reliable backup regime are often either too confusing, or just forgotten.

In the end small business owners must accept that it is their responsibility to secure their online data. In many cases the most efficient and effective way to do this is to establish a professional support agreement that looks after the entire process on a scheduled basis.

The Online Shop Designer (TOSD) can provide just such an arrangement. In fact it is all part of the service

If you have any further queries regarding Support Agreements or online backups please leave a comment or contact us.

Viart Shop is a comprehensive e-Commerce application that is recommended by The Online Shop Designer (TOSD) for businesses who want to sell online to both retail and wholesale customers. In addition it has features that are not common in many other eCommerce applications. Here is a brief overview:

• Fully featured Shopping Cart with all the usual features
• Shopping Basket with advanced Sales Mechanisms (Product reviews and ratings, Product Discounting mechanism, Shipping and Stock mechanisms, etc)
• Web-based Administration with Order Maintenance, Product Maintenance, User/Shopper Maintenance, Vendor Maintenance, multiple payment processing capabilities (including support of Verisign, Paypal and Authorize.net payment systems) and flexible shipping options.
• An integrated CMS that enables the administrator to create an unlimited number of informational pages in support of the shop.
• Comprehensive articles facility (News, Events, FAQs, Links, Knowledgebase)
• Support for downloadable products.
• On site advertising with administration facilities.
• Help desk (optional)
• Forum (optional)

Clients often ask me which is the best option: Prestashop or Viart Shop. In general my advice is for straightforward retail applications Prestashop is an excellent choice, however for more demanding applications that may require a fully fledged helpdesk or integrated forum Viart Shop is an excellent choice.

See also:

• Viart Shop Quick Start Guide
• Prestashop: a well balanced eCommerce application

If you would like further information from TOSD regarding the development of an eCommerce application based on Viart Shop please Contact Us

If this article was useful please feel free to leave a comment.

One of the very nice features of Viart Shop is the ability for the administrator to create information pages using the built in Content Management System (CMS) facilities. There are two main aspects to this process:

1. Creating a Custom Page
2. Assigning the Custom Page to the menu

Creating a Custom Page in Viart Shop

• Select [CMS] / Custom Pages from the top menu
• Click the ‘New page’ link at the bottom of the list
• Enter the Page Code (e.g. page.php?page=racing), Page Title (e.g. Racing Schedule), and Friendly URL (e.g. racing-schedule). Note the way the friendly URL is to be entered, with the words separated by a hyphen (-), not a space.
• Indicate whether you want the page to show up in the sitemap.
• In general the only other information you will need to enter is the Page Body content using the editor.
• Finally enter the Meta Data.  Meta data allows you to set up your website so that search engines can readily index your content. This is quite important. The page title and description should both contain the most important keywords relating to the page content. Keep the Title to just a few words and the Description to 10-20 words. The keywords field should also contain the main keywords relevant to the page. Separate them with commas and whatever you do don’t indulge in keyword repetition or you may (will?) be penalised.
• Click [Add New] to submit

Assigning a Custom Page to the menu in Viart Shop

• Select [CMS] / [Site Navigation] from the top menu
• Check the top two boxes to indicate whether you want the new custom page to be available to logged in users, users who are not logged in or both groups.
• If the new page is to appear in the top level menu leave ‘Parent item’ blank, otherwise use the drop down box to select the heading you would like to place it under.
• Enter a page Title
• Enter a Menu URL e.g page.php?page=racing
• For internal pages don’t enter anything for the Target
• In general that is all you need to assign the page to the menu – click [Update] to submit.

See also:

• Viart Shop Quick Start Guide
• Viart Shop: adding options to products

If you fould this article helpful please feel free to leave a comment. If you have any queries relating to Viart Shop please Contact us

Viart Shop is a fully featured shopping cart application that can, in addition to all the usual features, accommodate multiple customer groups. This makes it particularly useful for online shops that must cater for both retail and wholesale customers. In this quick start guide I will cover just those things that site owners usually have to attend to when they have elected to add their own content. This will include:

• Creating Categories / Sub categories
• Creating Products including prices, descriptions and images

Creating Categories and Sub-categories

• From the top menu select [Products] / [Products & Categories]

The top level categories will be listed in the ‘Available Categories’ box.

• Click the ‘Add Category’ link at the bottom of the ‘Available Categories’ box.
• Fill in the required information and note the following:
  • The order allows you to set the display order of the Categories
  • Category names are best kept as short as possible
  • Leave the ‘Parent category’ set to [top] if you are adding a top level category. This is the level that shows by default
  • If you are creating a sub-category, set the parent to the category that the sub-category will nest under by selecting from the drop down list
  • Assign Category images and descriptions if required. These will show up as icons to aid selection.
  • Meta data allows you to set up your website so that search engines can readily index your content. This is quite important. Typically at this level the page title and description should both contain the most important keywords relating to the category. Keep the title to just a few words and the description to 10-20 words. The keywords field should also contain the main keywords relevant to the category. Separate them with commas and whatever you do don’t indulge in keyword repetition or you may (will?) be penalised.

Creating Products

In Viart Shop there is a high level of control afforded to administrators when creating products and their attributes. In this Quick Start guide I will only cover the basics of creating a new standard product:

• Navigate to the category that you want to add a product to using Available Categories box on the [products] / [Products and Categories] screen. Clicking on a category will expose any subcategories. When you get to the lowest category level the products in that category will be displayed in the adjacent box titled “Products in (selected) category:”.

• At the bottom of the product list click ‘Add New’, then complete as follows:
  • at this point you should also note that if you want to go back and edit a product, there is an [edit] link next to each listed product.

General Product Information [access via top tab]

• Complete, as a minimum, those fields that are marked with an asterisk. Note that the product order allows you to control the order in which the customer will view the products in the list view.
• Don’t feel compelled to complete all fields. In many cases the minimum required field information will be sufficient.

Pricing

• The first item relates to tax. This will normally be set up by TOSD. The ‘Change settings here’ link however allows you to control how prices are entered (inc or ex tax) and how they are displayed (inc or ex tax). After clicking on the ‘Change settings here’ link, select the ‘Tax Settings’ tab.
• The required field ‘Price (List price)’, will be visible by default. In other words, this is the price that non-registered visitors will see. It is also the price that will be presented to customers belonging to the retail customer group.
• The ‘Trade Price’ is the price that registered wholesale customers will see after they log in.
• Note that there are also fields to enter discounts (one for each customer group). These allow you to set up special prices for either or both groups. Ensure that the ‘Activate Discounts’ box is checked if you wish to enable discounts. There is also a  price preview box to allow you to see how the discount will be presented to the customer.

Fees and Commissions

These are costs that can be added to particular products but are beyond the scope of this Quick Start Guide.

Descriptions [access via top tab]

There are three types of descriptions that are used for different purposes:

• The ‘Short description’ is presented to the customer when they are browsing the products in a gategory.
• ‘Highlights’ appear next to the product image and pricing details when the customer clicks through to a detailed product page. Bulleted lists work well here.
• ‘Full description’, as the name suggests, is a more detailed description of the product. It is displayed under the large product image and highlights on the detailed product page. For some items specifications or applications can be entered here.
• ‘Meta data’ – see comments for categories above. The same principles apply except that this time the keywords should relate quite specifically to the product.

Quantity prices [access via top tab]

This is where quantity discounts are set up (e.g. 1-9: $10.00 , 10-20: $9.00 etc). Quantity discounts can be particularly relevant to online shops that cater to wholesale customers. In fact the options allow the administrator to apply quantity discounts to members of the wholesale customer group, but not the retail customer group. This flexibility can be quite handy.

Images and Appearance [access via top tab]

• Images: assigning images is easy in Viart Shop. In general, all the administrator has to do it prepare a single image (usually) 600px X 600px, 96dpi in jpg or png format and upload it via the ‘Upload Image’ link next to the Super-sized image box. Viart will then create all the associated image sizes on the fly.
• Appearance:The ‘Hide add to cart’ function is useful in situations where you may like to oblige a customer to click through to the detailed product page before they can commit to an order. You may for example want to do this to ensure that the customer has viewed detailed and important information that is required to make an appropriate selection.

Stock and Shipping [access via top tab]

• The stock control section is fairly straight forward. If you have weight based freight calculations then the weight of the product can be entered here. You can also instruct Viart to either monitor stock levels (by clicking the checkbox) or not. If you elect to use stock control you must enter real stock numbers for each product. Minimum and maximum order quantities can also be ordered.
• The shipping controls in this section override the default site shipping conditions. This is very useful. For example you may want to assign free freight to a product as a special promotion, even though the rest of the site has shipping costs assigned. Another example may be where a product simply falls outside the default calculations, perhaps because it requires special packing. In these situations you can assign a one off shipping cost at the product level.

Downloadable [access via top tab]

This section will be covered by a dedicated article.

Special Offer [access via top tab]

The special offer facility allows you to assign a product to the special offer module (which is often configured to display on the home page). In addition it provides an editor for entering and formatting the special offer. e.g. ‘Buy two get one free if you order before 31st’. The editors formatting controls enable you to set up the offer to stand out. Images etc can also be included.

See also:

• Viart Shop Information Pages
• Viart Shop: adding options to products

If you have found this article useful you are welcome to leave a comment. If you have any queries relating to Viart Shop please Contact us