To create a News article:

• In admin go to Articles / News
• Fill in the relevant fields to suit – taking particular care to use the keyword phrase in those sections mentioned above.
• Click [Add New] to save.

As a long term strategy try and post effective news articles on a regular basis. Once a week would be good, but whatever it is, make it a habit. It is a great way to help move your eCommerce site away from just codes and prices to meaningful content that Search Engines and customers can relate to.

• The customer places an order
• Confirmation is sent to the sit administrator
• If the customer selected offline Credit Card processing, the administrator will also receive an email with the last 4 digits only of the credit card number. The rest are encrypted and stored in the database for viewing in admin.
• The administrator logs into Viart admin and goes to Orders/Sales Orders
• The orders received are listed under the section “Orders Maintenance”. The most recent order will have the highest Order number, but the orders are also date stamped.
• Icons for HTML and pdf versions of the invoice are provided under the “Invoice” column. The pdf in particular provides an easy means of printing a properly formatted version of the invoice.
• On the far right hand side of the order line is a view/edit link. The following tasks can be performed after clicking this link:
  • Updating the status from “New Order” to reflect the appropriate status of the order e.g. “Goods Shipped”. It is important to keep the status up to date as the customer will be able to check this when they log in to their user account.
  • Adding a additional information: To the right of the pull down status field is a link that allows the administrator to attach a note for future reference about the order. There is also a link to add the serial number of the item to be shipped if these need to be recorded and a shipping tracking number (above the update button).
  • Payment method is below the Shopping Cart section and Personal details, which show the shipping address. If the customer has elected to pay by Babk Transfer the order status should be set to pending until payment has been received. If the order is to be paid by credit card then the first 12 numbers of the card only will be displayed. The remaining 4 digits are sent to the administrator by email. Note that those digits of the credit card that are stored in the database are fully encrypted.
  • The Order Change Log is at the bottom of the screen. This records all order changes and provides a very quick way of checking the particulars of any delays. e.g. how long it has taken to pack the order, or how long the administrator has been waiting to receive the Bank Transfer funds from the customer.
• Finally when the order processing has been completed and the goods shipped to the customer the status should be rolled over to “Goods Shipped”

Note: while processing orders in general with Viart Shop is not difficult, the most important thing, from both a customer and administrator perspective, is to ensure that the status always reflects the true situation.

• Making the most of meta description tags
• Writing meta tags
• Meta description tag

And this is a nice article on writing page titles just to round off the subject. While titles are arguably not as imortant as descriptions they are still relevant:

• SEO page title tips

And what about meta keywords?

Well, the truth is that they are no longer very relevant at all. Still, if you would like to use them ensure that you use no more than about 5-6 words. Long lists of keywords are more likely to have your site flagged for spamming.

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.

• 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.