Support
Before
You Start
Before you start using this server
you should ensure that you are using the latest version of your web
browser software. We recommend that user use the Mozilla FireFox
web browser. Users of MS Internet Explorer should ensure that they
are using the most up to date version and have run Windows Update
and installed all the security updates for IE. Users of MS IE 6 SP2
may experience problems using our service if all the security updates
are not installed. If you have any POP-UP suppression software running
then you may need to turn it off while using our website which makes
use of POP-UP windows.
Introduction
The Security-Payment.com Web Cart is
an integrated solution to providing a shopping cart facility on any
website. The system comprises three core components, these are:
Product
Database
The product database is the core of the system. Information entered here about
your products is used by the Product Catalogue CMS and the Shopping Cart and
Order Processing systems.
Product
Catalogue Content Management System
Using the product database data and some template files with visual customisation
HTML files the system generates product catalogue files that are transferred
to your website. Users then use your website and browse the product catalogue
pages. They choose to add a product to their basket.
Shopping
Cart & Order Processing
Once users choose to add a product to their basket the are sent to the Security-Payment.com
server where the basket page visually customised to look like your site. Users
can then proceed to the checkout and enter their details. The system uses the
information in the product database to ensure the correct price and delivery
is charges based on the contents of their basket and the country of delivery.
After this has been done they are sent to your chosen Payment Service Provider.
Once a successful payment has been made details of the order are added to the
retailer control panel.
The following pages detail how to use
various aspects of the retailer control panel. In order to get the
best out of this service you need to ensure that your information about
your products are as good as possible and that you market the website
at the correct market. Below are some points to remember.
Product
Data
-
Make sure your photos show off each
product to its best. Photos should be clear and well light.
-
Make sure that you specify the correct
thumbnail size.
-
Along with the photo the description
is the most important thing. Since people cannot touch the product
you need to make sure that you fully describe that product.
-
If a product has different colour
or size options remember to set the Item Attributes for that product.
If a user cannot specify the colour and size when ordering they
will not order.
-
With an e-commerce website you are
not only competing with other local retails but retailers in the
rest of the UK or the World. Check you pricing against other retailers.
If you are not price competitive then you will not get any sales.
-
Consider having stock availability
details on your website. Some customers may only order from your
website if they know an item is in stock.
-
Check your delivery rates and dispatch
time. If the delivery charges are to high or it takes to long for
an order to be sent then users may not order from your website.
Marketing
your website.
-
Ensure that you target the correct
market demographic.
-
Keyword advertising in the various
search engine is a good way to target advertising at specific users
and countries.
-
Shopping comparison services are
becoming more used and a good way for getting customers.
These are just some of the things that
you need to consider. Above all the thing to remember to treat the
website as a business. You cannot simply expect people to order from
your website you need to work at getting their business.
Product
Data Structure
When adding product data to our Security-Payment
system it is important to ensure that the data structure is correct.
Different fields have different uses and some fields have special conditions.
The basic product data structure used
is:
Name
- Price
- Short
Description
- Long Description
- Image
Name
- Thumbnail
These fields are described in detail
below.
Name
This is the name under which the product will be listed. This name
needs to be unique for each product as it will be used on the product
listings page, shopping cart and order confirmations. Both you
and your customers need to be able to distinguish between similar
products. If you have the same product available in different pack
sizes then we suggest that you incorporate the pack size into the
name of the product to distinguish between these products.
Price
This is the base price for a single purchase quantity of your product.
If you system is calculating the VAT and delivery on these products
then you should ensure that the price entered does not include
these charges.
Short
Description
The short description is a brief description of the product. The short description
field is used on the product listing page. This page lists all the products
available in the category. The short description helps to give the user additional
information about each product that is not available from the name and without
going to any more information page. (This field can be left off the listing
pages if you only wish to show the name of the product and have all the additional
information on the more info pages.)
Long
Description
The long description field is used on the more information pages about an individual
product. These pages only list the one product with a large image and ordering
details. If you intend to have more information pages for your products then
this field is extremely important. The short description field is not normally
shown on the more info pages as the number of characters is limited. Using
the long description field you can put in a detailed description of each product.
Image
Name
This field is where you enter the name of the image to be used for the given
product. All images should be in either .jpg or .gif format. These images should
be supplied with the product data. If a product uses the same image as another
product then they can share the same file name. It is extremely important that
no two different images share the file name. Filenames should be made up of
the following characters only in lower case. The available characters are a-z,
_and 0-9.
Thumbnail
This field is allows you to choose a small image to represent your
product in a product category. This image can be one that you have
provided or the system can produce an image from your main product
image. To have the system automatically produce a thumbnail image
enter the width (No of Pixels) you would like the thumbnail to
be into the auto size box.
In
addition to these data fields it is also possible to set product
and item attributes. If you have any product or item attributes
these need to be coded into the product catalogue templates before
they are displayed.
Images
In
addition to data about your products you will need images for your
products. Our system use one image per product. You will need to
prepare these images ready for use on the website. This mean converting
the image into JPEG format, cropping the image so that there is
no wasted space around the product, finally you will need to resize
the image to the ideal width for the website template.
This
image forms the main representation of your product. From this
image our system can create a thumbnail version of the image for
the category pages.
Depending
on the templates for your product catalogue you will need to create
the following images.
The
following pages include details about how to add the data about
each product and the images of each product. There is also information
about adding attributes and exporting the product catalogue to
your website.
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