Quick Start

 
Follow this step-by-step guide to get your new online store working quickly.
 

Add website2Go Commerce to Your Site.

1. To activate your online store, you must be a website2Go subscriber. Once your website2Go account is functional, call us toll free at 877-WEB-2002 to add website2Go Commerce capability, and your store will be ready to build in a few minutes.

Before you begin building your online store, we recommend outlining its structure on paper. A website2Go Commerce store is based on the concept of a branching tree of categories. Your store may have any number of categories and subcategories, and each category may contain any number of products. The categories themselves do not have to appear on your website's pages, but products can only exist within categories.

As you add categories, they will appear on the Shop Manager screen as an outline of the store, just as the pages of your site appear in the website2Go Site Manager. A product may appear in more than one category, but it must be created on one category's page.

We also recommend that you become familiar with using the Site Editor before building your store in the Shop Editor, which uses many of the same tools to manage and arrange shop elements. You may find it helpful to print this section before you start building your site.


Go to Your Shop Manager.

2. To set up your online store, start by logging into your website2Go Site Manager, then click on the Edit Shop link in the Site Manager Navigation Bar. The Shop Manager screen will appear. Bookmark this page. Note that your store starts with one category, called "Online Store." This is the top level of the store.

3. Click on the Online Store link to begin customizing your store. You will see the top-level category's Edit Category screen. You may change the name of the top level in the box at the upper left, under the Edit Category button. Simply highlight "Online Store" and type a new name in its place.

4. At the top of any category page, you may add an image and some descriptive text if you wish. These will appear on the category's page in your website. The image rules are the same as for your main site: a GIF or JPEG, up to 300 pixels wide. For more information, see Edit Categories.


Create Your Category Structure. We recommend building your store's category structure first, then adding products within those categories.

5. Click on the Add Category button to add a new category under the top level. When the screen refreshes, type in a name for the category. Add as many categories as you need on this level.

To add a subcategory, click on a category's Edit Category button, then add new subcategories. All categories work in exactly the same way, regardless of how deeply they're nested.


Add Products. For a product to have an Add to Cart button associated with it, so your customers can put it into a shopping cart, it must first be entered into your store's product database. It will then appear on one or more category pages, in a catalog-like listing of all products in that category.

6. Enter a new product by clicking the Add Product button on any category page in the Shop Manager.

7. On the next screen, you determine what characteristics will describe the product; see Adding Products to the Database for more information. Choose a product type from the popup menu, then click Next.

8. Type or paste in this product's information: any ID number you wish, the product's name, price, short and long descriptions. Check the boxes of all categories in which you want this product listed. Upload an image if you wish. Click Add Product to save your work.


Publishing Categories. The category page is a powerful way to get many products onto your website quickly and automatically. You have several choices about how and where your category pages appear in your website.

9. Now that you have categories, choose how to present them on your website:

a. In your Site Editor, the Navigation Bar for each site page includes a link to the top level of your store by default. You may hide this link if you wish, using the Show/Hide button in the toolbar under the link.

If you hide the top store level in the Navigation Bar, make sure your customers have another way to see your products, either via a category link elsewhere on your site, or as individual products (discussed below).

b. By default, all category pages will appear as "catalog" pages, listed under the store link on your site's Navigation Bar. If you don't want a category page to appear, hide it using its Show/Hide button on the next-higher category page in the Shop Editor.

c. You may add any store category to your website's Navigation Bar, Content, or Sidebar columns with the column's Add Category button. Instead of creating a new category, you will select an existing category from a popup list. Categories added to the Navigation Bar will appear on every site page automatically, the same as regular site pages and links. Categories added to the other columns will only appear on that page.


Publishing Products. You may add individual products to the Content and Sidebar columns of any page in your website, using the Add Product button in your Site Editor.

10. Click the Add Product button in the Site Editor column where you want to place the product. In the next screen, select a product from the popup menu, and choose whether you want to place a preformatted product including image and information, or just the Add to Cart button (useful if you've already added the product information to the page in the Site Editor). That's all there is to it! Your product is now integrated into the shopping cart system.

You can do this instead of, or in addition to, publishing category pages. See Adding Products to website2Go Pages for more information.


Configuring Your Store

11. To complete the setup of your online store, a number of preferences must be set. See Setting Shop Preferences and Credit Card Processing in the website2Go Commerce User Guide.