Ecommerce
From Splash Frog Docs
Contents |
Overview
The E-Commerce module expands Splash Frog so that you can run a fully functional online store. You can sell practically anything you want, from T-Shirts to Digital Music to Digital Services (like tech support, etc.). You can even setup your products to be based on a monthly subscription service. To begin, you will need to have Splash Frog installed, the E-Commerce module installed, and you will also need (at minimum) a PayPal Website Payments Standard and a UPS online account (both of which are free). If you plan on wanting customers to be able to pay via their credit card directly on your website, or you wish to sell a subscription based service, you will need a PayPal - Website Payments Pro account.
Settings
General Settings
The general settings help you setup your tax percentage (if you need it), how your customers will be able to checkout (no registration required, option to register, or required to register. This feature works with the Visitor Account module if you have it installed. If you do not have it installed, then the only option available to you is the "no registration required"). You also have the options to set your store to a secure browsing (HTTPS) for added security, email notifications, and setting what your privacy page and / or your terms and conditions webpages are.
Product Settings
The product settings control just how your products are displayed when shoppers are browsing your store, how big the picture thumbnails will be, how the quantity the shoppers enters in is handled, and more.
Category & Features Settings
These settings control just how the side module area's of the category listing and the feature page listings are displayed.
Shipping Settings
Here you are able to turn on or off the shipping portion of your store, as well as enter in your UPS online shipping API credentials. You can even select what UPS shipping options will be available to your customers as a shipping method.
Seller Account Settings
Here you are able to enter in your PayPal API credentials to connect the E-Commerce to your PayPal account to receive payments done by shoppers on your store, as well as to opt for the ability for your shoppers to pay with Credit Card on your store or only pay with their PayPal account.
Owners & Manufacturers
(Example: If you create a owner named J.K. Rowling and associate it with a "Book Product", then when a shopper views that product they will see "Author: J.K. Rowling").
You can create as many owner's and or manufacturers as you want, and you do not have to have any to create a product.
Categories
After you have all of your products entered into the system and you have all of your categories created, you can start assigning products to the categories. You only need to assign the products into their FINAL categories, as the system will handle the association for the higher-level categories and the products for you.
When you create a sub-category, or move a sub-category from one to another, any associated products will need to be either re-assigned to a new lowest sub-category available once the move is complete, or you can opt to remove those product associations. If you do choose to remove them, you can go back later and re-associate them.
Features
You can create a "Featured" page (or pages), which can be thought of as special categories that are just a one-of itself page. All you will need to do is give your featured page a name, and then add the products that will be displayed on that page.
Coupons
When you create a coupon you enter in the Coupon Code (this is the code your customers will have to enter in to use this coupon), a brief description of the coupon, when the coupon is valid, and then you set what the coupon will discount (either the sub-total or the shipping cost). You can also set if the coupon is a percentage (10%, 25%, etc) or an exact value ($50.00). You can even set that the coupon can only be valid if the subtotal is at or above a certain dollar amount.
Products
As you fill out the form, the more information you provide and the more accurate the better the shopping experience your customers will have. If you are selling a physical product and you have the shipping enabled, it is highly recommended that you enter in the weight and size of the product as exact as you can, as these are all taken into consideration when the shipping cost is calculated for your customers.
Product Attributes
Once you have a product created, you can then create attributes for that product. These attributes can be anything, from size to color to extended warranty. You can even set that attribute be either inline with the product name when the customer has the product in their shopping cart, or it will be on its own line. You can also set the an attribute option to have an additional price associated with it.
(Example: You create an iPod product you want to sell through your store. You can then create an attribute for its warranty with the options of a standard warranty, which won't cost anything extra, or an extended warranty that will cost the customer an additional $20.00.)
Product Pictures
Depending on what folder you specify where the product's pictures are stored, you will be able to select picture filetypes from that folder and associate them to that product for use when the customers come to view your product. You will also be able to set what picture will be the initial default picture they will be able to see, and in what order they will be displayed.
Product Reviews
Depending if you have the review option enabled through the Product Settings, and if customers have written reviews for your product(s), you can view and edit those reviews of that product as well as the rating the customer has given the product.
Product Inventory
Once you have your products all created, you can then setup the quantity of those products (this is optional). If you decide to keep track of your product inventory, you can do so in a number of ways - either by the product itself or go down to an attribute level.
Example: You are selling a T-Shirt. You have the attributes of colors (Brown, Blue, and Red), and then another attributes of sizes (Small, Medium, and Large). You can either:
1 - Just track the product itself (the T-Shirt).
2 - Track by single attribute (Brown, Blue, Red, Small, Medium, or Large).
3 - Track by a mix of attributes (Browns that are Small, Browns that are Medium, etc...)
By keeping track of your inventory will help let customers know when you run out of a product, and if you have the option enabled, to show them just how much of that product you have in stock available for purchase.
Sales
This is where you can track the sales that come through your E-Commerce store. Here, you can set the status of the sale (shipped, delayed, returned, etc) and even enter in the tracking code of the shipment (if you have one). You can also preform a search for the sales based on the transaction ID (which is the same transaction ID provided by PayPal once the sale is completed.), customer email address, the sale date, the tracking number, or the status of the shipment. You can even have that information exported out into an excel file in the valid format that can then be used for the mass shipment update feature.
Mass Shipment Update
The Mass Shipment Update feature allows you to update multiple sales records and their status' / shipment information all from a tab delimited file (you can make your changes in Microsoft Excel and then save the file as a tab delimited file format). The only requirement is that the transaction ID MUST be within the system already. The Mass Shipment Update will ignore any records that it doesn't find to already exist within the sales records of the E-Commerce System.
What Your Customers Get
With the E-Commerce System your customers will get a very inviting, very easy to navigate and to use shopping experience. They will also be able to have their own wishlist with the E-Commerce System (provided you have the Visitor Account module installed), and they will receive email receipts of the sales that they do through your site as well as updates to their orders when you update their sale status'.
Your customers will also be able to search for specific products based upon the description that you enter in for the products, any keywords, as well as on the product name and product code. This search feature is built-in to the E-Commerce System.
What You Get
With this E-Commerce System you will get a streamlined store management tool right there alongside with maintaining the rest of your website(s). Since this E-Commerce is built using PayPal as your source for handling the transactions, you will also be able to fully use PayPal's Shipment / Packing Label features for each transaction, as well as their subscription billing for any of your products you have set as a subscription-based product (provided you have a PayPal Website Payments Pro Account).
You will also be able to make your store look the way you want it by the use of CSS classes and by using images for buttons, etc. All of the available CSS classes and image names can be found within their respective area's underneath the E-Commerce settings options.
