help_makecartpages

Making Store Product Pages and Feeding Them with Your Catalog Database:

1. Make a few category pages and tell them to be 'Catalog Pages'

After logging in, create a few pages in your SITE MAP, giving them the names of the categories you want, such as "Shoes", "Videos" and "Apparel", or whatever you want.

In your SITE MAP, click the Page Edit icon next to the actual page. In the pop-up box, click the 'Content' tab at top of box and then click 'Catalog Page' radio button. This step tells the page to be a Catalog Page.

Click 'Update' button. Pop-up box closes.

2. Now we need to make the Catalog Database "see" those pages and put some products into the Catalog.

Near top of page, click on gray CATALOG button, which takes you to the main catalog page.

Click the "Insert a New Section In" pull down and select the first section there, say it's 'Shoes'.

In the empty field below the pull down, type a brand name, or other sub-category of the 'Shoes" category such as 'Mens' or 'Womens' or 'Adidas' or 'Nike' (how you classify your things is up to you - but think in terms of main categories and sub-categories). For instance, enter 'Mens' and click 'Insert'. This creates a category you can place products into called 'Shoes - Mens'.

Repeat this step to create other categories as needed.

3. Now add some products to the database:

Under "New Items" enter the name of a product, and click Add Item.

Do this with a few products.

4. Now we detail the products, and tell them which categories to show up in:

Click 'Uncategorized Items'. The items you've added will appear at right.

Click an item and fill in whatever info you want it to have.

About 2/3 of the way down this page, there is a scroll box labeled "Categories and Sections Item Appears In" -- select the category(s) that apply - for instance "Shoes - Mens" (or whatever you have there).

At bottom of page, click "Update" when you're finished with this item. You can go back anytime and change or update this info.

5. Last step: Choose a Product Template to define how your shopping cart pages will look to your users:

A word about Product Templates: When a user clicks a link to see your shopping cart pages, which are being fed from your database, the database needs to know what you want the pages to look like. For instance where do you want the "Add To Cart" button to be, and the product picture, and any descriptive text, etc...This is done by pointing the database to a page called a Product Template and saying "make my shopping cart pages look like this!" to the database.

Go back to your Site Map area (button to get there is in upper left of screen).

Next to the big blue word "Templates" is a button labeled "Manage" - click it. A box will pop up.

Make sure the List: and Detail: selections are set to Default, and click Update button at bottom of box.

Note: You can select a display template other than 'Default' if you like -- you can actually create as many display templates as you like and use them all if you want - but to get most people started, using the Default template is good at first.

Preview your work:

Click the Preview button (near top right side of page), choose any of the resolutions (800 x 600 is the most common) and click the category name in the nav bar. Your products should be showing up!

Do this with your other products that are still appearing under "Uncategorized Items".

Click here to find out more about customizing your product templates