Difference between revisions of "Getting started guide"

From Spiffy Stores Knowledge Base

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Welcome to Spiffy Stores! Whether you're opening a new online store or are interested in using Spiffy Stores as your ecommerce platform, you can find out more information about your options here.
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If you can't see the video above, you can also view it on [http://www.youtube.com/user/spiffystores?feature=mhum#p/u/0/ow0qCFcwhNQ Youtube ]
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After you register for a 14-day free trial, follow this Getting Started Guide to start using Spiffy Stores. This guide features step-by-step tutorials for the main tasks you need to complete before you start selling.  
  
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If you are already selling on another platform but would like to move your store to Spiffy Stores, then get started with your store migration today.
  
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
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== Overview ==
File:Home-screen.png|Dashboard
 
</gallery>
 
 
 
Log in to your Spiffy Store Toolbox ''admin'' account at
 
 
 
<pre>
 
http://yoursite.spiffystores.com.com/admin
 
</pre>
 
 
 
The first thing you’ll see is the Dashboard, which shows you at a glance how many visitors your site has had, how many orders you’ve received, the last login of your staff members and your out of stock items (if any).
 
 
 
<div class="visualClear"></div>
 
 
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
File:Toolbox navigation.png|Navigation
 
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The red navigation strip shows you what options are available for your store.
 
 
 
== Orders: ==
 
 
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-orders.png|Orders
 
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Click Orders to see the details of your orders.
 
 
 
In this screen, you can manage orders or contact your customers. As you're just getting started you probably don't have any orders yet, so we’ll move on to the next screen.
 
 
 
== Products: ==
 
 
 
Click the Products tab. You will see a list of all the products which have been added to your store.
 
 
 
To add a new product, click the “Add New Product” link (it’s red, and at the top of your screen).
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-products.png|Products
 
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<br> Give your product a title (this can be purely descriptive; inventory control information is later) and a description.
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-add-product.png|Adding a product
 
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Under “Product type” you can choose from one of your existing product types or enter a new one. Keep these categories pretty broad; you don’t want to create a new product type for each item you enter. These categories will be used later to create things like Super Collections.
 
 
 
Under “Product vendor” add the name of the product’s creator. For example, if you are selling items from a third-party vendor you will enter that name here, but if you create the products yourself you will enter your own company name.
 
 
 
Set the price and weight (weight is used for calculating shipping costs). Add in your wholesale price if available. In the future this will be handy for you to report on actual profits when we add new reporting features. You can also add a “Compare at” price, which is useful if you’re having a sale and want people to know how much money they’re saving.
 
 
 
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<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-add-product-inventory.png|Product inverntory
 
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Under “Inventory” you can enter a product ID or SKU (this is optional) and decide whether you want your Spiffy Store to track your stock level. If you choose to have your stock level tracked, you will need to add the quantity you have on-hand and choose whether customers can still place orders when you run out (useful if you will be re-ordering based on customer orders) or if your item will show “SOLD OUT” when you run out of stock.
 
 
 
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Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-add-product-tags.png|Product tags
 
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Add tags so that people can easily find what they’re looking for. You can add as many tags as you want, but ensure that they are specific to the product you're adding. In some of our templates, tags also make related products display. They also REALLY help with SEO, so try to be very descriptive.
 
 
 
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<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-add-product-images.png|Adding product images
 
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You must upload an image before your product will show up on your site. You can upload several images for each product; the first one in the list will be the “featured image” and will show up on your product and collection pages. Once you’ve uploaded all your images, you can change the order they display by dragging and dropping the thumbnails.
 
 
 
<br> [[Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-add-product-save.png]]
 
 
 
Don’t forget to SAVE your product!
 
 
 
== Collections:  ==
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-collections.png|Collections
 
</gallery>
 
Click on the Collections tab to see your collections.
 
 
 
By default, your store starts out with the “Home Page” collection. Don’t delete this! It keeps track of which products are featured on the front page of your store. You can change your featured products at any time by going into the product page and checking or un-checking the “Home Page” tick box.
 
 
 
Collections organise your products into groups, which you can then link to from your store. Create collections for all your groups of products. For example, if you sell a lot of shirts and pants, you might want to create a “Shirts” collection and a “Pants” collection as well as an “Outfits” collection, in which you can group together things that would go well in a set. You can add the same product to more than one collection.
 
 
 
Standard Collections are collections of items you choose as you go (like the Frontpage collection, above); Super Collections use pre-defined values to organise your stock.
 
 
 
<br>
 
 
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-create-super-collection.png|Creating a super collection
 
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Create a new Super Collection by clicking “Create Super Collection” .
 
 
 
Next, set the conditions for your Super Collection. They can be anything you want, and you can add more using the green button on the right.
 
 
 
You can play around with this to find the combination that works best for your store. Once the Super Collection is set up, the products that meet the criteria will automatically be added.
 
 
 
== Pages &amp; Blogs:  ==
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-blogs-and-pages.png|Pages & Blogs
 
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When you click the Blogs &amp; Pages tab, you will see all of the blogs and pages you have created. A blog is like a collection of articles; you can create a blog and then update it, and your most recent update will be at the top of the blog’s page. Pages, on the other hand, are static; you can make a page for your shipping information, for example, or to talk about who you are and what you do. Blogs are best for information you will need to add to on a continual basis, like a news page or a list of articles.
 
 
 
<br>
 
 
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-create-page.png|Adding a page
 
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Click “Add a Page” and then give your page a title and add some text. Spiffy Stores use Textile for its markup; you can see the examples on the right to figure out how to format your text. There's also a formatting guide built in to help.
 
 
 
Save your page. In the next step, you will add your page to your navigation so visitors to your site will be able to find it.
 
 
 
== Store menus:  ==
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-navigation-page.png|Store menus page
 
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Click the "Store menus" tab. You will see a list of your existing menus.
 
 
 
For this example, we are adding a link to the footer menu, but you can always add or re-order your navigation menus to fit your site’s needs. Be aware that some menus (like the footer) will show up in different places on your site, so be aware of which menu you’re adding to.
 
 
 
<br>
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-add-navigation-link.png|Adding a link to a menu
 
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To add a link to the Footer menu, click “Add Link.” Type in the name of the link (this doesn’t have to be the same as what you named the page, but it does simplify things if it’s similar) and choose what you’re linking to. We linked to the Home Page here, but you can link to anything from an external website to an individual product. You can also link to a collection.
 
 
 
== Marketing:  ==
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-marketing.png|Marketing section
 
</gallery>
 
The Marketing section allows you to enter coupon codes and keep track of your marketing efforts.
 
 
 
Next, look at the right side of the red navigation bar to find the nuts and bolts of your site in the Assets &amp; Preferences sections.
 
 
 
== Design & assets:  ==
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-assets.png|Design & assets section
 
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The Design & assets section is where the site’s theme information lives. To change your theme to one of the pre-built designs, go to the "Theme Gallery".
 
 
 
The "Theme editor" section allows to you make modifications to your theme, such as adding your logo, or changing your colour scheme.  Each theme has instructions on how to customise it on it's demo store....
 
 
 
==== [http://antiqua.spiffystores.com/blogs/frontpage Antiqua theme] ====
 
The Antiqua demo site has instructions on how to change your theme colour scheme, how to add your logo to your store, and how to add products to your home page
 
 
 
==== [http://getminimal.spiffystores.com/blogs/using-the-minimal-theme-in-your-store Minimal theme] ====
 
The minimal demo site has instructions on how to change images in the home page slideshow, how to add your logo, what image sizes you should use for your products, how to add the special "collections page to your store, and how to change your address details in the footer.
 
 
 
==== [http://fresh.spiffystores.com Fresh theme] ====
 
The Fresh theme demo site has instructions on how to add your logo, and how to change your colour scheme.
 
 
 
==== [http://dreamtheme.spiffystores.com Dream theme] ====
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
== Preferences:  ==
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-general-preferences.png|General preferences
 
</gallery>
 
This is where you can set up the inner workings of your store. You will see a sub-menu on the right that lists your options. Click around to see which options are appropriate to your store.
 
 
 
<br>
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-checkout-preferences.png|Checkout & payment preferences
 
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The most important section to set up is the Checkout &amp; Payment section, in which you will specify which payment service(s) your store will use. There is also a “Bogus Gateway” for testing purposes; if you activate it, you can place a sample order without sending any actual payment information.
 
 
 
== Account:  ==
 
<gallery heights="200px" widths="200px" class="right">
 
Image:Spiffy-store-toolbox-your-account.png|Your account page
 
</gallery>
 
The Account screen is where you will go when you want to check to see how much storage space you have left on your site or, if you’re the account owner, to add a staff member to your lineup or view or change the credit card information for the store. (Note: only the account owner can add staff members or view or alter the credit card information for the store.)
 
 
 
The account owner MUST enter credit card information before the store will accept orders! That’s it!
 

Revision as of 12:13, 4 July 2018

Welcome to Spiffy Stores! Whether you're opening a new online store or are interested in using Spiffy Stores as your ecommerce platform, you can find out more information about your options here.

After you register for a 14-day free trial, follow this Getting Started Guide to start using Spiffy Stores. This guide features step-by-step tutorials for the main tasks you need to complete before you start selling.

If you are already selling on another platform but would like to move your store to Spiffy Stores, then get started with your store migration today.

Overview