Quick Start Guide
From Shoopz Help & Documentation
Welcome to the Shoopz help center. This site is a community wiki whose goal is to help you setup your Internet shop. Currently being written, its content does not yet fully cover all the features offered by Shoopz. However, we keep updating and improving our documentation in order to better support you in the creation and optimisation of your shop. Thus, visit our help center regularly. We wish you an excellent e-commerce experience with Shoopz.
Contents |
Presentation
Shoopz is a revolutionnary e-commerce platform. With Shoopz you can create your Internet shop quickly, simply and free of charges. Our online skinning technology allows you to give your shop the style and design that best suits your business. With a few clicks your shop looks like your own and allows you to develop your sales on the Internet, within your existing customers or at an international level.
Main concepts
Registration and use of Shoopz is free! We don't take commissions on your sales, nor do you pay any monthly fee. We do however propose additional features or custom development for those who need an even increased efficiency for their online shop.
With Shoopz there is no software to install on your computer. The creation, modification and administration of your store can be done through your web browser. You must have access to the Internet (preferably with a broadband connection). The benefits of this fully outsourced management are considerable: you do not have to worry about renting and maintaining a server. You can manage your store from any Internet access point in the world, whether you are traveling, on holiday abroad ...
Basic Operations
We list here the basic operations which will allow you to quickly create your shop, add online the products you wish to sell, and customize its appearance so that its visual aspect fits your business image.
Prerequisites
To setup your online store you must have:
- access to the Internet.
- a valid email adress where you will receive your orders' confirmations and details.
- a PayPal account to receive your online payments.
- some products to sell, along with their digital pictures.
- a good motivation.
Creating your shop
When you go for the first time to your shop, it is temporary. But you can skin it and add categories of items for sale immediately. Final registration can wait until the end. Note the number of your temporary shop to be able to return later if you want to continue your work. However, you can also register definitely at any time. This allows you to choose your e-store name and adress, for example: http://mystore.shoopz.com, assuming of course that "mystore" is available.
It is better to organize your products by similarities, so that customers can intuitively find what they seek. For a designer of fashion accessories, you could have categories such as "bracelets", "earrings", "necklaces", etc...
When a category has been created, you can add items to it. You can wait until you have created all your categories before entering your catalog, or add one category at a time. When adding a product, be sure to choose relevant keywords that will appear in the description of objects. Shoopz is optimized for Google: the more relevant words you use, the better will be your chances of being well-referenced when a potential customer searches for your product's description.
Define your shipping policies (shipping costs). Before doing this, inquire about delivery costs, international orders modalities, maximum weight per package...
Design and visual appearance
You can choose a basic skin within the predefined ones, but better than that, Shoopz allows you to create your own visual appearance for your shop. In the controls panel, you just have to activate the customization mode. When you are in this mode, all the customizable areas will appear surrounded by a green frame when you move the mouse.
It's easy to use a basic skin and lightly modify it to give it an unique look, however we encourage you to create your own design and color code. Remember that its originality and consistency with your products is a key factor for customers to appreciate your shop. The design of your online store is even more important if your products have a strong identity.
Don't forget
- When you first connect to Shoopz, our servers redirect you to a temporary page. This temporary shop is identified by a unique URL. Please note this URL if you want to keep your work and later convert this temporary shop into an active, registered one. Else you risk losing your preliminary work when you start working on the final shop.
- The "edition" mode is active when the configuration panel appears at the bottom of the scree. This mode is automatically activated when you create a temporary shop. You can manually enable/disable it by clicking on the button "Edit my shop"/"Stop editing".
- Any modification on your shop is immediately activated and visible on the server. Updates are thus extremely fast, but be careful not to change by mistake some important parameters.
- When you plan your shop's design, write down the different colors you want to use. Their hexadecimal code appears in the customization panel window. For example, bright red: #ff0505, light green: #9be8aa etc... Try to reuse colors by entering their hexadecimal code, it will save you time and will help maintain a coherence between your shop's various tones.
- Don't forget to define the shipping costs method of computation. Without this, it is impossible to calculate the order's exact total amount, and therefore to finalize the sale. Your store is not really fully functional until your shipping pricing policy is well defined.
Advanced Operations
We will here explain the more complex operations allowing you to better showcase your store.
Prerequisites
- You already have a picture of the products you wish to sell, in digital format.
- The overall structure of your shop is ready: the different categories have been identified, and products have been laid out in those categories in an intuitive way.
- If you wish to use the internationalization capabilities of Shoopz, the descriptions of each product are written in every language.
- You have developed a visual graphic code: the different colors you will use have been identified and prioritized. The use of a color rather than another usually depends on its relative importance.
Advanced design
The different areas of a Shoopz store generally have a colored background. Sometimes when windows overlap, you may notice that the page appears unreadable. You must remove any useless transparency and add some borders to the windows. Generally a border width of 1 pixel is sufficient, but it is sometimes necessary to increase this value. The color of the border should depend on the background color. It is also possible to add a second border, thus creating a gradient. The two border widths are independent.
Advanced category management
Categories can be created, deleted or renamed. New features will be added allowing to manage your product on an event basis, such as a sales period or Christmas for example.
Internationalization support
Look at the appropriate section in the user guide.
