-
 How
do I integrate ecommerce into my existing web site ?
 Merchant
Services is designed to be easily integrated into an
existing website. No programming skills are required
and all of the server-side setup and configuration has
already been done for you.
Step 1: Your Store Setup
Setting up your store is done through the "store
details" option and allows you
to configure store options, such as store name, currency,
contact email etc.
Step 2: Add Products
Select "Add a New Product"
to add a product to your catalog. Batch uploads allow
you to add multiple products through a CSV
file.
Step 3: Download HTML code
After each product is added, you will be shown the necessary
HTML code you will need to copy and paste into your
website. If you are using FrontPageTM, the
product HTML code can be inserted into your FrontPageTM
Website using the "insert code" function. This code
is also available anytime by selecting "Product
Management" and clicking on the
"View" button.
You can also download a search box to enable product
searches on your website. You will find this option
under "Product Code Generator"
along with other product code options, such as generating
code for all your products.
Step 4: Customize Your Store
Adding a header and footer to your store allows the
Basket and secure Checkout to be used, maintaining your
websites' "look and feel".
Add your HTML in "Customize Trimmings".
You can also change the colors of the forms used in
the search and Basket and Checkout pages. Select your
colors from "Customize Color
Settings".
Other options include :
Product Options
Categories
Shipping and Taxes
Order processing
My website is not hosted with you. Can I
still use the merchant services ?
Yes. Your website does not need to be hosted with us to
use the Merchant Services. However, for full integration
it is recommended that you transfer your site to one of
our hosting plans.
How do I use FrontPagetm 98 2000
with the integrated ecommerce ?
Refer to our inserting
HTML snippets section in our Support Section for further
information.
Where can I find the online help ?
Online help can be found anywhere in the Merchant Services
by clicking on the question mark on the top of any main
header.
I do not know how to use PHP can I still
use the Merchant Services ?
It is not necessary that you know PHP. No programming
is required on your behalf.
Is the Merchant Services secure?
Yes. Your settings can only be accessed through your merchant
login. The Checkout that your customers will use is secure.
It uses SSL encryption, which is an Internet standard
and encrypts all of their details.
What was the Merchant Services written in
?
PHP, Perl, some CSS and Javascript.
Can I use my own database ?
It is possible through the use of the CSV Import/Export
function which allows you to enter your product base via
uploading of a CSV file which can be exported from many
common database applications and spread-sheet software.
How do you validate credit cards ?
Online Credit Card processing requires an online credit
card payment gateway and a merchant account with your
bank. We provide access to several gateway products, but
you will have to speak with your bank about setting up
an account to use with them.
Do I need a SSL Certificate ?
No. The Checkout process uses our SSL Certificate so there
is no need to acquire any additional accreditations.
How do I ensure that the padlock is displayed
for secure pages?
To comply with the HTTPS standard, every source on the
page needs to be referenced securely. To do this, any
images or CSS files in your header and footer should be
referenced by:
https://secure.giga-sj-001.net/userID/filename
This will make sure your pages are loaded securely and
correctly when your shopper hits the secure checkout area.
What can I use multiple stores for ?
Multiple stores are available for users wanting to create
sectioned ecommerce sites or "mini-malls".
These multiple stores are available on the Platinum and
Enterprise Plans.
How do I backup my product catalog ?
You can use the download your products using the "Download
Products" function available under
Batch Options.
How do I import products from a previous
ecommerce site ?
It is possible as long as your previous software will
allow you to download or view your product base in an
exportable format such as CSV. You can then use the Import
function available under the Batch Options menu. This
will save your products for your own catalog.
Full instructions can be found by using the help located
on the Batch Options page.
What happens when I go over my product limit
?
You have an option to remove products, upgrade to a higher
account or purchase additional product allocations in
lots of 50 at a time.
Can I de-activate a product without deleting
it ?
Yes. You will see this option when you edit a product.
If you are using the batch system and a CSV file, you
can set the "stock_qty"
field to "-1"
and the product will be disabled.
You can also edit the error message that is displayed
when a product is de-activated. It is under the "Inventory/Product
unavailable" template in the Dynamic
Page Layout / Templates section of Merchant Services.
How can I upload my images into the drop
down catalog in the add/edit product page ?
You will find all of your images and merchant material
under the .merchant directory in your home directory.
You can upload into this directory.
What is a CSV file ?
A CSV file stands for Comma Separated Values. As the name
suggests, each field or value is separated by a comma.
This enables you to import an existing product catalog
from either a spread-sheet program or existing database.
Simply use the 'Save As' function in spread-sheets and
choose CSV as the file type. To export a database, you
will need to consult the database's manual. For example,
in a MYSQL database, you use the "SELECT
INTO OUTFILE ..." statement.
When you have a CSV file, you can simply import into your
store through the Batch Option in Merchant Services.
How can I add a Currency Converter to my
site ?
If you are using the Dynamic method
for displaying your product catalog, you can simple add
an additional link to your site templates to have a dynamic
currency converter link, that does not need to be updated.
Usually, you will add the converter link to the search
results, basket and product detail templates. In this
example, we are using the link to convert AUD$15.00 to
USD :
<a href=# onClick="window.open('http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi?Amount=15.00&
From=AUD&To=USD','Currency','toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,
scrollbars=no,resizable=yes,copyhistory=no,width=420,height=520')">US$</a>
(Note this link is broken up to multiple lines
for readability, but should all be on one line with no
spaces)
You can use this for any currencies, simply by replacing
the "From"
and "To"
values in the URL.
In the templates, you would replace the dollar value to
one of the variables so that the link is dynamic for each
product. In the search results and product detail templates
you would use : {PRICE}
In the basket template, you would use : {TOTAL}
What are product options ?
Product options are used for calculating variations between
your products. eg. small add $5.00, medium add $10.00,
large add $20.00. Product options are created through
the "Product Option Management" section.
How do I assign options to my products ?
Once you have created your product options you can assign
them by pressing the "Assign options
to products" button on the product
options page. You then select which option you want to
apply from the list on the far right. Then for each product,
click "add" to apply this option.
Is there a limit on product options ?
No.
Can I assign multiple product options to
one product ?
Yes. Further information can be found about this process
in the "Assign categories to products"
section by clicking on the question mark icon on the header.
Can I assign multiple categories to one product
?
Yes. When editing or creating a new product, hold down
the "CTRL"
key in order to select or de-select multiple categories.
A product will then be returned for all categories selected.
How can I display a product listing of a
single category on my site ?
You can use dynamic linking to display a category on your
page. This allows any changes in your prduct catalog to
be seen immediately on your site.
The easiest way to obtain this link is to use the search
box for your store and copy the link displayed for your
search. You can see your search box through the Merchant
Services section, using the "Search
Your Store" link.
After selecting your category and submitting the search,
you will see all your products for your category displayed.
You can then copy the link that appears in your browser
and use it for the category link on your website.
You can also add to the link "&limit=x"
(without the quotes) to the end of the link to display
all products for your category on one page.
You can also display your Products by using the "Product
Code Generator". You can select
which details you want to display for each product e.g.
description,category weight etc. This section also allows
you to generate the code for an entire catalog. You then
copy and paste the generated code into your website.
Do I need to categorize my products ?
No. Categorizing your products is not absolutely necessary.
However, users will not be able to search through your
product base via categorical searches.
Does the Merchant Services support Inventory
Management ?
Yes. You are able to set inventories for your products
and maintain accurate stock levels for your store.
The inventory system can also remove products from your
catalogue when there is no available inventory. See the
range of available options for the Inventory system below.
How do I enable/disable Inventory for my
store ?
Through the Merchant Services section, you can see the
Inventory Management
link. You can enable, disable and choose how you want
the Inventory system to work for you.
Once activated, you will see additional fields available
when you edit your products. These are :
- Stock Quantity : amount of stock for your product
- In Stock Message : text message to display when products
is in stock
(e.g. "ships
in 7 days")
- Out of Stock Message : text message to display when
product is out of stock
(e.g. "new
stock arriving in 7 days")
To use these values in your templates, the variables used
are :
{STOCK_QTY} and {PRODUCT_MESSAGE}. The system will load
{PRODUCT_MESSAGE} with either the In Stock Message or
Out Stock Message depending on current Inventory levels.
If you are using strict Inventory control, you can customise
the error page this is displayed if an out of stock product
is attempted to be purchased. You wil find this under
the "Dynamic
Page Layout / Templates" section
of Merchant Services.
Do I have to use Inventory in my store ?
No, the Inventory system is optional and can be enabled
or disabled at any time.
What Inventory control options can I use
?
The Inventory system has been designed so you can control
how you would like the Inventory management to work for
your store. For example, you can enforce strict inventory
control so that only products with available inventory
can be purchased - alternatively, you can also allow products
that are "out of stock"
to be bought anyway - the choice is yours.
Here are the options you can choose from :
- Enforce Quantity Check(Y/N) - Whether products
with stock quantity of zero can still be purchased or
not.
- Update Quantity on Purchase(Y/N) - Do you want
the "buy" process to update your stock levels
- Search Results Format - How the Search Results
and dynamic page creation pages handle your inventory
system. You can choose from :
- Only show products with available
inventory
- Show all products even if
inventory is zero
- Show all products, but items
with zero quantity have "buy"
button removed
Why isn't my color scheme displaying properly
in my website ?
It is recommended that one of the first things you do
before integrating ecommerce into your site is to select
a color scheme. If you have previously downloaded HTML
code into your website, the code will need to be updated
in order to show the changes.
I want a menubar down the side of my pages.
How do I do it ?
The simplest way to achieve this is to create a table
with two cells in the customize trimmings sections. The
first cell should enclose the menubar. The second cell
should be left open at the end of the header. In the footer
both the table and cell has to be closed off to encase
the product/s. The sample code below will give you a starting
point.
<TABLE WIDTH="100%"
CELLSPACING="0"
CELLPADDING="0"
BORDER="0">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="30%"
VALIGN="top">
-- insert your menubar here --
</TD>
<TD WIDTH="70%"VALIGN="top"">
Body of page goes here
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
Can I edit the product boxes that I have
pasted into my website ?
Yes, as long as all of the form, select, option and input
tags remain intact and unchanged.
How do I add a View Basket Button ?
The following link must be placed within your <A HREF="
"></A> tag.
http://membername.web101.com.au/commerce/basket?action=view
or if you have a domain
http://www.yourdomain.com/commerce/basket?action=view
This path can be used for form/javascript buttons, image
maps, etc.
How do I add a "Checkout" button ?
The following link must be placed within your <A HREF="
"></A> tag.
http://membername.web101.com.au/commerce/basket?merchant_id=XXXX&continue=1
or if you have a domain
http://www.yourdomain.com/commerce/basket?merchant_id=XXXX&continue=1
How do I show Order Total and # Ordered Items
?
You can provide a order summary in your header or footer
template, which will display the current order total and
number of items ordered.
The two variables are :
$NUM_BASKET_ITEMS
$CURRENT_BASKET_TOTAL
When viewing either the basket or checkout pages, these
values will not be shown as this information is already
shown on the page.
How do I customize my e-commerce website?
All the customize options are viewable in the Custom
Settings section.
You can select from the following customizable sections
:
- Header and Footer -
- design the HTML code that surrounds the content of
your pages.
- Colour Settings -
- jazz up the look of your site by choosing colours
from the colour palette to apply to your tables.
- Dynamic Page Layout covers these areas -
- Search Results -
- detail the layout of search results when a product
search is done on your store.
- Product Detail -
- this page is used to display in-depth information
about a product. It is usually viewed when you click
on a thumbnail image.
- Basket Template -
- design your shopping basket layout.
We use our own, in-house designed, "Funky Template System"(FTS).
FTS allows dynamic templates through the use of variable
parsing and interpolation.
For example, you can display a product name, anywhere
on your page by using {PRODUCT_NAME}. When the page
is viewed, the FTS engine replaces {PRODUCT_NAME} with
the actual product name, such as "Sports Shoes". Detailed
instructions can be found in the help section for each
custom template.
How
do I display my product catalog?
To
have each category on a page, you have two options:
The easiest to maintain would be to have your category
pages displayed dynamically. Dynamically means that a
change in your product database will also alter the information
displayed in your pages(so when you update your prices
for example, the change will be reflected in your category
pages as well). You can do this by linking straight into
the search facility for each category.
For example, you have setup your own categories, so to
display that page your link would be: "/commerce/search/index.php3?merchant_id=your_id&custom_store_category=Cat_id&by_category=1"
or you could provide a search box such as "/commerce/search/search_options.php3?merchant_id=your_id"
In this case you will need to add your header and footer
so that the pages look the same in the search results
pages. You do this under the "Customize Components" option.
Dynamic pages are definitely they way to go as it will
save you lots of time when it comes time to update or
refresh your catalog.
The second option is to use the "Product Code Generator",
which can generate all the HTML for you - choose the "Select
a category" option. You will then copy and paste the result
into your product pages.
How do I use multiple forms on one page?
As long as you are closing each <FORM> section correctly,
there is nothing stopping you having multiple forms on one
page - which allows you to display several products for
purchase on one page.
Some editors, however, have a function that will make each
form element unique on the page. For example, when you view
your code you may see something like :
<input type="hidden"
name="merchant_id" value="1234">
Then your next FORM looks like :
<input type="hidden"
name="merchant_id2" value="1234">
etc...
This will stop your "Add to Cart" buttons from working,
as the form element names are no longer correct (it should
always be name="merchant_id").
If you are seeing this behaviour, you will need to check
the help section for your editor to see if you can disable
"form checking" or "variable checking" to prevent it changing
your FORM.
In FrontPage, the setting to be changed is under "PAGE OPTIONS",
"GENERAL", then remove the flag from "MAKE ID UNIQUE ON
PASTE".
How do I set my Shipping and Taxes?
Shipping and Taxes is divided into three sections, local,
national and international. For each region you will need
to specify what shipping and tax charges apply. Depending
on what address your customer specifies, shipping and tax
charges will be calculated accordingly.
Detailed help is available on the shipping and tax pages
under the help icon.
How is shipping calculated ?
Shipping costs are detailed under the help icon in the shipping
section.
How are taxes calculated ?
Taxes are calculated depending on the percentages you specify
for each region.
Using the search functionality to generate
product pages
The easiest way to use the Merchant Services, is to implement
your online store so that it is generated "on-the-fly".
This means, you can make changes to a product (update pricing
etc) and your product pages will also reflect this change.
Common usage is to have links on the main page of your site
that display a category (see our Category
section for more info). The easiest way to generate
the correct link, is to use the Search Box for your store.
You simply perform a search on the category or keyword that
you would like displayed - the results will be generated
and the required link will be in your browser.
Copy this link into your main site and now any changes made
to your product catalogue will be instantly reflected in
these pages.
You can set the default behaviour for search results by
using the "Search Results Control" option under the "Customization"
Menu.
You can also add options to your links directly for controlling
how results are displayed :
(Note: options set in a link have priority over "Search
Results Control")
| limit=x : |
show all products for a search (default
is show only 10 products) |
| display_num=n : |
where n is the number of products to display on
one page |
| orderby=product_name : |
order results by product name (default is order
by product ID) |
| orderby=price : |
order results by product price (default is order
by product ID) |
| mode=DESC : |
method to display results. DESC is Descending (default
is Ascending) |
| notemplate=1 : |
store header and footer will not be displayed (often
used for framed sites) |
Example
An example link that displays a category called "Bananas",
would look like :
<a href="/commerce/search/index.php3?merchant_id=MERCHANT_ID&search_type=ANY&custom_store_category=Bananas&by_category=1">
Adding one of the display options above is done appending
the option to the URL, e.g. :
<a href="/commerce/search/index.php3?merchant_id=MERCHANT_ID&search_type=ANY&custom_store_category=Bananas&by_category=1&display_num=5">
How do I process an order ?
The merchant receives an email as a notification that
a transaction has occurred. From there the merchant logs
on to the merchant services section to retrieve the order
details.
Payment processing can be completed in two ways :
-
- Use an existing payment processing facility, such
as a Merchant Terminal for processing credit card information(some
banks also have virtual terminals through a website).
- Real time online payment processing. This option is
available for gateways that we have integrated into
the ecommerce system. When you use a payment gateway,
the transaction is processed in real-time, when the
order is actually placed. Your orders section will contain
information as to whether the transaction was approved
or declined by the gateway.
See available Payment Gateways
How do I know someone has ordered a product
from my site ?
As a Merchant you will receive an email alerting you
that an order has been placed and that it is available
for retrieval through the merchant services section.
You will find the order management interface at the
bottom of the merchant section menu or in the top bar.
How do you validate credit cards ?
Online/Realtime Credit Card processing requires an online
credit card payment gateway and a merchant account with
your bank. We provide access to several gateway companies,
which you can see below. You can contact any of them
through their respective website links to create a Payment
Gateway account.
Which online banking gateways do you have
available ?
To date we can provide access to the following gateways:
- WorldPay
- can handle businesses from most countries
- Authorize.net
- US registered businesses only
- PlanetPayment
- Moneris
- US and Canadian businesses only
- LinkPoint
- WebPay also known as GlobalPoint
- Australian businesses with an ABN number
- Verisign
- Australian businesses with an ABN number
- eWay
- Australian businesses with an ABN number
How do I use PayPal ?
You can specify your PayPal username(email address) and
PayPal currency for your store, through the "Change Store
Details" link in the Merchant Services. Once saved, you
will also need to specify PayPal as an approved payment
type for your store, through the "Store Payment Settings"
link.
Now that you have specified your PayPal details, when your
shopper chooses PayPal as their payment method, they will
be shown a "Pay with PayPal" button on the order confirmation
page.
When the shopper clicks this button, they will then be directed
to PayPal's Payment page to complete the order. At PayPal,
the product name and product ID will both contain the OrderID
from the checkout order confirmation page. This order status
is then set to "pending".
You, the merchant, can now view the order in the Merchant
Services area and confirm payment at PayPal before shipping
the item. The OrderID is used to track orders between the
Merchant Services and PayPal.
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