Our site www.viart.com site is operated by latest Viart Shop 5 with default Clear design
ViArt Shop Manual

To remove the 'evaluation version' message on your ViArt, you will need to purchase a unique license and generate a license.php. Please read this section to get the instructions on the process of activation.

The first thing that you are supposed to do after you have installed ViArt Shop is setting up its main parameters.
The first thing that you need to do after you have installed ViArt Shop is to set up the main parameters.
After you have installed ViArt Shop and set up its main parameters you have to specify its administration settings.
It is natural to desire an online store which is both unique and unforgettable, with ViArt Shop you can do this 'on fly'.
ViArt Shop is supplied with nine layouts as default, 'Default', 'Curved', 'Silver', 'Convex', 'Fashion', 'Rainbow', 'Classic', 'Marine', 'Ecommerce'. You can choose either of these layouts according to the needs of your shop, or if you require, you can build your own one!
Bellow are the samples of screenshots for the 'Classic' Layout. This layout has four available schemes to choose from: blue, green, light blue, red. Select any scheme you prefer.
Bellow are the samples of screenshots for the 'Curved' Layout. This layout has three available schemes to choose from: black, blue, pink. Select any scheme you find the most suitable.
Bellow are the samples of screenshots for the 'Silver' Layout. This layout has two available schemes to choose from: dark and light. You can select the scheme that best suits your needs.
The overall view of each layout is set by its global settings. Read the following section to find out how to change the look and feel of an existing layout, also how to create a new one.
The navigation panel is displayed on all pages of your online store, with ViArt Shop you can change the way it is displayed for each layout. It is also possible to distinguish which navigation options are shown to all your visitors and/or only to those who logged in.
This section details how the home page layout is produced. Read the following to understand how to customize the home page layout to suit your needs.
When running an online store, it is very important to stay up to date with what happening behind the scenes. With ViArt Shop it is possible remain aware of occurrances on your site, even if you are away from your computer!. This is possible thanks toViArts SMS functionality, this function allows you to setup your shopping cart system to send you SMS's whenever certain event/s occur.
This chapter will show you how to add products and catagories into your online store.
Sometimes it might be very handy to have a possibility to inform a friend of yours about what you've found. With ViArt Shop your customers will have it. This can also be a good and free promotion of your site.
Even though you run an online store and deal mainly with orders, it would not be out of place to know who your customers are. ViArt Shop allows you to control your customers accounts through the 'Customers' section.
Sometimes you may need to look through some customer personal details. ViArt Shop provides you with such a possibility.
Sometimes you may need to look through some customer personal details. ViArt Shop provides you with such a possibility.
Sometimes you might need to look through or even edit customer login details. Read what you should do in this case.
As you might have already understood customer type is a key notion in the overall customer account management. It defines main customer account settings, discounts a customer will have and customer profile fields.
Actually, the key notion in the overall customer management in ViArt Shop is customer type. It defines main customer account settings, discounts a customer will have and customer profile fields.
Customer profile contains some information about the customer. You can define what kind of it you need by setting up specific fields.
It often happens that customers forget their password. In such a case they can apply to a site administrator providing their logins and some personal information. But it would be much easier to use a special password restoring option.
Should you ever need to find a customer, you can use the search block in the 'Customers' section.
One of the most attractive features of ViArt Shop is its customizability. You can easily make your online store unique and exclusive by adding custom pages.
One of the most attractive features of ViArt Shop is its customizability. You can easily make your online store unique and exclusive by adding custom pages.
Custom Block is a perfect solution for customizing your online store and attuning it to your needs. You may create custom blocks for anything you ever need and place wherever on your site.
Viart Shop enables you to create opinion polls for the visitors of your website. Such polls can be very useful for your business. You are allowed to choose between single choice and multiple choices polls.
Another feature of ViArt Shopping Cart is its banner management. Thanks to it you can place any banner you want: links to hot offers of the store or to other sites you own. You can even sell the space to other web-masters.
HelpDesk system is based upon exchanging support tickets. Support Tickets are used for resolving any issue or problem your customers may have. ViArt HelpDesk allows you to track users requests with the help of unique ticket number in a quick and easy way.
Support Ticket System enables your support team to track all the support requests as well as to ensure that no query goes unanswered.
This section provides an information for your customers on how to create a ticket to a tech support team if they face a problem or have a question.
Please read this section to know how to send, assign or edit a support ticket.
ViArt HelpDesk allows to create a request for each client. To do this, you should click Create Message Link and fill the appropriate form.
You or a support specialist may need to find some particular ticket. In this case, you can use a search tool available in the support centre.
The section covers main support center's settings such as Knowledge Base, attachments, random image validation, and email notifications.
This section shows how to assign HelpDesk users - the staff responsible for smooth communication with your customers.
You can estimate your customer by assigning an appropriate status to him. It is necessary if you want to distinguish the most valuable customers.
While preparing an answer to a customer, you can use the Predefined Reply option. Predefined messages can be inserted into your reply by a mouse click. Using predefined messages allows you to save your time and impress your customer with a quick reply.
Once you install your HelpDesk, it is very important to create a department (for example, a support department).
With ViArt helpdesk module you can set the types of a support ticket. Setting the right type of a ticket helps a support team to correctly identify the issue.
One more feature of ViArt HelpDesk is that it provides you with a possibility to support any product you need.
It is usually very important to sort the support tickets by their priorities. ViArt Shop provides you with such a possibility.
ViArt HelpDesk gives you the possibility to create and edit statuses for your replies to customers' support tickets. This option helps you to sort all the tickets at your convenien
You may find it necessary to have some reports on the support tickets. With ViArt Shop helpdesk module you can easily view the status of support tickets, namely, how many tickets were answered, how many tickets are awaiting response, how many tickets were closed, etc
One of the important modules of ViArt Shop is its Forum - an independent portal, intended to provide an online communication between shopping cart users as well as to offer useful information on numerous important issues. If a person has a problem or an idea he/she will have an opportunity to share it with others.
Forum consists of shopping cart related threads or issues which you and your users can exchange and which are later archived for future reference.
Before adding a new topic you should firstly choose the forum to which you want to post your question or issue.
You or someone from your support team may wish to join the discussion and give some piece of advice. In this case, you are to post an answer to a thread.
Categories are 'parents' to forums and are used to hold a group of forums. Your users are unable to post their messages to categories, they can only post their threads to forums. A site which has only a few forum discussion boards may not need any categories. However, if your site has a lot of forum modules, it will be useful for you to create a category.
Sometimes, you may need to create multiple forums for different areas of discussions.
With forum settings you have the possibility to customize your forum according to your requirements. First of all, you should set the global settings.
This chapter is likely to cover the most general settings affecting the whole system and how it works. It allows attuning your ViArt Shop online store just the way you like as well as making main adjustments required for proper operation.
When you are running any kind of business it is no wonder that you need some help. This is true for an online store as well. However, you might not want other people all the information stores in the database. With ViArt Shop you can set up different user groups and assigned different permissions to them.
E-commerce is a place where fraud is very possible. So, you have to protect yourself and your customers as well. With ViArt Shop you can watch IPs your customer use for shopping and block those you think might be trickery.
As time goes by, your online store will grow larger and larger. And it will be quite difficult to watch everything in it, especially what your customers may add or post on it. In such a way you can make your life easier by using banned content functionality.
When working with ViArt Shop you have all the possibilities to make your online store one and only. You can change the feel and look of your site, select different templates and change color schemes. Another great feature is that you have the ability to edit the messages your customers see while surfing your site without the necessity to edit any files.
5.4.1. General settings
5.4.1. General settings
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Whether you are adding a new product or editing an existing one you will have to deal with the 'Edit Product' page. In order to get there you have to go to Administration > Shopping Cart > Products & Categories > your category > Add product or Administration > Shopping Cart > Products & Categories > your category > your product (or the 'Edit' link next to it)).

First of all, tick off the 'Make this Product available for sales' check box to enable your customers to buy it. If not, the product won't be shown at all.

The whole set of main product properties consists of the following sections: General Product Information


The fields are:
  • Product Order is specifies the product number and is generated automatically.
  • Product Type should be selected from the drop-down menu and defines the type the product will belong to. For more information about product types see section 5.3.2.
  • Product Name is just the name of the product as it will be shown on the site.
  • Manufacturer should be selected from the drop-down menu (you can set it up through the 'Static tables' section see details). Enter the code if necessary.
  • Weight defines how much the product weights; the value will be used to define appropriate shipping methods (for more information about shipping see section 7.1). Note that you have to enter only digits, the units are set at the 'Global Settings' section see section 3.1.
  • Product Issue Date indicates the date the product was issued. You can type it or use the calendar on the right.
  • Additional Options allow specifying whether you want to make this product available for comparison or a tax free one.
  • Note: The product comparison is available only from the 'Products' section of your online store.

  • Language specifies the languages the product will be shown for. Note that you can set up different language orders in the 'Static tables' section see details).

Pricing


In order to set the price you have to provide the following information. Note that you have to enter only digits separated with dots; the default currency is set up in the 'Static tables' section see details).
  • Allow customers changing the price makes the price editable, i.e. customers will be able to fix it themselves.
  • Price (List Price) defines the price your customers will buy at.
  • Buying Price defines the price you buy at.
  • Options Price is shown instead of main product price in the sections where options are not displayed, e.g. Special Offers, Top Sellers, Related Products, etc.
  • Activate Discount enables/disable product discounts.
  • Discount Price defines the price with the discount.
  • Shown Discount (%) defines the discount that will be shown to your customers.
  • Note: You can see the preview of what will be shown on the site in the 'Price Preview' section. At the same time a tip marked with (!) sign shows the real figures.

For more pricing options see section 5.4.3.

Description

Here you can enter some description information about the product. With ViArt Shop you can specify a short description (shown when the product is in a list) and a full one (shown at a product details page). Note that the former can be formatted as HTML text or Plain Text. You can also distinguish some special features by entering them in the corresponding field.

Note: There is an ability to add product descriptions in different languages. So, when a user selects a language, the appropriate product description will appear. All you have to do is to write your product descriptions in different languages and put a corresponding language code in front of and behind each of them. For example:
Womans Wool Scarf

Meta Data

By default the title of the page where all the data is shown is the name of the product. But you can change this if necessary. The 'Meta Keywords' and 'Meta Description' fields allow providing the appropriate information.

Special Offer

You are likely to have some special offers sometimes. If there is a one for this product, tick off the corresponding check box and enter the text. Both the product and the description will be shown in the 'Special Offer' block on the main page.

Images

You can specify up to three images for each product: small (shown when the product is in a list), big (shown at a product details page) and super-sized (open in a separate window). You can also specify ALT tags (alternative text) for all the pictures.

Note: You can select a predefined image if you click the 'Select Image' link or upload a new one by clicking the 'Unload New Image' link. In case you want to select a new image you have to upload it first (the 'Unload New Image' link) and then select it (the 'Select Image' link).

There is also a possibility to add more images. For more information see section 5.4.8.

Appearance

With ViArt Shop you are able to set different templates for different products. By default the 'block_product_details.html' template is used. In order to change the appearance of a product you have to copy a new file like 'new_block_product_details.html' into the template folder you currently use (for more information about templates see section 3.4.1). For example, if you use the 'Default' template, you have to copy the new file into the './templates/default' folder and specify its name at the 'Custom Template' field (see the picture below). You can also hide the 'Add to Cart' button on the product list page or the product details page.

Another option is that you can set up product reviews for your customers. To do this you have to provide the URL (absolute or relative) in the ‘Product Preview URL’ field. Since the preview will be displayed in a pop-up window, you may indicate its width and height.

Stock

With ViArt shop you won't have to worry about whether the product is out of stock or not. You can to set the system to do this for you:

  • Use Stock Level enables/disables the stock level control.
  • Quantity In Stock defines the quantity of products you have right now; the system will subtract from this value when the product is purchased.
  • Hide Off Limits Products. If ticked off, the product won't be shown on the site when it is out stock.
  • Disable Off Limits Products. If ticked off, the 'Add to Cart' button will be disabled when the product is out of stock.

Note: You can add a stock level block shown to the customers by using the '{stock_level}' tag.

Downlodable / Software Options

Some of your product can be downloadable. If so, fill out the following fields:

  • Downloadable marks the product as downloadable.
  • Download Period specifies how long the link will be active.
  • Path to Downloadable File specifies the full product address. Note that the link will be encrypted automatically for the security purposes.
  • Activation Options. You can also set the system to generate a random activation number (something like 1234-ABCD-EF12-DF12) and specify the number of activations.

Note: You can also specify the maximum number of downloads allowed from different IP per month (see details).

Shipping

Unless your products are downloadable, you have to set up its delivery. You can provide your customers with some information about product shipping by filling out the following fields:

  • In Stock Availability and Out of Stock Availability specify how long it usually takes to ship the product when it is in or out of stock correspondingly. You can set up your personal shipping time ranges in the 'Static tables' section see details).
  • Shipping Restrictions define the countries you ship to. You can set them up through the 'Static tables' section see details).

Note: For more information about specifying up general shipping settings see section 7.1.

Product Rating

With ViArt Shop your customers can write reviews about the products and rate them as well. This can be a valuable source of information for those who are unfamiliar with the product and want to collect a few opinions. Both the 'Total Votes' and the 'Total Points' are filled out by the system.

Note: In order to get more information about reviews see section 5.8.

Other

Should you have any additional information about the product, you can enter it here. It will be shown to your customers as a part of product description.

Note: ViArt shop allows selling products through the direct links to their original locations on the Web. Enter the full path to the product into the 'Direct Link to buy product' field and the customer will be redirected there by clicking the 'Add to Cart' link. The default category for such products is 'Amazon's affiliates'.

In order to save the changes you made click the 'Update' button.
In order to delete the product click the 'Delete' button.
If you want to leave without saving click 'Cancel'.

If you are adding a new product:

Click the 'Add new' button to add the product.
Click 'Cancel' if you want to leave without saving.

Note: In case you have several similar products, you can simply duplicate them. For more information see section 5.4.11.

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