Configuring your checkout
Testing your checkout
Proper testing of your checkout functions requires uploading the shopping cart to your server. Please see Chapter 6 for information on how to publish your store then return to this section for complete information concerning testing your checkout functions. Don’t confuse “publishing” with “going live”
By suggesting that you publish your store to test its checkout functions RealCart is not asking that you place your store “live” or “open for business” just yet. In fact, unless you have a link to the “cart” folder on your web site to “http://www.yourdomain.com/cart” then nobody will ever even know that the cart folder has been added to your server. If you don’t tell your web visitors that the cart folder is there then they won’t find it and cannot try to place orders while you test your store.
After publishing
After you have successfully published your on-line store you should be able to place a test order in the context that an actual web shopper would. Only by testing it on-line will you know if your checkout functions are complete and working. Here is how we recommend that you test your on-line store:
- Go through your on-line store and Add to Cart one or more products. (Your order must total at least .01¢ to properly test your store)
- Click the Checkout button.
- If you published your store in Test Mode this process will go quicker.
- With all of the required fields filled in, click the Next button at the bottom of the checkout form.
- You should receive an email shortly containing the order info.
If you have problems when testing your on-line store check the info in the next section.
Going Live
After you have fully tested the shopping cart and you are receiving orders OK and everything seems to work, it is time to open your store for business by making it available to your web visitors. This can be done by simply adding a link to your on-line store somewhere on your web site’s main page.
A good way to add the link to your on-line store is by replacing previous Order Form, Products, Catalog or other “product listing” type links with a new link to your on-line store. If you have no such links already on your site you can usually get away with just one link to your on-line store from your site’s main page.
To make it even easier to find your on-line store you may choose to place a link to your new store on every page of your site. Just make sure that the link always loads either Full Screen or in a new window so that the store navigation can work properly. If you are unsure about how to add or change a link on your web site you may want to consult a web site developer or look into an on-line web tutorial about HTML.
When you publish RealCart to your web site, the shopping cart program does not alter your existing web site. There is no way for someone to know that you have an on-line store until you make a link to it on your existing web site. You can use your favorite web site editor like FrontPage, DreamWeaver or a text editor in order to add a link to your new store. This link should point to your cart folder on your web server.
For example: If your web address is http://www.123.com then you would want to add a link to your site that points to http://www.123.com/cart/. The html code might look something like this:
<a href="http://www.123.com/cart/">Browse our on-line store</a>
If you are not the one who originally created your web site and you would rather not fill your head with code, or if you don’t have a WYSIWYG web page editor, you may want to look into hiring a web site developer to make this simple change to your web site. The cost for doing this should not be much at all.
Publish your store. Add a link to your new store. That’s all there is to it! Happy Selling!
Going Un-Live
Or is that going dead? In all seriousness, if you should ever need to take your new on-line store OFFline you will want to remove these links to your on-line store so your web visitors will not be able to load your cart.
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