Getting Started
Setting up a test product - 10 minutes
The Product Wizard allows you to quickly and easily define your products as well as integrate your existing product pages into your new on-line store. For the purpose of our Quick Start try to define one test product for now. It doesn’t have to have any images, choices or features. Try to put up a test product or two in less than 15 minutes.
Before you start adding products “for real” it would be advisable if you were to assemble some basic information about your product line. To see the complete list of the things you should know before adding products see our Plan Ahead section.
Choosing product names
Choosing good product names can affect things like the layout of your page as well as the ability for your checkout system to report the entire order to you instead of just part of it. Some systems have limited space available for the order details (what is actually being purchased) so choose product names wisely. Typically the “Short Name” needs to be pretty short. Typing really long names here could make your checkout inoperative. Keep short names below 25 characters. For now just type something quick in here. We can always change it later.
Product Descriptions
Product descriptions in RealCart allow for unparalleled customization capabilities by allowing you to include HTML in your product descriptions. You can have images, bold, italic, headlines or any other valid HTML codes. Keep in mind that you do not have to use html. You can use simple text for your descriptions as well.
If you want to create paragraphs (with a blank line between them) then you may want to at least add the HTML code for 2 line breaks: <br><br>. Place this simple code between paragraphs in your product description area and you will have separate paragraphs instead of everything running together. For now just type a three or four word description and go on.
Existing Product Pages
RealCart allows you to utilize your existing products pages on your web site by allowing you to create a More Info Link. This link can be the address to an existing page on your web site or the page on the manufacturers web site that describes the product in more detail. For now leave this blank. We can always change it later.
Departments
RealCart allows unlimited departments to be defined. We have taken great pains to make sure it is easy to add products to your departments, allow your products to appear in multiple departments as well as the ability to re-order the products in any order you want.
Sub departments are possible too if you don’t mind getting your hands wet into a little web page editing with FrontPage or which ever HTML editor you are comfortable with. For more info on sub departments just click here.
Product Pricing
RealCart allows for flexible pricing options to make it easier to sell products that have optional features. For example. If you have products that come in different sizes or quantities you can set these products up on one product page and simply “charge extra” if your customer chooses a quantity larger than the default quantity. To see how to do this refer to the product options pricing page. For now just use a price of $1.00 for testing purposes. We will likely delete this test product later after you have fully tested your store.
When you add some actual products later on you can utilize the product options to prepackage several quantities of your products together to allow quantity discounts. You can also specify a default quantity to appear in the Qty field of your product pages.
Sales Tax - GST - VAT
RealCart allows you to specify whether a product is subject to sales tax or GST by clicking a checkbox in the product wizard. You can also specify sales tax, GST and or VAT tax rates in the checkout wizard. Check this checkbox for your test product and click “Next >>”.
Product Weight
Shipping calculations can be based on product weight. For downloadable items set an item weight of 0.00 and your customer will not be charged shipping as long as you offer free shipping in your shipping charges settings. Currently RealCart does not dynamically communicate with shippers such as UPS and FedEx although we are anxiously awaiting a gateway from either of these carriers that will allow RealCart to “talk to” either of these popular shipping companies. For your test product add a product weight of 1.
Product options
Our test product will not have any product options. For now just click “Next >>” to continue.
RealCart allows powerful option capabilities for your products with our product options manager. A typical product choice might be
to specify color choices or sizes that also result in an additional charge like:
Selecting either Large or Jumbo will add $2.00 and $5.00 respectively to the price of the product your customer is buying. For more on the power of product options go here.
Product Images
It is possible to design a very attractive store without being a talented web designer. Simply make all of your thumbnail images the same width. As long as you are re-sizing your images with an editor that allows automatic proportional re-sizing you should get pretty good results.
For your test product choose a small image for your thumbnail image if desired and leave Zoom image set to No. Then click “Next >>” to continue.
Product Features
You can have an unlimited amount of features defined for each product. Product features typically display in your department pages. Keep the product features short and to the point.
Our test product will not have any product features. For now just click “Next >>” to continue.
eBay Information
RealCart makes listing on eBay super easy. You can even contact your winning bidder from within the RealCart product wizard. We won’t be listing anything on eBay until we get the shopping cart fully tested. We will explore the powerful eBay features a little later on.
For now just click “Finish” to continue on to the checkout wizard. (Then click the Next button below)
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