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- Enable Shop. Simply set it to "No", and your front-end will display the maintenance page to your visitors, which simply states that your shop will soon be back online.
- Maintenance IP. This is where you must put your own IP address, so that you can still get access to your front page, and browse your shop as if it was available to all. This is a must-do every time you put your shop in maintenance mode, as you will always need to browse your front-end so as to make sure everything is in place as intended.
Simply click on the "Add my IP" button. You can add more IP addresses by separating them with commas.
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If you are already decided on your theme and products, you can simply put your shop in Catalog mode. This means that customers can browse your shop, but no price will be displayed, and they won't be able to add anything to their cart until you disable the Catalog mode. You can activate the Catalog mode by going to the "Preferences / Products" page, where it is the first option. |
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The iPod Touch from the default installation is tied to the sample order (made by sample customer John Doe), and thus cannot be deleted until the order is deleted. Therefore, in order to delete this product, you first need to delete this sample order. To safely delete the default order (and thus be able to delete the iPod from your catalog), install the "PrestaShop cleaner" module (which is available in the default installation since v1.5.4see above), open its configuration screen and check the "Orders and customers" box before you click on the "Check & fixDelete Orders & Customers" button. |
Configure your shop's information
Now that you have a clean shop, you can start making it your own, and that implies setting everything up to your likings, starting with your personal information and your preferences.
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The shop's basic settings
You should pay attention to the following settings, most of which are important because they are displayed on the front-office.
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Configuring a module is easy:
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Setting | Description | Where to find it |
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Shop name | Defines your brand, most notably on search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing...). | "Preferences" menu, "Store Contacts" page, then in the "Contact details" section, click edit the shop "Shop name" option. |
Shop logo | Defines your brand visually. The default logo says "YourLogoHere" as an incentive to use yours. | "Preferences" menu, "Themes" page, "Appearance" section, then change the various default images to your logo. |
Default shop currency | The currency in which you want to set the default price for your products. | "Localization" menu, "Localization" page, "Configuration" section. |
Customer service info | A block presenting the phone number for your customer service, and a button to send you an e-mail. | "Block contactContact block" module. |
Company info / | A block presenting your contact address, the phone number for your customer service, and a link to send you an e-mail. | "Block contact infos" module. |
Advertising | A block presenting an image with a link to another site. | "Block advertising" module. |
Image slider | The slider presents several images, scrolling one after the other. It is a strong visual signature for your store and products. | "Image slider for your homepage" module. |
CMS pages | The content of static pages, such as "About Us", "Delivery", "Legal Notice", "Terms and Conditions", and "Secure Payment". Some of them have default content, which you should adapt to your business; some others are empty, and you should paste your own text. | "Preferences" menu, "CMS" page, then edit each page and create pages at will. |
| Social networks | A block presenting three links: your company's Facebook page, your company's Twitter account, and the RSS feed for your company's blog (or "current events" site). | "Social networking block" module. |
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The currently enabled language(s) have a green check mark"Yes", while the others have a red "XNo". Click on a green mark "Yes" to disable the selected language; click on a red "XNo" to enable it back.
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You can install and enable all available many languages if you think your shop needs them, but be aware that you will have to translate your content for all of the available enabled languages: product namenames, descriptiondescriptions, tags; , category name names and description; descriptions, static content (CMS pages); , etc. |
You can easily import many more languages in the "Localization / Localization" page, and then enable them in the "Localization / Languages" page.
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Should you have people helping you with your shop , be (whether they are your spousefamily, your friends or paid employees), you should make sure to create an employee account for each of them, them – if only to know who is responsible for which has performed which recent action. The other advantage is that you can give them specific profiles and specific access rights to the administration pages: for instance, you might not want everyone to have access to your statistics, your invoices or your payment settings.
You can create as many profiles as needed.
To create a new employee account, go to the "Administration" menu, select "Employees", and click the "Add new employee" button. Fill in Give it a name, such as "Martin Doe" or "Shipping handler", and save.
An account can be used for as many people as needed – but we do advise you to create one for each helping person.
Now that you have a proper account for this employee, you should give it that account specific permissions, tailored to the accountemployee's activity. An account can be used for as many people as needed – but we do advise you to create one for each helping persontasks. By default, a new profile cannot do much. It is up to you to set exactly the parts of your shop to which that profile should have access. It can be a tedious task, but it is an important one.
To assign permissions to an employee account, you must use the "Profile" option in the account creation page: this menu lets you pick the account's profile (SuperAdmin, translator, etc.)
You can edit these permissions this way: go to the "Administration" menu, select "Permissions", and select the profile you want to change. A long list of permissions appears.
You can create as many profiles as needed, by using the "Profiles" page in the "Administration" menu, and then clicking on "Add new". Type the profile's name, validate it, then go edit its permission in the "Permissions" page.
By default, a new profile cannot do much. It is up to you to set exactly the parts of your shop to which that profile should have access. It can be a tedious task, but it is an important one.
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: edit them at will. Your changes are saved automatically.
Configure your payment methods
Your shop is meant to earn money, and this can only become a reality if you use at least one payment module. 16 Several modules are already available in the default install, which you can install and configure (from the "Modules" page under the "Module" menu, in the "Payments & Gateways" category), and create restrictions for them (in the "Payments & Gateways" page under the "Modules" menu). Many payment modules require you to first set up an account on the service they were built for.
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You can also install other payment modules, downloaded from the Addons marketplace: http://addons.prestashop.com/en/4-payments-gateways.-prestashop-modules
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Check and bank wire are the only two payment methods which are enabled by default. If you choose to keep them, you need to configure them with your information: check order and address, account owner, bank details (IBAN, BIC, etc.). These payment methods are configured through the "Bank Wire" and "Check" modules, which you can find in the "Payments & Gateways" category or of the modules list. |
Configure carriers and shipment
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Whether you are sending your products yourself by regular post office mail, or you have set up a contract with a carrier, you should set this information within PrestaShop.
See the "Managing Shipping" chapter of this guide in order to learn about shipping and carriers.
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Merchandise return is not enabled by default. If you want to allow your customers to return products and get a refund or a voucher, you can do it in the "Merchandise return (RMA) options" of the "Merchandise return" page, under the "Orders" menu. |
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Your shop should have its own theme in order to have a distinctive style, and therefore be more recognizable, separating it from the numerous other online shops online.
There are many themes to choose from on the PrestaShop Addons marketplace: http://addons.prestashop.com/en/3-templates-prestashop.
You can also choose to create your own theme, or have it created for you by a developer. Refer to the online Designer Guide for help, at Designer Guide.
Once your theme is installed, you should explore it fully in order to know it by heart and be able to help customers out of a situation. Read its documentation carefully.
You can and should customize some of the theme's aspects, most notably its logo in various situations (header, mail, invoice, etc.). This is done using the "Themes" preferences page, which you can find under the "Preferences" menu.
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Every time you activate and configure a module, make sure that it does work well within the confines of your theme, in case its features impact your shop's front-end. |
Create your products and product categories
This is described in details in the next chapter, "Adding Products and Product Categories" chapter.
Create your static content
If you haven't done this already, you should take the time to write the content for the various CMS static pages which are either already available in your PrestaShop installation, or ones that you feel are needed.
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The default pages are "About Us", "Delivery", "Legal Notice", "Terms and Conditions", and "Secure Payment". Some of them have default content, which you should update; some others are empty, and you should paste your own text.
To edit these pages, go to the "Preferences" menu, click the "CMS" page, then choose the page you want to edit, or create new ones.
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Your shop should now be fully ready to receive its first visitors... and take its first orders!