new to actinic - need helpppp

[hardy]

hi

this is our website: www.hardys.uk.com

We want to add the price of the items to the page that shows the items because it only says the title, description and 'more'. Just wondering how to do this?

Also, is there a way to add SKUs to each product in actinic?


THANKS

JAMES

[Darren B]

a search and a read up of the AUG would probably benefit you alot. You question is not exactly clear you know what your asking but we dont. your question "We want to add the price of the items to the page that shows the items" a link to the page you mean would be best as every page that shows the product has the price.

as for SKU's yes lots of customised information can be added to a product, the AUG will have all this in it aswell but again were do you want it shown.

Rule of thumb
What you put in is what your get out

[hardy]

Sorry - I should of been a bit clearer. BT did the website for us and have basically dropped me in the deep end as I have no clue what I am doing. I know how to add categories and items. I have an idea of how to use the checkout system but it is not working as far as I can see (they have to use paypal to pay with no option to pay by card).

This is a link to the part where there are no prices:
http://www.hardys.uk.com/acatalog/Kitchenware.html

Q's:

Have you got a link for AUG?

How do you add prices into this page: http://www.hardys.uk.com/acatalog/Kitchenware.html

What would be the best checkout system to use to get started with website sales?

The more content on the site = the higher in google?

How do you analyse how your site is doing (e.g. how many hits you are getting)?



Sorry for all these Questions - BT have basically disregarded me now they have recieved payment......

James

[Paul Bulpit]

Answers to the first three Q's:

Version 10 Advanced User Guide (PDF, 4Mb)

although you may need to read 'Getting Started with Actinic V10' first!

Your site is set up SPP (see Lee's Tutorial) and often doesn't have prices on that page. How to put it in should be in the Guides.....

To have a Payment Provider other than Paypal, you need to organise one first. Actinic Payments comes highly recommended, but before you even get that far you are going to need a Merchant Account. As you have several B&M shops you probably already have one - you will need to speak to your Card Processor to set up an ecommerce account for your website.

Come back when you've done all that!

[NormanRouxel]

Another area that you should look into sooner, rather than later, are your images.

When I look at http://www.hardys.uk.com/acatalog/Kitchenware.html I see 7 images of products. These are HUGE images being scaled down by the browser (and getting somewhat jaggy edges in the process). The first image (the ice brick) is actually 1784px x 1398px in size - large enough to print on a poster but you're only displaying it 250px wide. These images are well over 100Kb in size (leading to a page that's over 1Mb) and will seriously slow down page loads for pages with multiple items.

Using optimised images that are the correct size for the places they are used will speed up your site hugely.

[Paul Bulpit]

You're giving him too much to do!

He'll need an Image Resizer and then SmushIt!

[leehack]

He can also read the image optimisation tutorial on my site to understand what he's doing and of course see my kitten, that is now a cat!

[NormanRouxel]

I know there's a lot needing done. Best to understand and fix the image problem while there's only a handful of products on the site. No point creating lots of new, unoptimised, products and then having to go through the the entire site later to fix them.

Lee's Managing Images In Actinic tutorial is on http://www.websitedesigned.co.uk/actinic-images.htm

[Paul Bulpit]

then having to go through the the entire site later to fix them.

Though for anybody else reading this, using a Folder structure as Lee explains on that page, SmushIt! will handle a folder at a time. It will even (subject to total size constraints) take several folders and retain the structure.

[Jan]

With regard to SKU's by default Actinic will automatically generate product references for you, however if you go to business settings / options, you can switch this off and enter a 20 character code for your reference, you could use this for an SKU.

I would recommend changing the pictures at the top of the home page, they don't really suit your site, you have got some fab products on there already and your prices look really keen, you have lots of potential with this site.

If you don't want to do the tweaks yourself, there are a lot of designers on here that could potentially do them for you. It might be worth getting someone to have a look. I find that to be a more efficient way of working, I could probably do my own design but I feel that I get better results by bringing an expert in.

Regards,

[hardy]

This is all brilliant stuff guys thanks alot. I am use to ebay selling so the pics didn't even cross my mind. I'm OK with photoshop which I will resize the pictures with.

I will stick with the design of the site until I have got all of my products listed (may take a while!)


Sorry if I have missed this when reading through all the answers:

Will adding more products take us higher on google (I think we will have a total product range of approx 200 items)?

How on this page: http://www.hardys.uk.com/acatalog/Camping.html
Do I get the prices to show up? It has got it on the home page but not on this one (The layout on actinic shows that they are sub-sections and click on the subsection to take it through to the product).



Thanks for all the answers though!

[Paul Bulpit]

How on this page: http://www.hardys.uk.com/acatalog/Camping.html
Do I get the prices to show up? It has got it on the home page but not on this one

We see that you have managed to change the 'Home' page by introducing 'New Products'. These use a layout which, though it looks similar to you, is different to the Section Links we were talking about before.

As before, please RTFM!

Find out which Section Link Layout you are using, locate it in Design | Library then right click | Edit. Where you want the price to display, right click | Insert Layout. Scroll to 'Price Layout' and click Insert.

See what happens. If you don't like it (or muck it up completely) go back to the Library, right click the layout then click 'Revert To Factory Settings'.

It's a bit more involved than that but we've all got businesses to run.... somebody else might answer the Google question, though it's the least of your worries at the moment.