Can my B2B information site be converted into a store?

[WendyS]

Please may I have some advice?

I run a large-ish (380 pages) B2B company website which is information-driven and also has Spanish and German sections:
www.photonic-products.com.

We decided that we needed to sell online and to convert the existing site into a store using Actinic v9 Business, rather than have 2 separate sites.

I assumed that I would be able just to put "buy now" fields at the end of each product row (the products are presented in tables), see

http://www.photonic-products.com/pro...ioletblue.html

However, after attending training courses, trying to design the store and working through the Advanced Guide, the community and as many help sources as I can find, I am now unsure as to whether this can be done. Actinic seems to be designed (surprisingly enough) as a store and all my technical information and news pages don't seem to have any place to go.

Would you advise me to keep my existing information site as it is and have a link to a store which would remain uncluttered by all the information?

Or is there a way to incorporate all the information?

I am not sure which way to go and I am sure some of you have come across this scenario before and could advise me, please?

[Mark H]

I don't think there is necessarily a "right" answer to this, it depends how much you want to spend. If it was me I would pass it to a designer who is good at Actinic (some on this forum, obviously), tell them to use the design of the existing site (so save some time/money there), and use custom variables to present the technical data (and PDF files) on the product pages, with Actinic possibly linked to an external spreadsheet which holds the data in tabular form (the visitor doesn't see this spreadsheet, it's just there to populate Actinic). Use brochure pages for your news pages. Then erase the old site.

[Chunkford]

Yes it can be done, but i would be careful with the currency's you already have here https://www.shop-photonic-products.com/shop/ as actinic displays 2 at a time, and trades in 1

[I-CC]

The design and your content could be reproduced within v9, where your current information pages (which for the most part) are the actual products, would then have a 'buy' button fully connected into the Actinic cart and so on...

Your biggest issue will be the multiple language aspect, which you would not be able to achieve from a single site deployment, as whilst you could have multiple sections for each product page, in 3 different languages, the checkout would only be possible in 1 language, plus the actual currency would be fixed to GBP or Euro and not an option of both (from a single site).

Possible option is to operate 3 separate sites (English, Spanish and German) for which the Actinic dictionary of error messages and other text is translated for each site to cater for this element and then use a spreadsheet to populate the product into the site.

So, yes is possible, but not within 1 site/deployment of Actinic.

[WendyS]

Can my B2B information site be converted into a store?

Thank you all very much for your help and advice – it gives me hope!

First, to answer Mark H – I wish I could use a designer but unfortunately money is a bit tight and also, not realising how very different Actinic is from website design, html, css and Dreamweaver, I rashly said that I could design and set up the store, using the existing site as the basis. I might as well have volunteered to fix the Hadron Collider at CERN!

I have already worked out (AFAIK) how to do the brochure pages using fragments and have started to work on the product pages, using top level sections, sub-sections and product pages to mirror my existing site structure and have all my products ready in spreadsheets.

To answer Paul - as far as language and currencies go, I am intending to use Drillpine’s Norprice as our customers are mainly in the USA and Europe but I will only convert the English section of the site into an online store and leave the Spanish and German sections as information-only pages until I have some budget and time and understand Actinic a little more. This site (https://www.shop-photonic-products.com/shop/) was set up by a predecessor and can’t be accessed!

In answer to IDM, thank you very much for saying that the design and content of my existing site (www.photonic-products.com) can be reproduced within v9. You have no idea how encouraging that is - I have been in despair over Actinic and my lack of progress.

IDM and Mark both mention populating the product tables from a spreadsheet. Setting up the product pages and displaying the products in table format
(e.g. http://www.photonic-products.com/pro...onic_lens.html)
is the bit I can’t get my head around at all. Is it possible just to import all the data on each product, including the pdf datasheet from a spreadsheet? Is that how you do it? I have been tearing my hair out trying to style divs and tables to line up to display the products and have got precisely nowhere.

Also, and sorry to be asking so many questions, can I mirror my existing site structure and keep all my news pages in a “news” folder, Spanish pages in a “Spanish” folder and pdf datasheets in “datasheet” folders, etc?

Once again, thank you all very much indeed for your help and advice. It is hugely appreciated!!

[I-CC]

Hi,

Whilst I and others have said that it is possible to do what you are after, that is to the greatest extent due to masses of experience with Actinic gained in doing such things in Actinic, and not as a result of it being a couple of clicks and job done.

For the design side of it, if going alone as you say you need to, then you will need to get heavily into the design tab, create your own variables for PDF docs and the like so that you have a basis within which the potential spreadsheet data can be imported into. The advanced user guide on Actinics website will help give you an understanding of variable usage, plus the help in the software etc etc - and afraid not something that can be taught by others on this forum to you fully (yes, minor instructions on how to achieve somethings, but not 'here is the answer to your site design needs, all done'.

For the spreadsheet, you could use flat file (with usage of the flat file convertor that is also installed with the application) or the complete structured 'hierarchical' import method, . Examples of these exist in your installation folders.

Gonna be a steep learning curve, but you will be much better armed and understanding of it all at the end of it I am sure.

Best of luck.

[Mark H]

We are developing a new site where all the product data is held on an external spreadsheet which Actinic dynamically links to (file, external links) rather than imports from. About 15 custom variables (including the URLs of product PDF files) are entered into the spreadsheet with headings such as PRODPDF etc, then custom variables are created in Actinic, linked to the spreadsheet, and these are put in the design where you want them.

At this point you should seriously consider whether you should go SPP (single page per product) or not. With our site as with many others, the main sections show thumbnails (which could also include text data and/or be shown in tabular form) which then link to a SPP. The view of many on the forum is that this is better for SEO, and mandatory for Google Base feeds. Your products are probably less appropriate for SPP than some, but you don't want to have to do this later.

Good luck, it will take time to get it right. We've been working on our new site for about 2 years so far

Or you could go for an easy life and see if they've got a job going at the Hadron Collider.....

[animal dreams]

IMO you would be better to maintain you news, info and language pages as you currently have them and just concentrate on converting your product pages to actinic. ALL pages in actinic (except brochure home page) are kept in a single folder for which you can specific the name.

You can however link you spanish and german pages to the cart using the "add to cart form anywhere" described in the advanced user guide. Currency will still be in GBP if that is your chosen base currency.

Your existing prodcut pages look like section pages to me and I agree with Mark that sinlge prodcut pages would be a better way to go. However you can still add BUY buttons on these pages. Again see AUG for outline, but it will require some very specific layout coding.

Good luck.

[WendyS]

I think I'm off to CERN!

Thank you all for your help and advice - at least I know that what I need to do is possible, even if it takes 2 years!!!! And I will go down the SPP route as you all advised.
I am sure I will be back for more encouragement in no time