Online Store Builder, Ecommerce Software, Shopping Cart Manual: Adding Categories

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Adding Categories - The First Step

By creating the appropriate Product Categories, the products in your online store / catalog will appear well organized and can easily be found by customers (i.e. type, brand, location, etc.). The FORTUNE3 E-Commerce Software and Shopping Cart Wizard software allows you to display unlimited nested categories (multiple levels of sub-categories) in the same way as they appear on the shelves of your store / warehouse, or as it has been printed on the catalog of your company.

On your site, sub-categories can be shown in two different ways. You can choose an expandable menu which allows your sub-categories to pop out in a window when the mouse is over the main category name. The other option is to show it as a non expanding menu. This will allow the user to click on the main category they wish to enter and the category page will then show the menu with all of its sub-categories. These settings can be changed from the More Settings - Menu Options button in the My Web Pages section of the Fortune3 Wizard.

To add a Main (1st Level) Category, right-click on the "My Products" icon all the way on the top of the Tree; click on Add "Product Category" from the menu and click on Add "Sub-Category" from the menu.

Category Fields - Basic Info

Name: This is a required field. This is the field that represents your category. Your web store's navigation menu contains the category Name field for each category on your Tree. Therefore, because of the space limit for the menu, this field is limited to 24 characters.

Description: This is a required field. Use this field to write a description for your category and possibly the type of products it contains. Click on Edit HTML to edit the description and its format with the WYSIWYG / HTML Editor. This field will support general HTML tags to further enhance the appearance of the text and is limited to 250 characters (see HTML Tags for more details). For larger category descriptions, you may use the Additional Description field.

Additional Description: Use this field to add a larger description for your category. This field will support a much larger number of characters than the Description field. The "Place Additional Text" drop-down menu will allow you to choose where you want the Additional Description to show up on each of your category pages. It can either come up before the list of products, or after it. Click on Edit HTML to edit the additional description and its format with the WYSIWYG / HTML Editor. This field will support general HTML tags to further enhance the appearance of the text and is not limited in its number of characters (see HTML Tags for more details).

Image: You may Browse for an Image if you would like your Category to be represented by an Image. Images can have a maximum file size of 500kb. That size should be large enough for an image that is up to 1200 pixels wide and in normal-high resolution. The only acceptable image file types are .jpg .jpeg .gif and .png.

More Info:

Category-based Discounts can also be incorporated into each of your categories. Each of your categories may offer a percentage discount for a 2nd product purchase for products within the same category (Products beyond this point may reflect a 2nd product discounted by a percentage - Buy one, get the 2nd Product Discounted by ___%). For each product and set of options within this category, you will be able to select whether or not that product is eligible for this discount. The discount will be advertised on your category pages and on the product pages for each of the products that participates in the discount.

Important Note: When using this discount option, the least expensive product of the two will be the one the discount will apply itself to, not necessarily the "Second" chosen product.

Show Category On:

Retail & Wholesale Websites - This is selected by default. Choosing this option will display this category on both Retail & Wholesale

Retail Website Only - Choosing this option will display this category

NOTE: If this box is grayed out, this means you do not have your site set up for Retail. In order to enable your site for Retail, go to the 'My Company' Section, and click on 'Retail Options'. Enable your Retail Site by clicking on the checkbox.

Wholesale Website Only - Choosing this option will display this category on the Wholesale site only.

NOTE: If this box is grayed out, this means you do not have your site set up for Wholesale. In order to enable your site for Wholesale, go to the 'My Company' Section, and click on 'Wholesale Options'. Enable your Wholesale Site by clicking

Do Not Show - Choosing this option will keep this category from being displayed on the site at all. You can use this to temporarily disable or hide a category.

Webpage Info:
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Webpage Meta Tags/Properties: In this area, you can designate your own custom Webpage Meta Tags and assign a filename for this category's web page(s). If you do not wish to do this, leave these text areas blank, and the software will create default values for these fields based on the information you have entered into the Name and Description fields for this category - and though these default values will not be visible on the software itself, they will be on your site. You can specify the web page's Title, Description, Keywords and Filename. This is mainly available for you to optimize your pages for search engines. If any of these fields are left blank, FORTUNE3's default optimization will be used for that field on this category's web page(s).

Title - The title and title Meta Tag for this category's web page(s). The title appears on the top title bar of browsers, and is used by search engines to display a title for this category's web page(s), and possibly to determine where to position this category's web page(s) on their search results. Leave blank to use FORTUNE3's Default Title Optimization for this page (which is based on the category name).
Description - A description and description Meta Tag for this category's web page(s). This will be used by search engines to display a description for this category's web page(s) on their search results page (under the title), and possibly to determine where to position this category's web page(s) on their search results. Leave blank to use FORTUNE3's Default Description Optimization for this page (which is based on the category name and description).
Keywords - Will be used as the keywords Meta Tag by search engines to determine the ranking and positioning for this category's web page(s) on their search results when people search for your keywords. Because search engines prefer it, every keyword entered here will be separated by a comma on the category's web page(s), even if you do not separate the words with commas on this field. Please remember these are keywords, not key phrases. Leave blank to use FORTUNE3's Default Keywords Optimization for this page (which is based on the category name.
Filename - The name of the html file for this category's web page(s). Simply enter the name, do not enter .html at the end. If the filename you enter has already been assigned to another category or product, or if your category is divided into several pages (because there are too many products to fit in one page), the system will automatically add a number to the end of the filename (Filename_2.html). Leave blank to use FORTUNE3's Default Filename for this page (which is based on the category name).

Search Toolbar Options

The FORTUNE3 Wizard allows you to customize the way the Search/Sort Toolbar looks, functions, and the filtering and sorting options it contains on each of your categories, for more help concerning "Search Toolbar Options" please click here.

Copy Setting to All Categories: Clicking this button will copy the "Search Toolbar Options" of the of the category you are currently inspecting to all other categories in "My Products" Tree.

When finished, click on "Save & Close". You can continue adding categories and sub-categories until the desired structure of your E-Commerce Webster's navigation menu is complete.

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