Custom Vantage Web™ How to Change Settings in Your Website—Part 4

Custom Vantage Web™
How to Change Settings in Your Website—Part 4
 
by Becky Skelley
 
Introduction
 
This month we continue our journey through the Settings Tab with the Payment section, Product Reviews section, and Returns section. As you may already know, Stamp Shop Web is a complete shopping cart system that allows automatic payment for your customers. Setup of automatic payment can be done by following a few simple steps and in no time you will be receiving paid orders from your customers. Here at Connectweb Technologies, Inc. we strive to provide our customers with variety. The depth of the Settings tab is proof, and with all the options available every SSW customer can setup a unique experience for their customers’ payment, product review, and return experience
 
Steps to Follow
 
Payment
 
To begin, as with all Stamp Shop Web lessons, first sign-in to the admin area of your Stamp Shop Web site. Once you are logged in, click the Settings Tab. Next click the Payment Options menu link located on the far left of the window (see Picture -1).
 
 
The Payment Options section contains the most important information regarding your site’s setup. This section contains the settings that will determine how your customers will checkout. The Payment Options are divided into sub-sections where you can check the box to allow the option to be provided to your customers (see Picture -2).
 
 
The first sub-section contains all settings related to payment by Credit Card. Once you check the box to allow payment by Credit Card you must click the button, Select CC Processor to setup your Credit Card Processor.  Within the Credit Card Processors screen there is a list of pre-approved processors that work with Stamp Shop Web (see Picture-3).
 
 
As a default, when you purchase Stamp Shop Web the option Offline/Manual Credit Card Processor is chosen. This option allows you to accept payment by Credit Card, however the card is not charged until you manually process the payment (the way you would process non-web charges). To setup a processor, click the Edit button (see Image-3 for highlighted example). Next you will see the Edit Credit Card Processor screen (Picture -4) where you can enter the processor’s information. Once the information has been entered click the Save Settings button. Most processors allow for you to use a test URL, this feature allows you to place test orders on your site. Next click the Continue>> button to return to the Payment Options screen.
 
 
Getting back to the Payment Options screen, below the Select CC Processor button you may set which credit cards will be accepted (Picture -5). Check the box next to the cards you would like to accept. Below this section you may type instructions. As a default, there are instructions to the customer, typed for you, however feel free to customize the text. Below this section is the CC Failed message. This box contains the text that your customer will see when their credit card fails to be charged. It is also customizable text, click inside the box to edit.
 
 
The next sub-section is regarding payment by PayPal.  If you check the box to allow payment by PayPal during the checkout process your customers will temporarily leave your site to sign-in to their PayPal account on PayPal’s website. There they will pay for the transaction and return back to your site to complete the order. Within this sub-section you will need to enter your PayPal username.
 
The next sub-section, Allow Payment by PayPal Express, relates to the PayPal processor. To use this feature you must have an account setup with PayPal Express. This option differs from PayPal because it is simply the processor portion. Your customers will not leave your Stamp Shop Web site during the checkout process.
 
Allow Payment by Purchase Order sub-section contains all options regarding payment by purchase order. A fairly new feature to this option is being able to limit the use of Purchase orders to selected customers only. When you check the box to limit the use, you must go to the Users tab and edit each user that you would like to grant permission to check out with a purchase order (Picture -6).
 
 
The next few sub-sections Allow Payment by Telephone, Fax, E-mail or by Check are pretty straightforward with what they do. However, you may edit the description and instructions fields for each section, as well as the Telephone, Fax, E-mail and Check words.  Each word may be altered by utilizing the Site Term feature. For instance, you may want to Allow Payment by Money Order. To make this change you would edit the Site Term (Check) and change it to Money Order. We will discuss Site Terms in further depth in a future installment. Once you have completed setup of your Payment Options be sure to scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the Save Changes button.
 
Product Review
 
Did you know you can allow your customers to write reviews of all the products on your website? Let’s continue our review of the Settings Tab with an explanation of the Product Reviews option. On the far left of the screen click the Product Reviews link (Picture-7). Once on the Product Reviews Option screen you will see a list of options. Here you can check the box next to each option to set the option as active on your site. If you choose to allow product reviews to be written, you can also set if they will appear at the bottom of the product detail page (Picture -8). To write a review, a customer simply clicks the link, Write a Review, which appears directly underneath the Add to Cart button on the product detail page.
 
 
 
 
Additionally, you can set if the reviews will be moderated. If you choose to moderate reviews, customers will be able to write the review and submit it. Then you will see a Moderate Review link on the Home tab of your admin area (Picture -9) where you can read through and approve, edit or delete each review. Once you approve the review it will appear at the bottom of the product detail page.
 
 
The Allow Product Rating option provides customers with a drop down menu on the review screen. They may choose from 1-5 stars to be assigned to their review.  The Allow Karma Score provides the customer with an option to set the Karma Score. The last option in this section allows you to set how many customer reviews will appear per product. If you have made any changes within this section be sure to click the OK button located at the bottom of the screen.
 
Returns
 
As with all stores, there must be a plan in place for when a customer would like to return a purchased item. Within Stamp Shop Web’s Settings Tab, the Returns section is just that place. Located directly beneath the Product Reviews menu option is the Returns menu option (Picture -10).
 
 
Click the link to see the Return Request Form Settings. Here you can enable the return form, which allows customers, when signed in their account to see the form (Picture -11). This form contains their original order information, the item to be returned information and the reason behind the return. The option, E-mail return request to is where you would type the email address that will receive the return request forms.
 
 
And that concludes our review of the Payment Options, Product Reviews, and Returns sections within the Settings Tab. As you may have guessed, we are chipping away at the Settings Tab month by month to fully divulge its vast benefits to you the Stamp Shop Web user. Stay tuned for next month’s article when we continue our review of the Settings Tab with a full review of the Shipping section and much more!