Build Your Store - Getting Started with the Admin Panel

Getting Started with the Admin Panel

The Admin Panel is the interface you use to run your online store. With it, you can view basic financial status information, add and update product information, manage customer information, and more.

Accessing the Admin Panel

The Admin Panel is a special, password-protected page on your store site. To access it, you need to know the URL of your store site and the administrative password that you created when you signed up.

1. Using a standard web browser, navigate to the URL that you specified in the Magento go setup wizard with the addition of the suffix /admin or the custom domain that you specified during installation. For example, if you specified mywebstore.com as the base URL, then usehttp://www.mywebstore.com/admin to access your admin panel. Alternatively, you can also navigate to your store’s admin panel by specifying the URL http://mywebstore.gostorego.com/admin.
   The following login page appears:
   
2. Sign in using the user name and password you created during the sign-up process.
3. Click Login.

What You Can Do in the Admin Panel

The Admin Panel gives you complete control over your store. Some tools are used only during initial setup and occasional maintenance, and others are used routinely. Here is a brief description of the major tools that are available to you:

Dashboard: The Dashboard shows you important information about the performance of your store. You can view information about sales, orders, search terms, customers, and more.

Sales: The Sales item in the toolbar connects you to various tools for viewing and managing financial information about your store.

Catalog: These tools enable you to build and manage your product catalog.

Design: This is where you go to manage the look and feel of your store’s website.

Customers: Use these tools to manage information about your customers.

Promotions: These tools help you to manage sales promotions.

Newsletter: If you have a newsletter that you email to customers, this tool enables you to manage the subscriber list.

CMS: The CMS tools enable you to manage the non-catalog content of your site.

Reports: Use these tools to view reports covering various aspects of your store.

System: These tools help you manage various administrative aspects of your store and websites.

Build Your Store - Getting Started - Planning Ahead

Planning Ahead

Before you get started with your Magento Go store, you need to do some advance planning. This article contains guidance on some of the things you will need to think about before you start working with the Magento Go tools. This list is limited to those items that are directly addressed by Magento Go, and is not intended to be comprehensive. There are many books, magazines, and online resources to help you with more general questions about starting your own business.

Your Product Line

What are you selling? Are they items that become obsolete or go out of style quickly? If so, how are you going to keep your product line fresh? Are you selling items that come in different sizes, colors, or formats? How will you organize your catalog so that your customers can easily find what they want? Can some of your products be bundled together with other items? Are there cross-sell and up-sell opportunities with your product line? How will you determine your price points? How will you handle backorder situations? What about returns? How will you manage and track your inventory? How often will you update your product catalog?

Your Brand

Who are your competitors? How are you going to distinguish yourself from them? How are you going to spread the word about your store? How are you going to get your customers to remember you? What is your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy? How will you measure its effectiveness? Do you have a logo? Do you have a tagline? What is your target demographic? What do they need and want, and how do you reach them most effectively?

Your Customers

How are you going to stay in touch with your customers? How will they contact you if they have a question or problem? If you will offer phone contact, what hours of the day will you be available by phone? Will phone contact be for order taking as well as customer support? How are you going to track and manage customer problems?

Your Transactions

What payment options will you provide? What shipping options? How will you determine shipping and handling charges? How will calculate taxes? Will you support gift cards (virtual, physical, or both)? What about promotion code discounts? What will your turnaround time be, and how will you meet that goal?

Bulid Your Store - Getting Started - Add Your Logo to Your Website

Add Your Logo to Your Website

Design > Themes Editor > Design Settings Editor > Headings Settings

Overview

Your Magento Go store is driven by a powerful templating system that allows you to fully control the look and feel of your web store. To make it easy for you to make the changes you want, Magento Go provides a set of easy-to-use design editors that allow you to set up and customize much of your store right from the Admin Panel, without editing any code. But for more advanced web designers, you can also create custom CSS files to control your store’s formatting directly to achieve exactly the look you want.

Your store logo is displayed in the upper-left of the header area of your Magento Go website. It serves as branding for your store as well as a clickable link back to the home page. This article will help you add your custom logo to your web store.

How to do it:

1. Open the Theme Editor and select your theme.

• In the Admin Panel, go to the Design menu and select the Theme Editor option.
  Your store’s custom theme should be shown in the position in the upper left of the list. If it’s not, follow the directions in “Picking a Theme” to create a starting theme that you can begin to modify to match your brand and needs.

2. Use the Theme Customization Editor to add your logo.

• Under your theme's thumbnail image, click the Customize button to go to the Theme Customization Editor
• Once in the Theme Customization Editor, select the Design Settings Editor tab on the left.
• Click on the Header Settings bar to expand that panel. 
• In the Logo pane, click the Browse... button to locate your logo on your computer and upload it to magento Go for this theme.
• Click on the [ Save ] or [ Save and Continue Edit ] button in the upper right to upload your logo and save your changes.

3. Preview your changes.

• Click the Preview button in the upper right to see what your logo looks like in this theme.
  TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS: If your logo is pushing the rest of the design and header around, it may be too large. You can right-click on the original logo image in your browser and select the “Image properties” option to see what the pixel dimensions of that image are and resize your logo accordingly and re-upload it.
  If you don’t want to change the size of your logo and like it large, skip to the section on “Modifying your CSS” for tips on how to change the CSS styles in the header to accommodate your logo.

Bulid Your Store - Getting Started - Where to Find Help

Where to Find Help

Magento provides a wide range of support resources to help you get up and running in a hurry. Please let us know how we can be of assistance!

	Knowledge Base The Magento Go Knowledge Base is continually updated the latest information. You’ll find a link to the Knowledge Base in the top navigation of the Magento Go site, and in the Admin panel of your store.
Video Tutorials A picture is worth a thousand words! Check our support site for the latest Magento Go video tutorials.
	Community Forum Here’s a chance to meet other users, share tips, and ask questions. Be sure to join the Magento Go community, so you can learn, and also share your experience and knowledge with others.
Support Site Have a question? Please let us know how we can help you succeed! To access our support site, click the Support link in the upper-right corner of the Admin panel.
	Blog Keep up with the latest product news, trends, and featured stores on the Magento Go blog!
Webinars Sign up to attend a free webinar, taught by a Magento expert.
	Guides Learn everything you need to know about building your store by downloading complete set of documentation from our website.

Bulid Your Store - Getting Started - Your Login Credentials

Your Login Credentials

Welcome to the Magento community! You are now a member of the fastest-growing and most dynamic community of eCommerce merchants and developers in the world! But before you go any further, let’s make sure you have all the information you need to access your Magento Go account and services.

	Welcome Email The Welcome email and log in instructions you received contain important information about your account. Make sure to keep them in a safe place where they can be easily found.
Store URL The store URL takes you to the Home page of your store. It is based on the domain name you chose when you opened your account. If you installed the sample data, it may look something like this: mystore.gostorego.com
	Admin URL The admin URL takes you to the login page to the “back office” Admin panel of your store. The address is the same as for your store, but ends with “/admin,” like this: mystore.gostorego.com/admin
Your Magento Account Your Magento account provides access to information about your current products and services, account settings, billing history, and support resources. Simply visit the Magento Go site and click the Log In link.  Go there now!

Bulid Your Store - Getting Started - The Path to Purchase

The Path to Purchase

The path a visitor follows through your store which leads to a sale is called the path to purchase. The termconversion refers to the process of transforming a visitor into a paying customer. Here are the typical pages in your Magento Go store that a shopper may visit at each step along the way.

	Home Page Your Home page is like the front display window of your store. It is the primary landing page of your site, and is designed to entice visitors to come inside for a closer look.
Product List This page lists items that the shopper wants to see. The selection can be based on category or product attribute, such as price, size, color, and so on. Any item can be examined more closely, or placed directly into the shopping cart.
	Product View The Product View page provides detailed information about a specific item. Shoppers can read reviews, add it to their wishlist, compare it to other products, share the link with a friend, and most importantly, place the item into their shopping cart.
Shopping Cart The Shopping Cart lists each item by price and quantity selected, and calculates the subtotal. Shoppers can apply discount coupons and gift cards, and generate an estimate for shipping and tax charges.
	Checkout During Checkout, the necessary billing, shipping, and payment information is gathered to complete the order. New customers can open an account or if allowed, checkout as a guest. Regular customers can speed through checkout by logging in to their accounts.
Review Order The final step in the checkout process is to review the order, including any additional charges, and approve the purchase. This visitor is now your customer!

Bulid Your Store - Getting Started -Sample Content Pages

Sample Content Pages

Magento Go comes with several default content pages that you can use to get started. At the very least, you will need to update the Home, About Us, and Customer Service pages to replace the sample data with content that is suitable for your store. The other pages do not contain sample data, but can be improved by incorporating the visual presentation and voice of your brand.

	Home This sample Home page is based on the “2 columns with right bar” layout. The main content area of this page includes a static image and a dynamic list of new products.
About Us This sample About Us page is based on the “1 column” layout, but uses HTML to create three columns of text. You can use this page as a template, or try a different approach. By default, a link to the About Us page appears in the footer of your store.
	Customer Service Customer Service This sample Customer Service page is based on the “3-columns” layout, and can be used as a template for your own information. By default, a link to the Customer Services page appears in the footer of your store.
Page Not Found The “404” Page Not Found page is based on the “2 columns with left bar” layout, and is named for the response code that is returned when a page cannot be found. This page appears if there is a broken link on your site, or if a URL to a page no longer exists.
	Enable Cookies The Enable Cookies page appears whenever a visitor to your site does not have cookies enabled for their browser. The page provides step-by-step, illustrated instructions to enable cookies for the most popular browsers. This page is based on the “1 column” layout.
Service Unavailable The “503” Service Unavailable page is named for the response code that is returned when the server is unavailable. This page can be set to appear when your store is in Maintenance Mode.