Here is a quick overview of the steps required to install ProductCart. For a more in-depth description of each step, see the ProductCart User Guide.
Do not use Adobe Dreamweaver or another
HTML editor as you
FTP program. Why? Because the synchronization utilities that they contain can negatively affect your storefront (e.g. you could inadvertently be replacing important files).
Many companies offer Web hosting services that work particularly well with ProductCart. See “Web hosting for ProductCart” in the ProductCart forums. If you are looking at different hosting companies, please make sure that you have reviewed the ProductCart system requirements.
GoDaddy: here you will find specific instructions on how to host ProductCart at GoDaddy
Rackspace Cloud Hosting (Mosso): some customers are reporting
problems
Typical installation tips:
ProductCart is not a desktop application, but rather a fully Web-based ecommerce system. You will use your browser to manage your online store after ProductCart has been installed on your Web site. However you can certainly install ProductCart on your desktop for testing and development purposes.
Once ProductCart has been installed, you can immediately start adding information to your store. If you wanted to, you could start selling products from your new e-commerce storefront within minutes!
Configure general store settings. Select
Settings > Store Settings: for details about configuring General Settings,
see Chapter 3.
Add products to your catalog. First add one or more product categories to assign your product to. To do this, select
Products > Manage Categories from the navigation menu. Once the first category has been added successfully, select
Products > Add New Products to add your first product to the store. How to add a new product to your online catalog is the subject of the
Chapter 4.
Add shipping options. You will probably need to specify which shipping options will be available to your customers. To do this, select
Shipping > Shipping Settings to enter the address of the location from which orders will be shipped, and configure other settings that are related to shipping orders. Select
Shipping > Add or View Shipping Services to add a variety of shipping options to your store. Refer to the
Chapter 6 for more information.
Add payment options. Then, specify how customers will pay for their orders by adding payment options to your store. Select Payments > Add New Payment Options from the navigation bar. You can use one of dozens of supported payment gateways, or create your own custom payment option (e.g. “Net 30”).
You need to add at least one payment option to your store before you can register and check out. If you attempt to register or place a test order when no payment options have been set, you will receive a message stating so.
It's easy to integrate your ProductCart-powered store pages with the rest of your Web site.