Ecwid 101

A Guide for New Users

What is Ecwid?
Ecwid (pronounced as eck-vid, short for ecommerce widgets), is a revolutionary shopping cart that seamlessly integrates with your existing website. It can also be added to your page on social media networks, such as Facebook or mySpace. Although its packed with high-value features, Ecwid is absolutely FREE! Youll pay no setup charges and no transaction fees, making it a no-cost, high-return solution for todays ecommerce businesses.

How Does it Work?

It couldnt be simpler-just insert a few lines of code to any page of your website or prole page, and your online store immediately appears. Customers will enjoy the convenience of checking out securely right from your site, without being redirected elsewhere. Behind the scenes, the Ecwid engine completes all transactions leveraging the power and security of Amazon EC2 servers. Ecwid boasts a robust feature set you simply wont nd on other free shopping carts.

Adding Ecwid to Your Site: 3 Easy Steps

1. To begin, youll need to create a free Ecwid free account. You can either enter a new username/password or log in using your information from another account, such as Facebook or Google. 2. Log into your Ecwid control panel. Open the Dashboard page, select the integration code, and hit Ctrl-C or right-click and select Copy. 3. Back in the source code of your site, paste in the copied code and refresh the page. Your full-featured store will appear immediately.

Tips
If you use a major Content Management System, such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, the installation is even easier with our ready modules.

If you dont have a site yet and would like to consolidate tasks, you can use a free platform, such as Google Sites or Edicy, to create your site.

Adding Products & Categories

Begin by logging into your Ecwid control panel and clicking on the Catalog page. There, you will see some demo products and categories. Feel free to remove them and add your own. If you products have many images, use the Gallery feature for easy browsing. You can also specify additional product options, such as size and color.

Setting Up Your Store

Now that youve added the functionality and the products/categories, go to the System Setting page of your stores control panel. Set your stores currency and name at System settings General Store Prole and System settings General Store Formats & Units pages. Next, youll need to set up shipping rates, taxes, and payment options.

Customize Your Stores Look

By default, Ecwid is designed to display optimally in most website browsers and versions. However, you can easily change the appearance of your online store using CSS (cascading style sheets). Simply open the Ecwid control panel and proceed to: System Settings Design CSS Themes. There, you can choose from several pre-dened templates or create your own custom version. For more information on customizing Ecwid elements, visit our CSS FAQ and knowledge base. Not familiar with CSS? Get the basics on the W3School site or contact our design team for assistance.

Adding Ecwid to Social Networks

Because of its unique and versatile architecture, Ecwid can be easily replicated on many different websites, such as your Facebook page. See our easy instructions for adding a seamless shopping cart to Facebook.

Still Have Questions?

Start by visiting our forums, FAQ, and knowledge base, where you can browse or search extensive information to resolve your question or issue. If you dont nd an

answer, create a new thread on our forums and our support team will assist you. If your question is not suitable for the forums, please use our contact us form to send it directly to our staff. If you think you have found a problem with the software, please report it to our bugtracker.

We Value Your Feedback

If you have a suggestion for improving Ecwid, we want to hear it. Please add your idea to our idea tracker, where other users can vote for it. If your idea gets enough votes from our community, well implement it in a future release. (Please note that you will need to create a separate log-in to vote in our idea tracker.)

Stay in Touch
Subscribe to our blogs feed to get the latest news about Ecwid Become a fan on Facebook Follow us on Twitter We look forward to boosting your business with the webs most exible, functional, and budget-friendly shopping cart software!

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Categories

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. How can I re-arrange my categories? How can I set category description Hidden products and categories Default category for product browser How to use animated GIFs for your category images

How can I re-arrange my categories?

If you want to re-arrange your categories , for example, to s ort them, make one category to be s ubcategory, etc, it is pos s ible to do this on the "Catalog Categories " page. Jus t drag-n-drop categories in the left column to arrange them as you want.

How can I set category description Hidden products and categories Default category for product browser How to use animated GIFs for your category images

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Products

1. Articles 2. How can I move all products from one category to another? 3. How can I add the "delivery date" option to my products? 4. How can I add the "gift message" option? 5. How can I remove the the decimal place from product prices? 6. Will Ecwid notify me when my products are low or out of stock? 7. Can I set the weight for less than 1 pound / 1 kg ? 8. How to add a video to your product description 9. How can I redirect only one of the products to an external store(e.g. iTunes Store)?

Articles
How to add product options to your products Product s orting: how to s ort your products How to us e s pecial characters in product titles How can I add a file to a product, s o my cus tomers can download it How can I upload additional big images for a product How to add an audio clip to a couple of products How to as s ign any product to one or more categories I uploaded files to a product but don't s ee them in product details How to us e animated GIFs for your images How can a cus tomer upload their files when purchas ing a product

How can I move all products from one category to another?

There are two pos s ible ways : 1. If you want to re-arrange many products , the bes t way is to import them with new parameters . Pleas e, refer to this article for details : Import-Export 2. The other way is as follows : go to the Catalog Categories page find the neces s ary category in the left panel, click it, then open the "Category products " tab. pres s the "Remove all" button; the products will be removed from this category, however the products thems elves will not be removed. then go to the "Category products " tab of the des tination category, pres s "Add products " and add all neces s ary products at once there.

How can I add the "delivery date" option to my products?

You need to us e the "product options " feature and the "Date Picker" option type.

How can I add the "gift message" option?

Us e the "text field" and the "text area" option types .

How can I remove the the decimal place from product prices?
If you want to to omit decimals in product prices , then you s hould: open the "System Settings General Formats and Units" page in your control panel; enable the "Hide trailing zeros in fractional part" option

After that all trailing zeros in fractional part will be removed. So for example $40,00 will be dis played as $40 If a product price/order total has fractional part/decimals (e.g. $40,57) then it will be always dis played to s how the exact cos t to cus tomer. Pleas e note, that the fractional part is removed automatically, if your currency does n't have it at all. For example, Yen. If you us e s uch a currency, then it is n't neces s ary to enable the "Hide trailing zeros in fractional part" option.

Will Ecwid notify me when my products are low or out of stock?

Yes . Ecwid will notify you, if you enable this option for your products . In order to enable it, pleas e open the product for editing, click the "Manage" link in the Stock Control s ection and s et the value of the "Send me a note when quantity in stock reaches:" field.

Important note: if a product has unlimited quantity, then it will be always in s tock, s o no "low s tock" notifications will be s ent.

Can I set the weight for less than 1 pound / 1 kg ?

Yes , it is of cours e pos s ible. You s hould convert weight to a decimal ratio of the pound/kg in order to us e les s than one pound/kg. For example: 1 ounce = 0.06 pounds 15 ounces = 0.94 pounds Pleas e do not forget the zero before the dot, otherwis e Ecwid will s how a warning:

.94 incorrect value 0.94 - correct value

How to add a video to your product description

Upload your video file to YouTube or Vimeo. Get the embed code of the uploaded movie Log into your Ecwid control panel. Go to the "Catalog Products" page and open the neces s ary product for editing. Click the "HTML" icon in the WYSIWYG des cription editor. A pop-up with an HTML code will appear. Pas te the embed code there and s ave the changes .

How can I redirect only one of the products to an external store(e.g. iTunes Store)?
There is no out-of-the-box way to do this yet, unfortunately. However, the following workaround exis ts : dis able the "Hide out-of-stock products" option in your Ecwid back-end change the quantity of this product to 0. make the "Out of s tock" label blank: How can I change or trans late texts in s torefront add the neces s ary link to the product des cription Alternatively, you can cons ider a s olution that us es a cus tom programming: How can I s et up a category that links to an external s ite

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Additional product images (Image gallery)

1. How to upload additional images 2. Modifications i. How to remove the image name below the detailed image ii. How to show the image name above the image instead of below it? 3. FAQ i. Can I upload YouTube videos or flash movies to the gallery?
Each product can have one main image and many additional detailed ones . The thumbnails of the additional images are s hown below the right panel with the product price and the "Add to cart" button. Good article about product images : baymard.com/blog/ux-product-image-categories

How to upload additional images

Log in to the Ecwid Control Panel. Go to the Catalog tab, s elect the neces s ary product for editing. Open the "Gallery" tab and upload the neces s ary images . They will be s hown on the product details page. For example: www.ecwid.com/demo-frontend.html#ecwid:category=3003& mode=product& product=5002

Modifications
How to remove the image name below the detailed image
Apply this CSS code: div.ecwid-gallery-imageDescription { display:none; }

How to show the image name above the image instead of below it?
By default Ecwid s hows an image name below the image. If you want to move it above the image, apply this CSS code: div.ecwid-gallery-imageDescription-bottom { display:none; } div.ecwid-gallery-imageDescription-top { display:block !important; }

FAQ
Can I upload YouTube videos or flash movies to the gallery?
No, it is n't pos s ible yet. However you can ins ert them to product des criptions and they will work there jus t fine.

Does the gallery show the image in original size?

When a cus tomer opens a product page, he/s he s ees the thumbnails of all additional images . When any thumbnail is clicked, Ecwid will s how a popup with big images . All images are automatically res ized to fit the s ize of the cus tomer`s brows er

window. So the cus tomer can always s ee the whole image and he/s he does n't need to s croll a page. If the cus tomer clicks s uch a res ized image, an original unres ized image will be opened in a new brows er tab. If the image already fits the brows er window, it will not be res ized.

Ecwid Knowledge Base: E-goods

1. 2. 3. 4. How E-Goods work How to add a such product Protecting download links FAQ i. How can I customize the email with download links? ii. How can I upload files which customers can download without actual purchase? iii. Does Ecwid support download resuming?

Ecwid enables you to s ell digital or virtual products like s oftware, audio and video files (mp3s ), e-books , graphics , etc. that are delivered to cus tomers by download.

How E-Goods work

Cus tomers can add digital products to their carts and go to checkout in the s ame manner as if it were ordinary products . After the order, containing s uch a product, has been proces s ed, Ecwid s ends an email notification with the download link to the cus tomer. Als o the cus tomer can download the product from the order details . Ecwid will s end a notification with the download link only when the order gets Accepted or Chargeable payment s tatus . This feature is available for all Ecwid us ers .

How to add a such product

If you want to add a digital product, perform thes e s teps : 1. 2. 3. 4. Log in to your Ecwid control panel and go to the "Catalog" page. Click any product to edit it or create a new one. Open the Files tab. Upload the files you want to s ell.

Thes e files will be available for cus tomer only after he/s he purchas ed this product. Pleas e note, that each file cannot exceed 100Mb. However you can upload more than one file per product.

Protecting download links

In order to prevent download link (and therefor a file) from s haring, you can limit the link lifetime and number of downloads cus tomer can make. You can s et thes e limits on the "System Setting Store Profile E-goods" page. There are two options available:

Link lifetime, in hours

Number of downloads
You can s et either both options at the s ame time or any of them. If the option value is empty, the corres ponding limit wont be applied. Examples : "link is available for 24 hours only, unlimited number of downloads " "link is available without any time limits , however cus tomer can download it 5 times only" "link is available for 48 hours and cus tomer can download it 3 times only"

When needed, the s tore adminis trator can manually regenerate any download link or expire it on the "Order details " page of the neces s ary order. After regeneration a new link will be generated and s ent to the cus tomer, s o he/s he will be able to download the file again. After forced expiration, the link will become unavailable for a cus tomer immediately. The Link lifetime and Number of downloads features are available for paid us ers only. Free us ers ` download links always have unlimited lifetime and number of downloads .

FAQ
How can I customize the email with download links?
You s hould modify the Egoods download notification on the "System Settings Mail Customer notifications" page. More details are available in this article: Mail Notifications

How can I upload files which customers can download without actual purchase?
In this cas e you s houldnt us e the E-goods feature and s hould add links to thes e files to your products ` des criptions . More details are available here: How can I add a file to a product, s o my cus tomers can download it

Does Ecwid support download resuming?

Yes , Ecwid s upports res uming of download. However it works only if you don't limit number of downloads (i.e. Ecwid does n't need to track them). E.g. You don't limit number of downloads: cus tomer s tarts downloading your file then cus tomer paus es the download after he/s he res umes it, his /her brows er will not download the whole file again, only the neces s ary parts will be downloaded If you limit the number of downloads: cus tomer s tarts downloading your file then cus tomer paus es the download after he/s he res umes it, his /her brows er will s tart downloading the whole file again.

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Import-Export

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What can be imported and exported in Ecwid? What format is used for import and export files? How can I create and edit CSV files? How can I import my products? Ecwid import format i. Import file encoding ii. Import file line separators iii. Import file CSV value separators iv. Import file structure v. Template CSV vi. How Ecwid import works vii. Import errors Can I import products in other formats? Can I export and import additional product parameters, like product options or additional images using Ecwid CSV format? Can I import product images? Can I import categories? How can I do the batch update of products` quantities? i. I have tried to update my products with import, but it has duplicated them. Why is that? When I export products I see the Product ID column. What is this? I use non-English characters in my product names and descriptions. When I export them to a CSV file and open it in Excel, it doesn't show these characters correctly. What encoding should I select during import? When I import a CSV file, Ecwid shows that the import will take a few hours, however usually it takes about 5 minutes. Why? What does "skip column" option mean? Can I import my orders into QuickBooks?

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

What can be imported and exported in Ecwid?

You can import products . You can export products (without product options ) and orders .

What format is used for import and export files?

We us e the CSV format for thes e files . Pleas e, refer to this article for details about it: Comma-s eparated_values

How can I create and edit CSV files?

Excel, OpenOffice and Google Docs can open and s ave CSV files . However we s hould note that Excel (es pecially its old vers ions ) does nt open CSV files properly in s ome cas es . There is a number of workarounds , however we recommend to us e free OpenOffice app to edit & s ave your CSV import files .

How can I import my products?

The eas ies t way to import your products is as follows : create a tes t product in your s tore export it to a CSV file open this file in any editor. Us e this file as an example and template for creating a CSV file with all of your products

import your CSV file.

Ecwid import format

The Ecwid import file is jus t a plain text file of the CSV format.

Import file encoding

Ecwid s upports more than 10 chars ets , s uch as UTF-8, UTF-16, US-ASCII, etc. Refer to the import dialog in the Ecwid Control Panel for more details . UTF-8 is recommended.

Import file line separators

Ecwid s upports three different line s eparators : \r\n - Windows \n - Unix, Linux, MacOS X \r - clas s ic MacOS Ecwid automatically recognizes file line s eparators , you do not need to s et up or adjus t it in any way.

Import file CSV value separators

Ecwid s upports three CSV value s eparators : s emicolon comma tabulation

Import file structure

The firs t line in the CSV file can contain column names , for example: sku;name;quantity The Ecwid import dialog has a relevant option "Skip first line". In cas e this option is s elected, Ecwid jus t s kips the firs t line in the file without any verification. If option "Skip firs t line" is off, it means that the whole file contains data, hence Ecwid checks every line.

Template CSV
ecwid_csv_template.csv (s eparator = comma, import s ettings )

Import file columns

Ecwid recognizes 13 different columns in the CSV file, their des criptions are below:

Column name SKU

Type

Des cription

Required

Limits

s tring

Product SKU

At leas t SKU or Name field is required At leas t SKU or Name field is required optional optional

255 s ymbols

Name

s tring

Product name

255 s ymbols

Description Enabled

s tring

Product des cription

no limits "true", "yes ", "on", "Y", "1" for true, any other values for fals e Any valid floating number value, if column is pres ent

boolean Product availability (enabled/dis abled)

Weight

floating Product weight number

optional

but empty, then product is intangible Price floating Product price number integer Product quantity in s tock optional Any valid floating number value

Quantity

optional

Any valid integer value, if column is pres ent but empty - quantity tracking is dis abled Only http://, https :// and ftp:// links are allowed, any other values are ignored 255 s ymbols for each name in path, "Books " - one name, "Science" another name the s ame as Category 1

Image

s tring

Product image url

optional

Category 1

s tring

Category name or path to category (e.g. Books/Science/Biology), which product belongs to Path to s econd category, which product belongs to

optional

Category 2

s tring

optional

Category 3

s tring

Path to third category, which product belongs to

optional

the s ame as Category 1

Fixed shipping rate Fixed shipping rate only

floating Product s hipping freight value number

optional

Any valid floating number value

boolean If product has only fixed s hipping rate

optional

"true", "yes ", "on", "Y", "1" for true, any other values for fals e

How Ecwid import works

When you import your cs v file, Ecwid places this file in the import queue. All files in the queue are proces s ed cons equently, one by one. File proces s ing highly depends on files in the import queue and on the current load of Ecwid s ervers , hence there is n't any time guarantee for import completion. However, in mos t cas es even big import tas ks (with thous ands of products , categories , images etc.) arel completed within an hour. Ecwid s plits every import tas k into two s ub-tas ks : 1. Import all without images 2. Import images If any import errors occur while the firs t s ub-tas k is running, no data is imported at all, your current catalog is not changed. If any errors occur during importing of images for products , the import jus t s tops and s aves all products and images imported before the error. For any line found in the import file Ecwid creates a new product or update the exis ting ones . Ecwid finds a product in your catalog by an SKU or Name value from that line. If s uch a product is found, it is updated, otherwis e a new product is created. For example, if you want to update quantities in s tock, you can us e s uch an import file sku0000;14 sku0001;67 sku0002;12 sku0003;30 Every product with s uch SKUs will be found and its quantity will be updated.

Import errors
Import can generate the following errors : In Ecwid maximum category depth is limited to 50. Your import file contains category /Category1/Category2/.../Category80, which has depth of 80. Pleas e reduce the number of its parent categories and try again. You have too much nes ted categories

'Category name' is too long (400 s ymbols ) . The maximum allowed length is 255 s ymbols .

Ecwid has a limit on a the category name field length. Your import file contains a category name value which is longer than 255 s ymbols . If you s elect 10 columns , each line in your file has to contain at leas t 10 values . Values may be empty (it depends on a column type), for example: sku0001;iPhone 3GS 16Gb;;;;;;;;;;;;; Ecwid s upports only JPG, BMP, PNG and GIF image file formats Ecwid does n't allow uploading images bigger than 4 megabytes Every product line has to contain at leas t one value SKU or Name. Product can not be created (or updated) without SKU and Name Ecwid has a limit on the SKU field length. Your import file contains SKU values which are longer than 255 s ymbols Ecwid has a limit on the Name field length. Your import file contains Name values which are longer than 255 s ymbols Column has data of a wrong format. For example, there are letters in column ins tead of numeric values URL is of a wrong format. For example, wrong protocol htp://www.example.com/image.jpg no protocol - www.example.com/image.jpg Common URL format is [protocol]://[s erver]/[file path]

Wrong columns count. You have s elected 10 columns in import dialog, but the file contains only 8.

Uns upported image format (http://www.example.com/image.ps d)

Image http://www.example.com/image.jpg is bigger than 4Mb

'SKU' or 'Name' column has to contain value

'SKU' is too long (300 s ymbols ) . The maximum allowed length is 255 s ymbols . 'Name' is too long (350 s ymbols ) . The maximum allowed length is 255 s ymbols .

Incorrect 'price'/'weight'/etc value

Malformed image URL htp://example.com/image.jpg

Cannot upload image http://www.example.com/image.jpg

Ecwid can not load an image from s erver example.com due to s erver failures , timeouts or other network problems Ecwid has a limitation of 1000 unique categories per one s tore. This error mes s age means than your s tore plus categories fromthe import file break this limit

Ecwid has a limitation of 1000 categories per s tore.

Can I import products in other formats?

Yes , you can import your products in the X-Cart and LiteCommerce formats . More information on them: X-Cart import format and Ecwid X-Cart_423_import_export_guide.pdf LiteCommerce: Import/Export Procedures and CSV File Format Als o X-Cart and LC formats allow importing product options .

Can I export and import additional product parameters, like product options or additional images using Ecwid CSV format?
Unfortunately, it is n't pos s ible yet. Pleas e create a new idea at ideas .ecwid.com

Can I import product images?

Yes , you can import the main product image. A s mall thumbnail will be created automatically. Firs t of all you need to upload(for example via FTP) your images from your computer to any web s erver / hos ting. Your images s hould be acces s ible via direct link, e.g. http://example.com/images /product_1.jpg Then jus t us e s uch links in your import file.

Can I import categories?

Ecwid does n't allow importing categories us ing its format yet. However, you can import categories us ing CSV files in the XCart format. Pleas e, refer to this article: X-Cart import format and Ecwid

How can I do the batch update of products` quantities?

You s hould us e the Ecwid`s import feature to update your products . The Ecwid`s import format has the "Quantity" field which can be us ed to do automatic update of your inventory. Create a CSV file with two columns : SKU and Quantity. If you don't us e SKU, then your file s hould have the "Product Name" and Quantity columns . The number in the "Quantity" column will be us ed to update quantity of the product with the corres ponding SKU or product name. If there is no value in the Quantity column, then the "Unlimited quantity" option will be enabled for the product. Example of a CSV file: sku;quantity item132;2 item7; item7635;15

I have tried to update my products with import, but it has duplicated them. Why is that?
When updating your products with import, Ecwid looks up if a product already exis ts in your inventory us ing its SKU as a key field. It takes each row of the imported file and looks if its SKU is already pres ent among your products . The SKU is looked up literally, i.e. the length and the exact characters in the SKU mus t match both in the imported file and in your inventory in order for Ecwid to cons ider this product a target for update. If s uch product is not found, Ecwid then will create a new one and s tore the information from that row in that new product. So, for example, SKUs '00050' and jus t '50' are completely different for Ecwid, des pite the fact that they may both repres ent numeric value 50 and may look the s ame for humans . When you have product with SKU '00050' in your inventory, and try to import product with SKU '50', you will get 2 s imilar but s eparate products - becaus e for Ecwid thos e 2 SKUs are completely different. We had a number of reports that Micros oft Excel, being overall a well done s preads heet editor, tends to cut off the leading zeros from the SKUs , jus t like in the above example. This may res ult in the duplicating products when you quickly edit your exported inventory in Excel and import it back to Ecwid. Excel automatically s elect the mos t matching format for the columns , s o if you us e numeric SKUs and try to edit an exported file from your Ecwid inventory in Excel, it may decide that SKUs are pure numerals and their leading zeros are meaningles s . To prevent s uch behavior, you can try to rename the exported *.cs v files from Ecwid into *.txt, open them from Excel with 'Open' menu command (not jus t with the double click on the file). In this cas e Excel will s how a s ettings dialog, where you can s elect the exact type for each column; you s hould s elect the type 'Text' for SKU column to pres erve its leading zeros . The other s olution is to us e OpenOffice.org free office s uite to edit the *.cs v files exported from Ecwid. No renaming is needed then; you can jus t open the *.cs v files with OpenOffice s preads heet editor and it will s how the s ettings dialog right away. Make s ure that the s ettings you us e there produce a meaningful table of product properties for you, and the SKU codes

are matching the ones you actually us e in your Ecwid s hop.

When I export products I see the Product ID column. What is this?

Product ID is a unique global identifier of a product. For example, Ecwid us es it in product URL's . You cannot import a product ID or change it to a value you like. However, you can export it to us e, for example, in your 3d party mods forvfop Ecwid.

I use non-English characters in my product names and descriptions. When I export them to a CSV file and open it in Excel, it doesn't show these characters correctly.
Ecwid exports all information in UTF-8. This encoding is widely us ed and is already a s tandard for web applications , becaus e it can work with all languages , s o for example, you can have a part of your product des cription in French and the other one in Japanes e. However, if you us e a non-Englis h vers ion of Excel, it may expect your CSV file to be in a different encoding, for example in then encoding of your national language. Thus , non-ASCII s ymbols will be corrupted. In order to fix this is s ue, take thes e s teps : Launch Excel. Go to the "Data From text" page (if you us e localized Excel, then actual menu items ` names may vary). Open your CSV file. The "Text Wizard" window will appear. Set the correct delimiter and chars et (us e "UTF-8")

What encoding should I select during import?

If all of your products and categories are in Englis h, you don't need to s et anything. Us e the default encoding s ettings ("UTF-8") and all information will be imported correctly. If you want to import a CSV file with non-Englis h characters , we s trongly recommend you to us e te UTF-8 encoding for your CSV file. If you cannot us e UTF-8 for your CSV file for s ome reas on but us e s ome other encoding, then you will need to s et the correct encoding in the import s ettings . Otherwis e, information will not be imported correctly.

When I import a CSV file, Ecwid shows that the import will take a few hours, however usually it takes about 5 minutes. Why?
Import proces s is quite long and res ource cons uming procedure. Thus it can affect s erver performance, s o all the other s tores which us e the s ame s erver can load s lower becaus e of that. We don't want this . We want to make s ure, that all the s tores are always loaded quickly. So we have implemented a s mart way to import products from different s tores . How it works (in a nuts hell): if s ome Ecwid us ers try to import products at the s ame time on the s ame s erver, Ecwid does n't s tart to proces s many import jobs s imultaneous ly. All the import files are put to a queue and are proces s ed one by one. if a s erver load is too high for s ome reas ons , all the import jobs are s topped temporarily. Ecwid will continue to import products automatically, once the s erver load becomes normal. depending on the s erver load and the length of the import queue, Ecwid calculates the approximate ETA of import s tart. It is n't 100% exact, but gives a conception when your file will be proces s ed. As a res ult, even if 100 Ecwid us ers decide to import 20,000 products each at the s ame time, all the other s tores will work without any delays or s low downs . In your particular cas e we as s ume that the import queue has already had a bunch of files to import and the s erver load has

been a bit high. So it has taken longer than us ual to import your file.

What does "skip column" option mean?

The "s kip column" options are neces s ary when your CSV file has s ome columns which cannot be proces s ed by Ecwid, and you for s ome reas on don't want to modify your CSV file. So, jus t enable the "s kip column" option and Ecwid will ignore the corres ponding column in the CSV file.

Can I import my orders into QuickBooks?

Yes , it is pos s ible. You can export your orders to a CSV file and import it to Quickbooks then. Check this ins truction on importing a CSV file to QuickBooks : s upport.quickbooks .intuit.com/s upport/Pages /KnowledgeBas eArticle/1005472

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Product Combinations

1. Description i. Screen-shot 2. Video tutorial on how to use product combinations in Ecwid 3. FAQ i. Can I set same SKUs for a product and its combinations? ii. If I use product combinations to assign separate SKUs to different options, will that additional SKUs be included into the product number limit for my account?

Description
The "Product combinations " feature allows to s et a s eparate image/price/SKU/quantity/low s tock notification for each s et of product options . When this s et of options is s elected, Ecwid will always us e the values (e.g. image) as s igned to the combination ins tead of the bas e/default ones . Check how it works in our demo s tore. Product combinations can be us ed in a ton of different ways . Jus t to lis t a few: Track inventory per option. For example, you can have one t-s hirt available in S and L s izes , and then you can have a s eparate s tock for each s ize. So for example, if S s ize is s old out, your cus tomers will s till be able to purchas e the L one. This feature will be es pecially us eful for merchants who s ell apparel. As s ign different images to your options . When a cus tomer s elects an option, Ecwid will update the products main image. This will allow your cus tomers to ins tantly s ee what they are going to buy and what the option looks like. If your options affect (rais e/lower) your product price, the product combinations feature will allow you to update your product price on the fly. Your cus tomer will be able to s ee the new price immediately right on the product details page. As s ign different weight to your options . If you us e options to s ell products in different packs or bundles , then your s hipping methods will return more accurate rates . This feature is only available with the Silver plan, s o its an awes ome reas on to upgrade your account and s upport our team!

Screen-shot

Video tutorial on how to use product combinations in Ecwid

FAQ
Can I set same SKUs for a product and its combinations?
Ecwid allows to s et s ame SKUs for a product and its combination unles s the combination's s tock differs from the bas e product's one. In other words , if you s et a different in-s tock quantity for a combination, you'll have to s et a different SKU for it. We are bas ing s uch a logic on a reas onable pres umption that if a combination has its own inventory, it is treated like a s eparate unique item, s o it apparently s hould have a unique SKU.

If I use product combinations to assign separate SKUs to different options, will that additional SKUs be included into the product number limit for my account?
Ecwid limits the maximal number of the products you can totally have in your s tore. Silver plan accounts , that can us e Product Combinations , are currently limited to have 20,000 products at max per s tore. However, this number does not include SKUs from product combinations : you can have more than 20,000 SKUs totally when us ing combinations , only the number of bas e products is limited. Combination with a s eparate SKU does not count as a s eparate product, only the bas e product its elf does .

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Payment options

Currently Ecwid s upports the following payment options .

Credit Cards and payment systems

PayPal Standard and PayPal Express Checkout Google Checkout Authorize.Net SIM Moneris SELECTplus (Hos ted Paypage, Canadian accounts ) HSBC (CPI) Beanstream (Hos ted Payment Form) eWAY (Shared Payments CVN / "Hos ted Payment" page) 2Checkout Network Merchants e-Path / manual credit card processing Robokassa (Webmoney, Yandex.Money, etc) QIWI Sage Pay (Form integration) PayJunction iDEAL (via Mollie) MultiSafepay ( iDEAL, credit cards , Giropay, DIRECTebanking, etc) Suomen Verkkomaksut Oy iPay88 PayOnline System Virtual Cart Services Any payment gateway that can emulate Authorize.Net API
Als o, what if Ecwid does n't have a feature or a payment gateway I need?

Offline methods
Check Business Check Fax ordering Money ordering Personal check Phone ordering Purchase order Wire transfer
and any you like..

Echecks
Authorize.Net SIM 2Checkout

FAQ
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. How can I process credit cards manually? How to change a name of any payment method? How to add a new payment method? Can I add instructions or notes to payment methods? What is "Payment Processor"? How can I place a test order? I want to ask customers for a credit card number on my site and do not redirect them to a payment gateway site. Is it possible?

How can I process credit cards manually?

Yes , it's pos s ible to s tore credit cards and proces s them manually. You s hould us e the e-Path service integrated with Ecwid for this tas k. This s ervice allows to s tore credit cards and avoid all the issues and hassles with PCI-DSS certification. What it is and how to s et it up: e-Path

How to change a name of any payment method?

Do it as follows :

Go to the Sys tem Settings Payment page in the Ecwid control panel. Click the name of the payment method you want to modify. Enter new values , pres s "Apply". Save the changes .

How to add a new payment method?

If you want to add a new payment method which jus t s aves the order information (for example, "Cache of delivery"), us e this ins truction: go to the Payment page find a method which you are not going to us e change its proces s or to "Offline Bas ic" change its name and s ave the changes .

Can I add instructions or notes to payment methods?

Yes , you can. You can add a second line note and full instruction to any payment method.

Second line note

Note is always s hown on the next line of the payment method name. You can us e only plain text in your notes , no HTML is allowed. To add a note, click the payment method name on the Payment page. Example: The firs t line, e.g. payment name: Credit card The s econd line note: We accept all major credit cards.

Instruction
Ins truction is s hown after a cus tomer s elects a neces s ary payment method. You can us e HTML tags in your payment ins tructions . Als o ins tructions s hould always have titles , if an ins truction does n't have a title, it will not be s hown to a cus tomer. To add an ins truction, click the "Ins truction for cus tomer" link on the Payment page. If you want to s end an ins truction in e-mail notifications , you s hould us e the %paymentInstructions% mail tag. When an order notification is s ent, this mail tag is replaced with the corres ponding payment ins truction. So, if a cus tomer us es the Wire Trans fer method, he/s he will get an ins truction for this method. If he/s he us es any other method, he/s he will get another ins truction in the notification. Since the payment ins truction is in the HTML format, but e-mail notifications are in the plain-text, Ecwid removes all HTML tags from the ins truction before ins erting it into e-mail.

What is "Payment Processor"?

Payment proces s or is a s pecial option of each payment method which determines how a payment and order will be proces s ed by Ecwid. There are s everal payment proces s ors in Ecwid:

Credit card processors which are assigned to corresponding payment gateways:

Credit Card: 2Checkout Credit Card: Authorize.Net SIM Credit Card: e-Path other

Echeck processors:
Echeck: 2Checkout Echeck: Authorize.Net SIM

PayPal Website Payments Standard.

This proces s or allows us ing the PayPal Standard payment gateway. If you want to s et Expres s Checkout up, you can do it on the s eparate "Expres s Checkout" tab.

Offline methods.
They're the methods that don't charge cus tomer right away. They jus t s ave the neces s ary order data. So, the s tore owner will be able to proces s the order data manually later. An example of s uch methods : Wire Trans fer, Phone ordering, etc. Offline Bas ic: this proces s or does n't as k for any details , it jus t s aves the entered order data. Offline check: it as ks for an Owner's full name, Checking account number and Bank routing number Offline Purchas e order: it as ks for a PO number, Company name, Buyer's full name and Job pos ition Important note: if an order s placed through an offline method, the order will have the "Queued" s tatus initially.

Demo methods which are used for tests.

Demo (accept all orders ): accepts all orders , they're automatically approved and get the "Accepted" s tatus Demo (decline all orders ): declines all orders . Be careful: The behaviour of each payment method depends on its payment proces s or, but not by its name. So if a Credit Card payment method has the "Offline Bas ic" proces s or, it will not as k for a credit card at all.

How can I place a test order?

There are two pos s ible options : You can enable the tes t mode of your payment gateway, in this cas e you will be able to place an order without any real charges . However, s ome gateways (like PayPal or Google Checkout) require s eparate accounts for the tes t trans actions . You can enable the "Demo" payment method and place an order us ing it.

I want to ask customers for a credit card number on my site and do not redirect them to a payment gateway site. Is it possible?
At the moment Ecwid us es only web-bas ed payment gateways , i.e. cus tomer is always redirected to the payment s erver to enter his /her credit card number. The main reas on for s uch behaviour is PCI-DSS. Technically, every s ite on almos t every s erver can accept credit cards and s tore/pas s credit card details . But Vis a/Mas tercard does n't permit doing it without the PCI-DSS compliance. The PCI-DSS compliance is the information s ecurity s tandard as s embled by the Payment Card Indus try Security Standards Council. It helps organizations which proces s card payments to prevent credit card fraud. Every merchant who s tores or trans mits credit card details , s hould comply to this s tandard. Some information from PCI-DSS FAQ: What are the deadlines for complying with PCI DSS? Compliance is mandated by the payment card brands and not by the PCI Security Standards Council. However, for mos t merchants , the deadlines for validating compliance with the PCI DSS have already pas s ed. Im a small merchant who has limited payment card transaction volume. Do I need to be compliant with PCI DSS? If so, what is the deadline? All merchants , whether s mall or large, need to be PCI compliant.

So if you're a s tore owner and your s tores /pas s es CC details , you s hould be PCI-DSS compliant and you s hould us e the PADSS compliant s oftware. The deadline for new merchants is 1 Jul of 2010: In As ia Pacific (AP); Central and Eas tern Europe, Middle Eas t and Africa (CEMEA); and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Vis a acquirers mus t ens ure that newly s igned merchants us e PA-DSS compliant applications by 1 July 2010. By 1 July 2012, thos e acquirers mus t ens ure exis ting merchants and agents in the Vis a network us e PA-DSS compliant applications . http://corporate.vis a.com/media-center/pres s -releas es /pres s 931.js p So if you us e Ecwid, you don't need to worry about the PCI-DSS/PA-DSS things , becaus e Ecwid does n't s tore or pas s CC details . Cus tomer enters them on the payment gateway s ide.

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Discount coupons

1. How to create a discount coupon 2. Peculiarities of coupons in Ecwid (Advanced info)
Ecwid allows you to us e dis count coupon codes in your s tore. A dis count coupon code is a s ecret code which a cus tomer can us e to get a dis count when making a purchas e. They are us ed for s ales promotion. Dis count coupon codes are is s ued by s tore owners and can be dis tributed in any way the provider finds convenient (for example, through mail, s ite news or advertis ements on other s ites ). Dis count coupons are available for paid Ecwid accounts only. Compare plans : www.ecwid.com/compare-plans .html

How to create a discount coupon

1. Go to the my.ecwid.com 2. Open the Promotions Dis count Coupons page. 3. Pres s the "New coupon" button. Fill the neces s ary fields and pres s "Save".

Coupon options
Name: add a coupon name for your convenience. Only s tore owner can s ee it. Code: you can us e the "generate" link to create a random code or ins ert your own code. For example "chris tmas _coupon". Code is cas e-ins ens itive. Your cus tomers will us e a code to receve a discount. It can be: free s hipping abs olute dis count (e.g. $5 off) percent dis count (e.g. 10% off)

Each coupon can have limits:

Date limits
- Valid from date the date when coupon s tart to work - Valid until date the date of coupon expiration

Orders
- all orders coupon will be applied to all orders regardles s of their totals . - orders over $N coupon will be applied only to orders which totals are greater than $N

Number of Uses:
- unlimited no limits . Each cus tomer can apply s uch coupon numerous times . - once per cus tomer each cus tomer can apply a coupon only once per e-mail, however the coupon can be applied numerous times . (als o a cus tomer can place two orders with s uch coupon, if he/s he s pecifies different email addres s es ). - s ingle us e coupon can be applied only once

Customers
- all no limits by cus tomer type - repeat cus tomers only only cus tomers with exis ting s ucces s ful orders can apply s uch coupon

Peculiarities of coupons in Ecwid (Advanced info)

1. If your s tore does n't have any enabled dis count coupons , Ecwid will not s how the "Apply a coupon" field on a cart page. 2. Dis count coupon is applied to a s ubtotal. The total dis count cannot be more than a s ubtotal. 3. PayPal Paypal does n't allow to checkout if order total is zero. So if cus tomer applied s uch a coupon(e.g. coupon of a 100% dis count or if dis count is more than a total), it will not be pos s ible to pay s uch an order by PayPal. Ecwid will s how an warning mes s age in s uch cas e.

4. Google Checkout. There are two pos s ible ways of applying coupon if Google Checkout is us ed. Cus tomer apply a coupon in a cart and then goes to Google Checkout. In this cas e dis count will be s hown as a item with the negative price. It will not be pos s ible to apply a new coupon on a Google Checkout page. If you apply a "free s hipping" coupon, the new "Free Shipping (coupon: SOME CODE)" s hipping method will appear. Cus tomer apply a coupon on a Google Checkout page. It's als o pos s ibe to apply Ecwid coupons on Google Checkout page(it has a s pecial field for it) Cus tomer can apply only one coupon per order. If you apply a "free s hipping" coupon, the new "Free Shipping (coupon: SOME CODE)" s hipping method will appear. The "once per cus tomer" limit cannot be checked, if the order is placed via Google Checkout, s o a cus tomer can place multiple orders with "once per cus tomer" coupon when us ing Google Checkout. 5. Google Checkout in UK Google Checkout has the following limitation for UK us ers : Merchants in the U.K. cannot yet use the Merchant Calculations API to calculate coupons or gift certificates. It means that UK us ers can apply coupons on Ecwid cart page only and cannot apply it on Google Checkout page yet. E.g. the s econd way of applying coupon from #4 will not work. However the firs t way will work jus t fine.

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Inventory tracking

Ecwid allows to track inventory on product level. It means that you can s et product quantity for each product s eparately. Products quantity automatically reduces when this product is bought. When a products quantity is decreas ed to 0, the product gets Out of s tock s tatus and cant be ordered anymore. When s ome product becomes Out of s tock Ecwid s tore adminis trator gets notified about it. Product quantity can be s et in Ecwid control panel Catalog Products Product modify page Stock Control block Click Manage link.

or the Unlimited option can be s elected. This option allows you to have this product always available for s ales , as products quantity will never be decreas ed to 0 and, thus , will never be s old out. Unlimited quantity functionality us ually is us ed for virtual products or s ervices .

If you s et product quantity, it will be automatically reduced after each purchas e until it reaches zero. After that the product get
Out of s tock s tatus and will not be available for s ale. You can hide Out of s tock products in your s tore us ing Hide out of s tock products option in Ecwid control panel Sys tem s ettings General Cart. If you would like thes e products to be s hown in your s tore, but not available for s ale, you s hould s witch this option off. You can eas ily get the lis t of the Out of s tock products us ing the the s pecial Availability filter. You s hould go to Ecwid control panel Catalog Products page and choos e Enabled , but out of s tock option in it. Sometimes you need to get notified when the s tock is low, but has not reached zero yet. In order to s et the value that will be treated as low you s hould us e the Send me a note when quantity reaches input box. Jus t enter the needed value there. If you want to track the inventory of each option s election (e.g. one t-s hirt is available in different colors and you have 2 white, 3 black and 1 blue), you s hould us e product combinations . Low s tock and Out of s tock notifications are s ent to email s pecified in Ecwid control panel Sys tem Settings Mail Admin notifications Send notifications to email field.

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Taxes

1. How to create a new tax rate i. Video Tutorial 2. Troubleshooting i. Tax isn't calculated, if I use PayPal Express Checkout. If I use any other payment it works ii. I cannot turn off tax for a product iii. How to remove the "This price includes taxes" text from product details

How to create a new tax rate

For example you need to create 5% tax for California. In this cas e you need to perform the following s teps : 1. Open your Ecwid control panel. 2. Go to the "System Settings Zones" page. Pres s the "New Zone" button. 3. Change the name of the created des tination zone. Then click on the "Add state..." button and add the neces s ary s tate (i.e. "United States : California") s tate. Save the changes . 4. Go to the "System Settings Taxes" page. 5. Pres s the "New Tax" button. 6. Enter your tax name and define the other s ettings 7. Click on the "New Rate" button. Select the zone created earlier and enter the tax rate(for example 5%). Save the changes . If you have many des tination zones , repeat s tep #7 for each of them. Two more hints : 1. If you want to s et up the s ame rate for s everal different s tates , you can create a zone cons is ting of thes e s tates and s et up tax rate for this zone. 2. Tax calculation algorithm determines which tax to apply by looking through the configured tax rate lis t, top-down. When it finds a matching zone, it s tops and applies the corres ponding tax rate. So you can define tax rate for particular s tate(s ), then add a rate for "USA" at the bottom of the lis t. In this cas e, USA rate will be applied to all s tates except the s tates configured explicitly. There is als o a pre-defined zone named "Other zones " that defines tax for locations matching no zone mentioned in the rate lis t.

Video Tutorial

How to create taxes in Ecwid. from Ecwid Team on Vimeo.

Troubleshooting
Tax isn't calculated, if I use PayPal Express Checkout. If I use any other payment it works

Most likely your "Zone defines by" tax option is set to "Billing address".
Unfortunately, PayPal does not return cus tomer's billing s tate code, only the country code. That is why we were unable to calculate the tax if it's bas ed on the billing addres s . Pleas e change the "Zone defines by" option to "Shipping address", it will fix the is s ue.

I cannot turn off tax for a product

Mos t likely you have the "Enabled for all products" tax option enabled.

How to remove the "This price includes taxes" text from product details
If you have the "Include tax in product prices " option enabled, but don't want to s how the "This price includes taxes " text in product details , jus t dis able the "Show included taxes on product details page" option on the "Sys tem Settings Taxes " page.

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Shipping

1. Real-time rates 2. User-defined rates 3. Troubleshooting i. I've set my shipping methods up, but Ecwid doesn't ask for shipping address and doesn't show the necessary shipping rates. ii. My setup for shipping is correct, yet the PayPal Express Checkout and Google Checkout don't display any shipping at all iii. Real-time shipping rates I get are incorrect. They are bigger/smaller than they should be 4. Examples i. How to create three shipping methods, a free one for picking up from our store, a cheap one for small items and the third one for big items. ii. How to charge 2.75 for 250grams (1 packet) , and 3.25 for 500grams (2 packets) , and so on for 750grams 4.00.
Ecwid allows having real-time and user-defined s hipping rates .

Real-time rates
Some carrier companies provide real-time s hipping rates that allow us ers to es timate the cos t of s hipping by methods provided by thes e companies . Ecwid s upports getting s uch rates from the following carriers : UPS USPS FedEx DHL/Airborn Aus tralia Pos t EMS Rus s ian Pos t Canada Pos t

(the article is in Russian)

Pleas e note that Ecwid does n't calcualte rates and does n't us e its des tination zones if you us e real-time s hipping. It jus t s ends information on products to the carrier and s hows the returned rates .

User-defined rates
It is als o pos s ible to create cus tom s hipping rules . In Ecwid us er-defined s hipping rates may depend on: Des tination zone Weight Some information about zone s etup: http://www.ecwid.com/forums /s howpos t.php?p=2177

Troubleshooting
I've set my shipping methods up, but Ecwid doesn't ask for shipping address and doesn't show the necessary shipping rates.
Mos t likely you have not defined weight for your products , s o Ecwid treats them as intangible ones . All intangible products don't require s hipping addres s and s hipping method s election at checkout. In order to fix this is s ue, you need to define weight for all your tangible products .

My setup for shipping is correct, yet the PayPal Express Checkout and Google Checkout don't display any shipping at all
The exact s hipping cos t is only calculated after Ecwid knows the s hipping addres s of the cus tomer placing an order. PayPal Expres s Checkout and Google Checkout are not jus t the payment methods - they s ubs tantially change the checkout proces s by taking a few firs t checkout s teps on their s ites . Hence when a cus tomer goes from your s ite to Google Checkout or PayPal Expres s Checkout, Ecwid is not yet able calculate the s hipping cos t becaus e no s hipping addres s was given yet - it will be known only after the firs t s teps at Google / PayPal Expres s Checkout. After a few s teps at Google / PayPal Expres s Checkout s ite the cus tomer will be returned into your s hop to confirm details and finally place the order. The money will change hands only after that. So, the cus tomer that returns from Google / PayPal Expres s Checkout will s ee the s hipping cos t calculation and will be able to s elect the s hipping method on your s ite and then will place the order.

Real-time shipping rates I get are incorrect. They are bigger/smaller than they should be

Examples
How to create three shipping methods, a free one for picking up from our store, a cheap one for small items and the third one for big items.
You s hould perform the following s teps : Create two des tination zones , one for the local pickup, the other for the us ual delivery. Add a new "Local pick-up" s hipping method. Then add a new rate to it, tied to the Local pickup zone. Then add two more s hipping methods with the s ame names , for example: "Shipping". Set the weight limit for each method. For example, the firs t method will be for s mall items and will have 0 - 2 kg weight limit. The s econd one will have 2,01 -10kg limit (you will of cours e have your own limits ). Add a rate for each method with the neces s ary cos ts . Make s ure that all your products have the correct weight.

How to charge 2.75 for 250grams (1 packet) , and 3.25 for 500grams (2 packets) , and so on for 750grams 4.00.
Perform the following s teps : Firs t create the neces s ary des tination zone. For example if you s hip to the UK only, create a new zone and add the United Kingdom to it. Then go to the "Shipping Us er defined methods " page. Create three new s hipping methods . Set the following weight limits for them. 1s t method: 0g - 250g, 2nd: 250,01 - 500, 3d: 500,01 - 750 Add a s hipping rate for each method. This rate s hould have "per order" cos t and be as s igned to your des tination zone. For example for the firs t method your per order cos t is 2.75

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Orders

1. Order statuses i. Payment statuses ii. Fulfillment statuses 2. Unfinished sales 3. FAQ i. I've already have some orders, where is my money? ii. How can I change my Order ID's? iii. Why order ids are not consecutive? Some order ids are missed iv. How to assign a tracking number to an order? v. Can my customers get a tracking code by e-mail? vi. How can I generate sales reports based on my orders in Ecwid? vii. Can I import my orders into QuickBooks? viii. Can a customer return to the shop and re-initiate an unfinished order by himself? ix. How can I decrease the number of unfinished orders and enhance checkout conversion rate?

Order statuses
Each Ecwid order has a payment order s tate and a fulfillment order s tate.

Payment statuses
Queued The "Queued" s tate indicates that the order was placed s ucces s fully, but you haven't received any funds yet. All the orders places by offline payment methods (s uch as Phone ordering, Wire Trans fer, etc) get this s tatus by default. The "Accepted" s tate indicates that you have fully charged the cus tomer for an order. All the s ucces s ful orders placed us ing payment gateways (e.g. Authorize.Net, PayPal, Google Checkout, etc) get this s tatus by default.

Accepted

Chargeable The "Chargeable" s tate indicates that you can charge the cus tomer for the order (this s tatus may become obs olete in the next Ecwid vers ions ) Declined Cancelled The "Declined" s tate indicates that gateway's effort to authorize or charge the cus tomer's credit card has failed. The "Cancelled" s tate indicates that the merchant has canceled the order.

Fulfillment statuses
New Processing Shipped Delivered Will not deliver It is the default fulfillment s tate for all the new orders . This s tate indicates that you are in the proces s of filling the cus tomer's order. It indicated that you have already s hipped the order. Indicates that the order has been delivered. The "Will not deliver" fulfillment s tate indicates that you will not s hip the items to the cus tomer.

Unfinished sales
The 'Unfinis hed Sales ' page in Ecwid control panel lis ts all the ordering attempts when the cus tomer did not complete the payment for an order, including the cas es like: returning from checkout s teps back to the s hop to add or review their cart, cus tomer has changed his /her mind on the whole idea of buying s omething. Each line in the unfinis hed s ales table contains s hort des cription of an order (date, total cos t, payment method, cart

contents ), a cus tomer email (s o you can contact cus tomer to find out why s /he has n't finis hed the order) and the 'Place this order' button. When you click that button, the s elected order is placed in the regular orders lis t, it is marked with a 'Queued' s tatus and the order notifications is s ent to a cus tomer (like for the new orders ). But, of cours e, Ecwid does n't automatically charge a cus tomer credit card in s uch a cas e, i.e. you will need to charge a cus tomer manually. It is als o important that an unfinis hed order does not lock the items bought - the s tock quantities are only decreas ed as s oon as a complete order gets a 'Queued' or 'Accepted' s tatus . The unfinis hed s ales lis ting is only available with the Silver plan.

FAQ
I've already have some orders, where is my money?
Ecwid its elf does not collect or s tore any money for s ales made to your cus tomers . It jus t helps you s ell your products and charge your cus tomers , all s ales are going directly to your payment gateway's account. So you will need to contact your payment gateway(for example PayPal) to have your money trans ferred to your bank, if it is not s et up to do s o automatically. If you haven't s et up any payment gateway yet, pleas e s elect one from this lis t and then follow the ins tructions . Pleas e note, that if an order was placed us ing a s o called "offline" payment method (for example "Phone ordering" or "Pay by check", s uch methods have the "Offline" type in the control panel), then Ecwid jus t creates a new order in the databas e and s tores cus tomer`s data. No actual charges are made, s o you need to contact your cus tomer to get your money.

How can I change my Order ID's?

By default, order id's are the numbers s tarting from 1, which are incremented for each order. Ecwid paid us ers have the ability to change what their Order IDs look like for their cus tomers and increas e them if neces s ary. So if you dont want to s tart with order #1 and want to appear as a mature online s tore for your cus tomers , you can increas e it to #1000 in a few clicks . The Order ID can be changed on the "Sys tem Settings General Cart" page, (the "Order Settings " s ection). Als o you can add a prefix or s uffix to your IDs , s o they can look like MY-STORE-1000-2011. Where MY-STORE and 2011 are prefixes /s uffixes s et up in your Ecwid backend. For example, this feature is helpful if you have numerous Ecwid s tores and want to differentiate your orders . So bas ically your Order ID has the following format: PREFIX-NUMBER-SUFFIX where, PREFIX and SUFFIX are s tatic parts and can be empty. NUMBER always remains and is increas ed incrementally with each order automatically.

Why order ids are not consecutive? Some order ids are missed
You may notice the mis s ing order ids on the Sales page. E.g. you have order #10, the next order has the #14 ID and there are no #11, #12, #13 orders . Such mis s ing order IDs appear when your cus tomer s tarts to checkout and does n't finis h the trans action. For example if you us e PayPal Standard payment gateway and cus tomer is redirected to PayPal, but does n't pay, Ecwid will create a hidden "incomplete" order which is n't s hown in the 'Orders ' table. Such orders are lis ted under the 'Unfinis hed s ales ' tab (this option is available for Silver us ers only). So jus t ignore thes e mis s ing IDs , it is n't an is s ue.

How to assign a tracking number to an order?

In order to as s ign a tracking number to an order, perform thes e s teps : 1. Log in to your Ecwid control panel and open the Sales tab. 2. Click the "Ship >>" button near the neces s ary order. 3. Enter the neces s ary tracking number and s ave the changes . A cus tomer will get a notification with this number. If you want, you can modify or trans late the text of s uch notifications .

Can my customers get a tracking code by e-mail?

Yes , Ecwid s ends the tracking code and URL in notifications to your cus tomers . If they don't get them, then firs t of all, pleas e check if the "Order s hipped" notifications are enabled. Then check the content of thes e notifications , they s hould have this code: -- Order tracking -START TRACKING_URL You can track your order using the following URL: %trackingURL% END TRACKING_URL The order tracking number is %trackingNumber% When you us e us er-defined s hipping, Ecwid actually does n't know what s hipping carrier you us e for it and does n't include a tracking URL in emails . Only a tracking number is included. So, you will need to add s uch a URL to your notifications manually. Replace the code above with this one: -- Order tracking -You can track your order using the following URL: http://wwwapps.ups.com/tracking/tracking.cgi The order tracking number is %trackingNumber% Feel free to replace the UPS tracking URL with any other one.

How can I generate sales reports based on my orders in Ecwid?

Ecwid does n't have built-in tools to generate different s ales reports yet. However, it is pos s ible to do this : Export your orders to a CSV file. You can do it on the Sales page in your Ecwid Control Panel. Open the CSV file in Excel/OpenOffice/Google Docs . Build the neces s ary reports us ing them.

Can I import my orders into QuickBooks?

Yes , it is pos s ible. You can export your orders to a CSV file and import it to Quickbooks then. Check this ins truction on importing a CSV file to QuickBooks : s upport.quickbooks .intuit.com/s upport/Pages /KnowledgeBas eArticle/1005472

Can a customer return to the shop and re-initiate an unfinished order by himself?
In Ecwid, the contents of cus tomer's cart are pres erved for 30 days in their brows er. The cart contents are only eras ed upon s ucces s ful order placing. Moreover, the addres s es put in the completed checkout s teps are remembered. So the cus tomer is able to re-initiate the checkout proces s for the s ame order again. If, however, your cus tomer is not able to re-initiate an order the s aid way (for example, if their brows er's data has been cleared s omehow on their computer), you can find it in the Unfinis hed s ales page of your Ecwid control panel and res tore it.

How can I decrease the number of unfinished orders and enhance checkout conversion rate?
In order to increas e the convers ion rate in your s tore, pleas e follow thes e general recommendations : Make s ure all payment methods in your s tore are properly configured (you can find an exact ins truction on configuration of each payment method available in Ecwid here). As k your cus tomers whether your payment methods are convenient for them. Firs t of all, your cus tomers s hould be available to us e them (e.g. national payment gateways may be a trouble for international cus tomers ). Second, your

cus tomers may s ometimes be confus ed as to how exactly to pay online. In order to make the checkout more us eful and unders tandable, provide more payment methods in your s tore, name them accordingly (e.g. 'Credit card' is not the mos t appropriate name for PayPal - ins tead, 'PayPal or Credit cards ' would be a bit better) and don't forget to accompany each of them with a good ins truction. Having the generally appealing, well des cribed and well illus trated products and overall confiding webs ite als o helps to lower the rate of unfinis hed s ales , but this is the leas t important part, affecting the s ales only after the aforementioned typical roadblocks in the checkout are removed in your s tore.

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Checkout

1. Is my Ecwid checkout secure? How can I add SSL certificate to it? 2. My customers see pre-defined values in checkout fields. Why? 3. Why the checkout button is missed in my store? 4. I don't want to process orders online. I just want my customers pick up some products and then I get a notification about their selection. Is it possible?

Is my Ecwid checkout secure? How can I add SSL certificate to it?

When you use Ecwid, all sensitive information is transmitted via HTTPS
secure protocol during checkout. So you don't need to ins tall SSL certificate or change anything, Ecwid checkout is already secure. If you want to tell your cus tomers that their data is s afe, you can add s ome kind of SSL s eals /logos to your pages .

My customers see pre-defined values in checkout fields. Why?

When a cus tomer goes to checkout, Ecwid determines his /her country,city and zip code bas ed on the IP addres s (we us e MaxMind's GeoIP s olution. Thes e found values are automatically s hown at checkout. Why it is a great feature: In mos t cas es , it helps the cus tomer to check out fas ter(= more s ales for you). Your cus tomers s ee es timated s hipping and tax cos t as s oon as they open the cart page. If you get incorrect pre-defined values , it means that the MaxMind databas es don't have the correct value for your IP. In this cas e, pleas e open this URL: www.maxmind.com/app/locate_my_ip If you s ee the correct values on that page, it means that the problem is already fixed in the newes t MaxMind databas e and it will be fixed in the next Ecwid updates (we update our geo-ip databas es monthly). If you s ee incorrect values on that page, then s end your IP and problem des cription to correction@maxmind.com and MaxMind will fix the problem. If you s till want to dis able this feature, pleas e vote for this idea: ideas .ecwid.com/forums /22031-ideas ecwid/s ugges tions /690502-option-to-dis able-geolocation

Why the checkout button is missed in my store?

If all payment methods are dis abled in your s tore, then Ecwid does nt s how the Checkout button. So in order to enable the button, pleas e log in to your control panel, open the System Settings Payment page and enable at leas t one payment method.

I don't want to process orders online. I just want my customers pick up some products and then I get a notification about their selection. Is it possible?
Yes , it is pos s ible. How to implement this : Dis able all payment methods except for the "Phone ordering" one. Rename it to "Place order" for example. You can rename it by clicking its name. Make s ure that all your products do not have weight as s igned. In this cas e Ecwid will omit the "Shipping details " checkout s tep. Modify your mail notification or dis able them.

Ecwid Knowledge Base: SEO

1. 2. 3. 4. Inline SEO catalog Mobile Catalog Site pages Questions & tips i. Do I need to add meta tags or keywords to my products in Ecwid? ii. What else can I do to improve my SEO?

Mos t AJAX applications do have problems with s earch engine optimization. But not Ecwid. We take SEO s erious ly, thats why we implemented s ome ways to get your s tore indexed. There are three main ways to improve SEO of your Ecwid s tore: Inline SEO Catalog, Mobile Catalog and Site Pages.

Inline SEO catalog

It's the mos t powerful SEO tool for Ecwid s tores . How it works : when s earch engine bots open your s ite, they s ee the plain-HTML copy of your s tore. So they can index it completely. However when your cus tomers open your s ite, they s ee the full AJAX-driven Ecwid interface. Moreover, if your cus tomer goes to any indexed plain-HTML page from Google s earch res ults page, the neces s ary AJAX page will be opened automatically too. This tool requires us ing of Ecwid API, thus it can be us ed by paid accounts only. More information: Inline SEO Catalog

Mobile Catalog
Each Ecwid s tore has the plain-HTML vers ion that can be eas ily acces s ed by s earch engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc) and mobile phones . It is called "Mobile Catalog". It cons is ts of HTML pages which are s tatic, s imple and s earch-engineacces s ible. They have no fancy des ign, jus t the information your cus tomers need. This makes them ideal for SEO. When cus tomers click any indexed link of mobile catalog in Google, they're prompted to go to the full vers ion of your s tore. There are two main purpos es of the mobile catalog: your s tore is acces s ible for mobile phones that don't s upport modern HTML/JS technologies your s tore is acces s ible by s earch engines , s o your products can be found in Google. Mobile catalog has only the neces s ary content(e.g. product title and des cription) without any wis tles -and-bells , s o it helps for good rankings in SERP.

Mobile catalog is available for all Ecwid accounts . More details : Mobile Catalog

Site pages
In mos t cas es Ecwid acts not as a s tand-alone s hopping cart, but as a part and addition to your current webs ite/CMS. In thes e cas es Ecwid will have as s trong SEO capabilities as your webs ite/CMS has . You create clean URLs , unique titles and content us ing your CMS facilities and then power your s ite with ecommerce us ing Ecwid. This way works the bes t if you have a few products and categories .

How to do it: Create a s eparate page in your webs ite/CMS per each category and/or product. Then place a product brows er widget on them, then force it to s how a particular category or product by default: Default category for product brows er How can I s how a s pecific product by default By default, the Product Brows er widget opens with a lis t from the root category. But you can configure it to s how a different category when a us er opens it for the firs t time. Since this widget can be added to many pages at the s ame time, you can have one page per each category. For example we have three categories : A and B with s ubcategory C. We create three pages : "A", "B" and "B / C", add a product brows er to each page. Then make a different default category for each widget. So when a vis itor opens the page A, the product brows er widget will s how the A category ins tead of the root one. This way is available for all Ecwid accounts too.

Questions & tips

Do I need to add meta tags or keywords to my products in Ecwid?
No. Pleas e refer to the following forum thread for details and explanation: http://www.ecwid.com/forums /s howthread.php? t=76#6

What else can I do to improve my SEO?

Firs t s ubmit URL of your mobile catalog or s ite to the s earch engines : Google http://www.google.com/addurl/ Bing http://www.bing.com/docs /s ubmit.as px Yahoo http://s earch.yahoo.com/info/s ubmit.html Then s ign up and s ubmit your s ite to the following s ervices : Google Webmaster Tools https ://www.google.com/webmas ters /tools / Bing Webmaster Tools http://www.bing.com/webmas ter Yahoo Site Explorer http://s iteexplorer.s earch.yahoo.com/

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Google Analytics

1. How to set up Google Analytics in Ecwid 2. Why is it necessary to set up GA in Ecwid even if I already have a GA code on my site? 3. How do Ecwid pages look in GA backend?

How to set up Google Analytics in Ecwid

Regis ter a new GA account if you don't have one. Add your s ite. Get your Web property ID. How to do it: www.google.com/s upport/googleanalytics /bin/ans wer.py?hl=en& ans wer=113500 Enter this ID on the Ecwid Control Panel System Settings General Store Profile page, "Google Analytics Id" option. Save the changes . Pleas e note, that the firs t res ults in Google Analytics reports will appear in about 24 hours after you entered your ID: www.google.com/s upport/googleanalytics /bin/ans wer.py?ans wer=57053

Als o we highly recommend to enable the "Ecommerce tracking" option in your GA s ettings . Pleas e refer to the help article for details : www.google.com/s upport/analytics /bin/ans wer.py?hl=en& ans wer=55528

Why is it necessary to set up GA in Ecwid even if I already have a GA code on my site?

All Ecwid product pages are dynamic and generated on the fly. A page isn't refreshed, Ecwid just updates the HTML code on the page. It allows loading new pages really fast.
The traditional way to track pages is to add s ome JS code to the page code which is executed each time you load a page and tracks your hit. If you try to us e this traditional way with Ecwid, you will s ee that your brows er will load your page jus t ONCE and all the other clicks in your s tore won't caus e page reloading, and the res ult does n't generate a hit. So your cus tomer will open your s tore and s ee 100 products , but the s tats will s how only 1 view. In order to overcome this limitation, we us e Google Analytics API to emulate page loads . When you open a dynamic Ecwid product page, Ecwid s ends a s pecial JS reques t to Google Analytics s aying that a new product page was opened. This way allows getting the exact number of views of your AJAX pages . That is why it's neces s ary to s et up GA in your Ecwid back-end to get the exact s tats .

How do Ecwid pages look in GA backend?

Since Ecwid emulates page loading, the "virtual" pages appear in your Google Analytics back-end. What it means : the Ecwid pages and links you s ee in the GA back-end don't point to actual pages . However each "virtual" page corres ponds s ome real page in your s tore. Here is the lis t of virtual pages generated by Ecwid: "/product/" + productId; (productId is a unique ID of a opened product) "/category/" + categoryId (categoryId is a unique ID of a opened category) "/s earch/" + keywords "/bag" "/checkout/s hippingDetails " "/checkout/addres s Book" "/checkout/paymentDetails " "/checkout/placeOrder" "/checkout/orderPlaced" "/checkout/orderFailure"

"/account/addres s Book" "/account/s ettings " "/account/orders " "/downloadError/"

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Mail Notifications

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Can I modify notification that Ecwid sends? What is it mail tags? Can I add information about purchased products to admin notifications? Notifications don't show information about all products purchased Is it possible to add a picture of the product that was purchased in the confirmation email? How to send a payment instruction in e-mail notifications How can I test mail notifications?

Can I modify notification that Ecwid sends?

Yes , it is pos s ible. You can modify it on the "Sys tem Settings Mail" page.

What is it mail tags?

Mail tags are s pecial elements which can be us ed for modifying Ecwid notifications . When Ecwid s ends a notification, it replaces all the mail tags with their actual values . So if you for example add the %billing_city% tag to a notification about a new order, it will be replaced with the cus tomer`s billing city in the notification.

Can I add information about purchased products to admin notifications?

By default notification s ent to admin about new orders does n't contain information about cus tomer and products purchas ed. If you want, you can add this information manually. Go to the "Sys tem Settings Mail Admin notifications " page. Modify the "New order" notification and add this code there: START SHIPPING ==== Shipping Details ==== -- Ship to -%shipping_name% %shipping_street% %shipping_city%, %shipping_postalCode% %shipping_countryName% Phone %shipping_phone% -- Shipping method -%shippingOption% END SHIPPING ==== Items ==== START ITEM %name% SKU %sku% Weight %weight% %options% Quantity: %quantity% Price (each): %price% END ITEM ==== Order Totals ==== Items: %subtotal%

Shipping: %shipping% Tax: %tax% TOTAL: %total% -- Payment method -%paymentMethod% -- Billing address -%billing_name% %billing_street% %billing_city%, %billing_postalCode% %billing_countryName% Phone %billing_phone%

Notifications don't show information about all products purchased

If a cus tomer purchas ed more than one item, but a notification contains information about one item only, it means that the text of this notification has been modified incorrectly. Make s ure that it has the s pecial START ITEM and END ITEM tags which create a loop. It s hould look like this : START ITEM Product: %name% Quantity: %quantity% Price (each): %price% END ITEM Without thes e s pecial tags only the firs t ordered product will be s ent in the notification.

Is it possible to add a picture of the product that was purchased in the confirmation email?
Ecwid s ends email notifications in plain text format, s o it is n't pos s ible to add image or any HTML tag at this moment. Pleas e vote for this idea: http://ideas .ecwid.com/forums /22031-ideas -ecwid/s ugges tions /332548-html-e-mail-notifications ? ref=title

How to send a payment instruction in e-mail notifications

If you want to s end an ins truction in e-mail notifications , you s hould us e the %paymentInstructions% mail tag. When an order notification is s ent, this mail tag is replaced with the corres ponding payment ins truction. So, if a cus tomer us es the Wire Trans fer method, he/s he will get an ins truction for this method. If he/s he us es any other method, he/s he will get another ins truction in the notification. Since the payment ins truction is in the HTML format, but e-mail notifications are in the plain-text, Ecwid removes all HTML tags from the ins truction before ins erting it into e-mail.

How can I test mail notifications?

The bes t way to preview them is to jus t place a tes t order as a cus tomer.

Ecwid Knowledge Base: Affiliates features

Ecwid has s ome affiliate features that can trans form your s tore into an affiliate tool. Moreover, s ince your Ecwid s tore can be very eas ily ins talled at s everal locations at the s ame time, your affiliates can either place links to your s tore or integrate the entire s tore on their s ites , and you will track s ales made from them. There are two built-in tools for affiliate marketing in Ecwid.

1. Tracking code on "Thank you for your order" page. 2. Affiliate ID assigned to a storefront.

Tracking code on "Thank you for your order" page.

A lot of merchants us e affiliate s ys tems and advertis ing tools (s uch as Google AdWords ) as an additional channel to boos t their webs ite traffic and s ales . Indeed, they can be very effective. Almos t all s ys tems as k to add s ome s pecific convers ion/affiliate tracking code to your convers ion page, als o known as Thank you for your order page, i.e. the las t checkout page a cus tomer s ees when he placed an order s ucces s fully. Ecwid has an eas y way to add s uch codes . Jus t open the Sys tem Settings General Cart page, find Checkout Settings s ection and enter the code there.

If you dont have an affiliate program yet, we s ugges t you to cons ider adding it, becaus e affiliates can bring you many new cus tomers . For example, check Z ferral or Pos t Affiliate Pro See als o: - Google Adwords convers ion tracking

Affiliate ID assigned to a storefront.

It is pos s ible in Ecwid to attach a s pecial ID for each of your s torefronts and then check what s torefront an order came from. It works in this way: You give your affiliate your Ecwid integration code with a s pecial affiliate id. The affiliate places the code on his s ite, s o your s tore will be dis played there. All orders placed through this s ite will be marked as us ing this affiliate id s o that you can s ee this ID in the order details . Als o it appears in a CSV file with exported orders , s o, you can export all your orders and calculate commis s ions for each affiliate in an Excel or Google Docs Spreads heets . (If you need a more powerful affiliate s ys tem, check this 3dparty add-on for Ecwid: www.memberwing.com/memberwing-plugin/ecwid-s hopping-cart-affiliate-tracking-integration) In order to get the integration code for an affiliate, follow this ins truction: Grab the integration code from the Das hboard page of your Ecwid control panel. Add the following line: <script> xAffiliate("affiliate_id"); </script> between thes e parts of the code: <script type="text/javascript" src="http://my.ecwid.com/script.js?STORE_ID" charset="utf-8"></script> and <script type="text/javascript"> xProductBrowser("categoriesPerRow=3","views=grid(3,3) list(10) table(20)","categoryView=grid","searchView=list","style="); </script> So, for example, it may look like this : <script type="text/javascript" src="http://my.ecwid.com/script.js?STORE_ID" charset="utf-8"></script> <script> xAffiliate("affiliate_id"); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> xProductBrowser("categoriesPerRow=3","views=grid(3,3) list(10) table(20)","categoryView=grid","searchView=list","style="); </script>

That's all. Give this code to your affiliate, s o that he can ins ert it on his s ite. (Each affiliate s hould have a different affiliate id).

You als o can us e this feature to mark orders that come from different s ources . E.g., if you've ins talled your s tore on your blog, Facebook or other s ites , it's always interes ting to s ee from what s ource your cus tomer placed an order. This feature allows doing this . Jus t add different affiliate id's to each s ource. For example: xAffiliate("www.example.com"); or xAffiliate("Blog"); Important note: affiliate features are available for paid " Silver" account only. Compare plans : www.ecwid.com/compareplans .html

Ecwid Knowledge Base: SSL-HTTPS

Ecwid already trans fers all s ens itive information via s ecure HTTPS protocol. It's one of the Ecwid's advantages you don't need to get an SSL certificate to get s ecure checkout. You already have it. In order to s how that the checkout is s ecure, Ecwid s hows an image of a padlock on its checkout page.

You can als o add s ome additional s eals or notes to your cus tomers to s how them that your checkout is s ecure. If you want that browser s hows a padlock, you need to perform the following s teps : purchas e an SSL certificate ins tall it (your hos ting can do it, however you need to have a dedicated IP addres s ) link to your s tore page us ing HTTPS protocol (i.e. you need to update s ome your s ite's or blog's s ettings ) s lightly update the Ecwid integration code (replace "http://app.ecwid.com" with "https://app.ecwid.com") or enable the s pecial option if you us e our WordPres s module. Note: if you s ee this line in your integration code: <script type="text/javascript" src="//app.ecwid.com/script.js?23002" charset="utf-8"></script> you don't need to update the integration code. This line woks correctly both on HTTP and HTTPS without any changes .