Auctiva - Powerful solutions for eBay Sellers

In order to view your Store with the different Templates available, and to maximize the impact, there are a few things you need to do:

Prior to logging into your Store, Create a Welcome message for your Home Page in "MS Word" or another Word Processor.
Format the message the way you want it to appear (font, size, colour etc...) leave the document open (you will need it in a minute)

Tut01

Log into your Store then go to:

1/ Store>Theme>Theme Manager
2/ Pick a Template (any will do at this time)
3/ Click on it then "Apply Theme" (bottom right)

Next.......

Tut02

1/ Go to Store>Theme>Customize Store Theme
2/ Go down to the bottom of the Page Until you see the words "Admin Customize"
3/ Hover over the word "Customize" Click on Customize, a little box will pop up with the word "Content" click on "Content"
4/ In the next window go to top left hand side and click on the word "Source"
5/ Right Click inside there - Go down to select all (everything turns blue)
6/ Press delete.
7/ Click on Source again
8/ Go to the document where you have just written your description, highlight the lot then go to "copy"
9/ Inside your Store editor go to the top and click the little icon with a "W" on it (paste from word)
10 / Untick Ignore Font Face definitions
11/ Right click inside the box - then down to paste - click OK
12/ Now click on save changes and close the editor

Now click on Admin at the bottom of the page (this will return you to your Store).....

Next.......

Tut03

1/ Upload your Logo and set it
2/ Upload the images to six products
3/ Go to Inventory>Manage Inventory
4/ Create some Categories (use Cat01 - Cat02 - Cat03 etc..) You can rename them later
5/ Go to Cat01 then Add Product
6/ In the "BASIC INFO" fill in Name & Price (The rest you can do later)
7/ In "DISPLAY OPTIONS" tick "Featured" Leave "TAXES & SHIPPING" for now
8/ In "INVENTORY CONTROL" click the arrow next to "Inventory Tracking" and set to "Track Product"
9/ In "DESCRIPTIONS" in the Description box enter a short description of your product (you can add to this later)
10/ Leave the rest alone (this can be done later)
11/ Click on save at the bottom
12/ Click on the "Image Tab" then "select image" click on the image for that product - then click on done
13/ Click on the "Details" Tab" then click on "Save and Close"
14/ Repeat steps 5 to 13 for the other 5 products

Now to back up what you have just done on your HOME PAGE........

Next........

Tut04

1/ Go to Store>Theme>Customize Store Theme
2/ Go down to the bottom of the Page Until you see the words "Admin Customize"
3/ Click on Customize, the little box will pop up with the word "Content" click on "Content"
4/ In the next window go to top left hand side and click on the word "Source"
5/ Right Click in the box and go down to select all (all the text should now be blue)
6/ Right Click on any part of the blue text and click on copy
7/ CLOSE the Editor
8/ Open "Notepad" or a word processor - right click in the document and click on paste
9/ Save this Document somewhere safe on your PC (you will need it in a minute)


Now click on Admin (this will return you to your Store).....
To try your store with a different template........

Next........

Tut05

1/ Go to Store>Theme>Theme Manager
2/ Pick a different Template
3/ Click on it then "Apply Theme" (bottom right)
4/ Go to Store>Theme>Customize Store Theme
5/ Go down to the bottom of the Page Until you see the words "Admin Customize"
6/ Hover over the word "Customize" Click on Customize, a little box will pop up with the word "Content" click on "Content"
7/ In the next window go to top left hand side and click on the word "Source"
8/ Right Click inside there - Go down to select all (everything turns blue)
9/ Press delete.
10/ Now re-open the document you've just saved highlight everything then "Copy"
11/ Go back to Editor and PASTE
12/ Click on the little blue disk next to the word "Source"
13/ Then click on "Save and Close"
14/ Repeat Steps 1 to 13 with any other templates


By following the above steps you will be able to test the various templates layouts, when you add more categories and products all the templates you have used will be

updated. Don't forget if you add more categories and products to follow Tut04 again. When you're happy with a template, you can then go and rename all your categories and

fill in the appropriate stuff for your items.

If all this is done then you can change to any templates at any time.

So, in essence this tutorial allows you to learn from our mistakes

By making a welcome theme and a few products and testing lots of themes first you will be more satisfied with your results and spend less time mumbling over the computer about this theme doesn't quite work for me. While checking out your different themes with the instructions above make sure you look at the item page layouts as well. They are not all the same.
1st project's instructions can save you hours of frustration down the road! If you need visual help in changing these pages there is also another tutorial about changing the welcome and contact us pages that has pictures. This current tutorial gives you an overall bigger picture of the whole process, why you need to do it at the beginning, the benefits that doing it will give you, and the step by steps to get you there!

Thanks 1st Project.

Where the heck were you a month ago??

Nice Tutorial...If you're a newbie grab a hold of this...

Has anyone used Dreamweaver or Frontpage to customize or design their store? I'v designed my website in Dreamweaver but not sure Auctiva supports it.

Excellent advice 1stProject,

Bogodesigns,

I've heard this in another thread about dreamweaver cs4, I am not sure which versions of dreamweaver have compatability issues - I am using an older version (mx2004) and have not had a problem. However I tend to only use dreamweaver for small jobs such as my Navbar, I then copy the script over to Auctiva script editor and juggle it about in there, seems to work so far - touch wood.

Wayne

I used Frontpage before I upgraded my computer and lost my stupid bazillion digit code in the case for my Frontpage disk... I have the disk not the case or the code.

Similarly to Wayne, in Frontpage use it for sections of the page not the whole thing and it seems to work fine.