Best use of Categories in Magento

There are three things that Categories can accomplish. They can:

1.       Help the shoppers, who know exactly what they want, to find the product that they are looking for.

2.       Help the shoppers, who almost know what they want, to find a product that matches their desires.

3.       EnNce the shoppers, who have almost no idea of what they want, to explore your store.

We would like to organize our store so that our Categories accomplish all these goals.

However, these goals are oGen mutually exclusive.

For example, suppose you create an electronics store. In addiNon to many other products, your store sells MP3 players, including Apple iPods. A Category called iPods would help the shoppers who know that they want an iPod, as they can quickly find one. However, the iPods Category doesn't do much to help shoppers who know that they want an MP3 player, but don't know what kind.

On the Web, you usually search something when you know what you want. But when you're not sure about what you want, you usually browse. In an online store, you usually begin browsing by selecNng a Category. When you are creaNng Categories for your online store,

try to make them helpful for shoppers who almost know what they want.

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Categories and the Navigation Menu

If a Category is an Anchor Category, then it appears on the NavigaNon Menu. The term "Anchor" makes the category sound as if it must be a top-level category. This is not true. You can designate any category as an Anchor Category. Doing so puts that category into the NavigaNon Menu.

When a shopper selects a normal Category from the NavigaNon Menu, its landing page

and any subcategories are displayed. When a shopper selects an Anchor Category from the

menu, Magento does not display the normal list of subcategories. Instead, it displays the

Atributes of all the Products in that category and its subcategories. Instead of moving down

into subcategories, the shopper uses the Atributes to filter all the Products in that Anchor

Category and the Categories below it. The NavigaNon Menu will not display if:

◆       You don't create any Categories, or

◆       You create Categories, but you don't make any of them Anchors, or

◆       Your Anchor Categories are not subcategories under the Default Category.

The NavigaNon Menu will display only if:

◆       You have created at least one Category

◆       You have made at least one Category an Anchor

◆       You have made the Anchor Category a Subcategory under Default.

When you first create your Magento site and add Products, you won't see those Products on your site unNl you've met all of the previous condiNons. For this reason I recommend that you create at least one Anchor Category before you start adding Products to your store. As you add each Product, add it to an Anchor Category. Then, the Product will display in your store, and you can preview it. If the Anchor Category is not the one that you want for that Product, you can change the Product's Category later.

Before we add Products to our coffee store, we will create two Anchor Categories: Single Origin and Blends. As we add Products, we will assign them to a Category so that we can preview them in our storefront.

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Category or an Attribute?

Some things are clearly Categories. For example, if you have an electronics store, MP3 players would make a good Category. If you're selling jewelry, earrings would make a good Category.

Other things are clearly Atributes. Color, descripNon, picture, and SKU number are almost always Atributes.

  

SomeNmes, the same thing can be used for a Category or an Atribute. For example, suppose your site sells shoes. If you made size an Atribute, then aGer your shoppers have located

a specific shoe, they can select the size they want. However, if you also made size a Category, the shoppers could begin their shopping by selecNng their size. Then they could browse through the styles available in their size. So should size be an Atribute, a Category,

or both? The answer depends upon what kind of shopping experience you want to create for your customers.

In Magento, you can give your shoppers the ability to search your store. So if the shoppers know that they want Blue Mountain coffee, they can use the Search funcNon to find it in our store. However, customers who don't know exactly what they want will browse the store. They will oGen begin browsing by selecNng a category. With the organizaNon that

we just saw, when customers browse our store, they will start by selecNng Single Origin or Blends. Then the shoppers will select the product they want: Hawaiian Kona, Blue Mountain, Breakfast Blend, or AGernoon Cruise.

AGer our shoppers decide upon a Product, they select Atributes for that product. In our store, shoppers can select Grind for any of the products. For Single Origin, they can also select Roast. For blends, they can select Caffeine. This gives you a clue about how Magento

handles atributes. To each Product, you can apply as many, or as few, atributes as you want.

Now that we have definiNons for Category, Product, and Atribute, let's look at each of them in detail. Then, we can start adding products.

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What is Magento CE Frontend and Backend

The following sections provide an overview of the two visible interfaces of Magento CE: the frontend and the backend.

Frontend (The Web Store Front)

The frontend is the public view of your web store with which your customers can interact through a standard web browser. It presents your products, product categories, and promotions, and provides your customers with ordering, payment, and purchase tracking features.

Backend (The Back Office)

The backend is the password-protected view of the back office features that enable a web store administrator  to setup the products and purchasing options and to manage orders and all other store functionalities. You can navigate the Admin Panel using the menu on the top of the page (Magento top menu). A view of the backend is shown in

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Do you need SSL to installing Magento ?

SSL is the standard for secure transacNons on the Web. SSL encrypts data—such as credit card numbers—as it travels between your browser and the site you are using. This prevents thieves from stealing that data. When you're on a page protected by SSL, its URL begins with https://.

Your browser alone cannot secure the transacNon. The web site needs an SSL cerNficate. The SSL cerNficate does two things. First, it encrypts the data traveling between the site and your browser. Second, it helps to prove that the site actually belongs to the person who claims to own it.

Obtaining an SSL cerNficate is beyond the scope of this manual. However, many hosNng services will add it to your account for a fee. This means you can just "upgrade" your service to an SSL cerNficate.

You don't need to decide on using SSL before installing Magento. You can install and configure your online store, and then add SSL later. Also, if you are using a third party such as PayPal, Authorize.net, or Google Checkout to process your payments, then payments will happen on their web site and not yours. They will use their SSL cerNficate, and you do not need it to protect your customer's credit card accounts.

Give this some serious consideraNon. Using SSL makes your site more secure. It also might make some people more comfortable about buying from your online store. SomeNmes an increase in trust leads to an increase in business. Do your research, and decide if the extra expense is worth the potenNal increase in business.

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Overview and Finding the Right Products of the Frontend in Magento

In order to familiarize you with the features of the frontend, this chapter describes the basic browsing and purchasing features provided for your customers by a web store created using Magento  CE. This knowledge will help you make better decisions when setting up your store.

 Overview
The frontend provides the view of your web store that is publicly available to customers using the Internet. The frontend shows your product catalog and provides your customers with ordering, payment, and tracking features.
You can access the Magento demo web stores by navigating to http://demo.magentocommerce.com. The Single Store Demo is a sample Magento store that uses Magento’s default theme and sample data. This sample store is referenced throughout this user guide.
You can access your own store by browsing to the address that you defined for it during installation.

 Finding the Right Products
The Magento  CE frontend is also referred to in this guide as your web store. It provides a variety of options for browsing through the products offered and then drilling down to view detailed information about each product. Magento  CE enables you to define the default appearance of how multiple products are presented, such as whether they are shown as a list or grid (table), their sort order, and the filter that is used.

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Shipping Settings in Magento Installing

This section describes how to specify shipping options, such as the origin used for shipping rate calculations and whether to enable the multiple shipping destinations feature.

Configuring shipping settings and shipping methods enables you to provide customers a selection of shipping methods with shipping rates during checkout. Magento  CE includes extensive integration with major shipping carriers; for USPS, DHL, FedEx, and UPS you can create shipment orders and print shipping labels right from the Magento  CE Admin Panel. See “

To define general shipping options:

1. In the Admin Panel, select System > Configuration > SALES > Shipping Settings.

2. In the Current Configuration Scope drop-down list in the left upper left corner, select the scope for which you want these configurations  to apply.

4. Configure the options to match your store.

5. Click Save Config to save your changes.

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