Overview
Before you are ready to start making live orders, it is important to check and make sure you have all of the following ready before you submit a request to go live. We can provide assistance and support but to have a store's request escalated to high priority is a large task depending upon the season as throughout the week we have several people who are ready to make their online eCommerce dreams come true. It is most important that before you or your client set a specific deadline as to when the store needs to be ready that you are 100% sure that everything runs smoothly to ensure that your store is live and on time.
- Are your shipping methods and rate calculations correct?
- Is your gateway working properly?
- Are all of your products added as desired?
- Are you happy with your theme? If not, do you need custom modification?
- Is your SEO set up as desired?
- Do all of your discounts and certificates and coupons work?
- Are all of your content pages set up completely?
- Are your tax rates calculating?
- Have you run any test orders?
- Do you know how to refund or check the status of orders?
- Do you have a domain already or will you be setting one up?
- What isyour desired plan for SSL security? Shared or Dedicated? Will you provide your own?
Basic Setup Checklist
Run the store setup wizard:
Your welcome email has the login credentials for your admin console. Please run the setup wizard the first time you log in. This is important for the initial store setup and for your site to function correctly.
Setup Secure File Transfer:
AmeriCommerce online stores come with a File Browser in the Admin Console however there are times when you need to upload/manage files when working with development environments such as Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression/Front Page. Please submit a request for SFTP access.
Create your product catalog:
- Enter or import all your products. Edit your product details and set up categories for your items.
- If you have an existing site, map your old product URLs: Export your old urls, give each a new custom URL and import these URL mappings into the redirect module for an easy way to map old to new product links. This avoids having to map old product ID's to their AmeriCommerce online stores equivalent ID saving time.
- Be sure to add as much descriptive text about your products as possible for good SEO
- Upload any product images in mass via FTP or individually via the file explorer, or autoassociate them based on their name.
Create and Tweak the Theme of your site:
- If you purchased an implementation, quickstart, theme rollover or design package, AmeriCommerce online store personnel will log into your site and setup the required portions. Tech support can help with any issues, but not with any regarding changing default code, and theme modification. There are many exclusions to what we will not do. If you are not savvy with HTML or CSS we can provide paid custom implementation. Please click here for a quote.
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It's a good idea to have some products and categories on your site before the design process starts so the entire site can be tested and seen in it's entirety.
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Test your site in multiple internet browsers, not just one.
Enter Content Pages or other static information about your site:
- Theme rollovers and design packages typically do not incorporate this content or creative writing. AmeriCommerce online stores provide some generic content pages that you can add to your store as a jump start.
- Examples are shipping and company policies, pricing information, articles about your store or product, etc.
- Directed Search: What is it and why should I use it?
- How To Syndicate (push) Your Blog Posts to Facebook and Twitter.
- How To Change Top Navigation Links
- Setting Up A New Menu Or Link Group
- Adding Custom Store Text and Labels
- Creating and Modifying Content Page
- How can I include a link to an external custom HTML file?
Setup Payment Methods:
- If you will be processing credit cards, ensure that the payment gateway information is entered and working correctly.
- You can go live without actually processing the credit cards and process them manually if you have a terminal.
- Some gateways require keys, tokens and other authorization, all entered on the payment method setup page in AmeriCommerce online stores.
- How to: Disable Payment Methods for Certain Products
- How-To: Process Payments in AmeriCommerce online stores.
- Set Up A Payment Gateway To Only Authorize
- Payment Methods Overview
- How do I issue a refund or void a transaction?
- Setting Up PayFlow Pro
- What are CVV Authentication Codes and why are they not stored?
- Creating a Custom Payment Method
- How to Accept Credit Cards
- How do I setup AmeriCommerce online stores to use a payment gateway such as
- Authorize.net?
- Supported Payment Gateways / Payment Methods and their specific setup information
- More Payment Articles
Setup Shipping Providers and Rates:
Each provider such as UPS, USPS, FedEx, must be setup to pull rates from their shipping interfaces. Setup any flat fee or rate table shipping rates.
- UPS Freight Ground Integration
- Providing Tracking Numbers In Notifications
- Creating multiple shipments from a single order
- How to Create FPO/APO Shipping Method
- FedEx Account Setup Getting a new meter number
- How To Set Up Live Shipping Rates
- Shipping Overview
- How to remove all instances of shipping cost and cost calculators
- Shipping Region Setup
- How do I get UPS Negotiated Rates?
- How To Make A Free Shipping Option
- Please Select Shipping Method... But no options appear in the dropdown box... What do I do?
- Breakout Shipping
- How do I Ship a Product for Free?
- Defining Warehouses
- Product Specific Shipping Settings
- Custom Shipping Methods
Setup Taxes or Tax Providers
Set your state tax rate(s) or hook up a tax provider like TaxCloud or Avalara for automated calculations.
- How do I setup Tax Cloud?
- What are the tax options that AmeriCommerce online stores provide?
- What are Global Regions and How are They Setup?
- How to setup tax rates and how do they work?
Setup any Coupons, Discounts, Sales or Special offers:
Create coupon codes, adcodes, gift certificates and more! Find out how to create Discounts here.
Enter test orders to make sure your site is working as expected:
- Visit the front end of your site and add items to the cart, calculate totals and check out.
- Use our standard test credit card number to force the order into the system and past gateway checks, 4111-1111-1111-1111
- Test with your gateway to ensure proper authorization and captures of orders
Emails
Domain Email:
AmeriCommerce online stores have several email fields in the admin console where you specify your email address for order confirmations and warehouse notifications etc. We do not host domain email services but most domain registrars offer an option to add email service to your domain.
Store Email:
The AmeriCommerce online stores application uses sendgrid.net to send emails to your customer from the store email address you specify at Settings > Store Information > Store Email. Be sure to add the following SPF record to your domain DNS that matches this email address so that emails originating from your store to your customers are treated as if they came from your email domain. Add a TXT record with the following value: v=spf1 include:sendgrid.net ~all If you already have an SPF record just add the following in the existing TXT record: include:sendgrid.net
SEO
For existing sites, please ensure your old url's are redirected using a combination of our Global Redirect module and our Custom Urls module. This is very important for SEO.
Go Live
When your AmeriCommerce online store is first delivered to you the store domain is set to the AmeriCommerce online store domain http://sitename.americommerce.com. You can run your store on this domain or another domain or sub-domain (i.e. shop.domainname.com). We call the process of directing traffic from a domain or sub-domain to your site the 'go live' process, it is the last step after you have completed all other preparations. If you don't already have a domain name reserved you can submit a request to AmeriCommerce online stores to check name availability and pay to reserve an available domain name or use a domain registrar to reserve a domain name. Let us know in your Go Live support request if you already have a domain/sub-domain that you want to use as the store domain.
When you are ready to begin directing traffic to your site and drop ".americommerce.com" and become for example "www.sitename.com." You can take the site live within the admin dashboard. Please do not 301 redirect traffic from your domain to your trial site and if you're reading this and have done just that it needs to be removed prior to the Go Live task. If you already have a live site, traffic will be redirected away from the current web host to AmeriCommerce online stores unless you plan on setting the AmeriCommerce online store as a sub-domain value on your existing domain retaining your existing web hosting environment but adding the eCommerce component.
To reach the Go Live section in the admin console, navigate to the user icon at the bottom left and select "My Account". You'll be taken to the domain control page and here you can select the storefront you want to Go Live with and start the process. Also here you'll find SSL management options.
Secure Your Site
SSL Security:
SSL Certificates serve three primary functions:
- Secure private information between the web servers and the customers as they browse the site by using encryption.
- Secure the administration console so sensitive passwords, credit card numbers, and customer data cannot be intercepted.
- Provide a logo on the site that shows your customers that you protect their data. Some certificate logos go as far as to display that you are a legitimate company.
How do SSL Certificates work and what are my options?
Free Shared SSL
When your AmeriCommerce online store is first delivered to you the store's secure domain is set to the AmeriCommerce online store domain http://sitename.americommerce.com and uses the AmeriCommerce online stores shared SSL certificate. This is a free service we offer to make sure your site is secure from the beginning. When a customer visits a secure link during checkout, they will be transferred seamlessly to "yourstorename.americommerce.com", and back again once they leave the secured area. There is no SSL logo with this method. There is nothing additional that you need to do to configure this option, we maintain the SSL.
Automated SSL
The AmeriCommerce Automated SSL is a new feature that we are proud to offer from our partnership with Cloudflare. Our Automated SSL feature offers all of our customers a Domain Validated SSL certificate from their custom domain name for a fraction of the price of a standard SSL certificate, while also preventing expiration and renewal problems. Instead of an annual expiration date like other certificates, you can opt-in for this to be added to your monthly plan and never worry about renewing or expiration dates.
Purchase a dedicated SSL certificate
If you have your own SSL certificate, customers stay on your domain name the entire time they visit the site, and you can display a SSL logo. Some SSL certificates come with a static logo, others display your company name, and others are interactive, when clicked display information directly from the certificate authority. Most certificates also come with fraud insurance. Choose a certificate and place your order.
Provide your own dedicated SSL certificate
Have your own SSL Certificate and want to have it applied to your AmeriCommerce online store? Choose the 3rd party SSL Certificate service.
Once you have confirmed you are ready, follow this link to be instructed on how to go live.