| Shop
ID: 3-15 characters. You already chose this ID when you created
your shop in the first place, but you can change it at any time. Since this
Shop ID is also the link to your shop, changing this will cause links to
your OLD shop name to go to an error page. (For instance, the link to a
shop with an ID of "preciousart" would be "http://www.cafeshops.com/preciousart") Shop Name: This is essentially the long name for your shop which will appear in your shop header. However, this information may quickly disappear from your Premium Shop as you customize it to your own taste. Return Page After Shopping: If you want to create a special 'thank you' page after a customer has bought one of your products, this would be the place to put it - don't enter anything here until you've created the actual page. (See Using Hidden Sections As Link or General HTML Pages.) If you don't include a link here a customer will simply return to the front page of your Shop. |
| Title: This will
appear in the top bar of the customer's browser when they go to your store.
Make it descriptive and memorable, but not too long. Don't put keywords
here. Keywords/Phrases: While these are inserted into your page for search engines, they are invisible to visitors to your Shop. Specify a list of words or phrases, separated by commas, that describe the products in your Premium Shop. For instance, what terms would YOU put in a search engine if you wanted to find the specific designs that are in your shop? Meta-Tag Description: This is another area that is invisible to visitors, but important for search engines. They use this description to return accurate search as well as keywords |
| My Shop & Website are
Kid Friendly (under the age of 13): Make sure you check this if
your shop is kid friendly so it can show up in CafeShops general search
results. Otherwise, it will only show up in adult sections specifically
created for that kind of content. If your site is not kid friendly, and
you check this anyway, you won't make any friends over at CafePress and
may have your store closed down. Private: Check this option ONLY if you don't want search engines (including CafeShops search) to know about your Shop. This can be handy if you only want your shop available to a limited audience, for instance, members of a forum on your web site. Keep in mind that you can make SECTIONS of your Premium Shop hidden/private if you don't want the ENTIRE shop to be essentially invisible. |
| Custom
Templates: If you want a quick custom-look to your shop, a template
is a great way to achieve this. (This is an especially convenient option
if you don't know much html yet.) At the moment, CafePress has eight templates,
four general-use and four that are focused on pet/animal-related shops.
Cafepress has links to sample shops using each template. Colors & Fonts: Cafepress gives Premium Shop owners a lot of color customizations here - beginners can choose basic colors with color names, advanced users can play with color hex codes (See How Can I Find HTML Color Codes?), but if you're still learning the ropes, don't go nuts at first. Change a few things like the color for linked text, or background color, but test your store as you go. Custom HTML: Cafepress STRONGLY suggests that only people who are comfortable with html should dabble with this section, understandably so - mistype a single character here and you can screw up your entire shop. (Scared yet? *grin*) We'll explain some of the basics behind these options, which are excellent unto themselves, but you can do some pretty amazing things once you get the hang of more complex html coding! Note - not ALL of below options REQUIRE html - some of them will give quite acceptable results from just typing in straight text - these will be noted.)
|
| Add a Section When you add a section, you can define the following Section Display options (Thumbnail & Caption):
Section Info: This area let's you add any text (or html, links, etc.) that you want to appear at the top of the section, above any products or other sections you've defined. Section Contents: This area is where you add products and other sections (subsections), reorganize, move, and import items - these are the green buttons in the gold bar near the top of the page. If you add another (sub)section here, you'll follow the same process as adding a section. (For more information on adding a section, see How do I add a section?) If you want to add a product, keep reading.
|
| How
do I customize my Premium Shop? The shortest answer is that you click
on "Create & Manage Your Shops", then, next to your Premium
Shop listing, click "Customize". The Customize
section above includes an overview of the templates, colors, fonts, and
custom html you can add. You can find more specific questions & answers
by browsing through the Customization
Questions List, above. How can I get site statistics or tell how customers are finding my Shop? CP does not offer Shop Owners site statistics right now. however, you can sign up for a third-party stats program such as SiteMeter or eXTReMe Tracker, and then put their tracking html either in the Custom HTML: Extra Sidebar Content field, or in the Footer field (so that it appears on every page.) Then, you can check your stats, including referrers, at any time by going to the third-party site and logging in. How should I forward my domain name to my Shop: direct forwarding or masking? Choose direct forwarding. While domain masking keeps the domain name in the browser's location bar instead of showing the www.cafeshops.com/yourstorename URL, it also creates a 'frame' which prevents CafePress's shopping cart from functioning. Why do I keep seeing an error page when I'm trying to work on my shop? Like this one? "We're Sorry, You've Encountered an Error! You've received this message because of the following possibilities: 1. Slow Internet connectivity speed at this time, 2. Server timed out due to heavy load or traffic, 3. Data has been lost by your browser, 4. Not all of the fields in the form were properly completed, 5. Temporary server-side technical problem. Please try to submit previous page again. If the problem persists, please try to submit the page later or email Customer Service. We will work to correct the problem as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience." Sometimes, just as the page indicates, we see this error when CafePress is making changes to the their system while we're working on our Shops, or when a lot of people are trying to work on their Shops all at once, or even due to other factors, such as when an email virus is going around the internet and slowing EVERYTHING down. In any case, it's a good time to take a break, go out for a brisk walk, etc., and then try again in a little while. Why Do I Have to Keep Logging In? When this happens, this is another indication that CafePress is making some kind of adjustments or improvements to the system at the moment. This usually passes after a while, similar to the classic error page above. If you continually get error messages or if you keep getting logged out for more than just a passing period of time, you may want to consult the CafePress Message Boards, either the General Help or Report Bugs topics in particular. Where can I find links to official CafePress Help Pages? There is an excellent compilation of help links in the CafePress Message Boards - click here to check them out. Also, CafePress has small, content specific 'suggestion' or 'further explanation' links all over in the Account and Shop Management pages - keep an eye out for them! How do I add my shop to the CafeShops Directory? Click on "Get Your Shop Listed at Cafepress.com". At the moment, you may choose one category for your Premium Shops as well as specify a thumbnail image and a short description. (As of the release of this guide, CafePress is currently reworking their Cafeshops Directory. Guidelines for most effective use of the Directory may follow once the new one is complete.) How can I upgrade my Basic Shop to a Premium Shop? Cafepress has made this very simple. Click "Create & Manage Shops" and then, to the right of your Basic Shop listing, click the "Upgrade" button! If you want to keep your Basic Shop, but want a Premium Shop with that original Basic ShopID, just do a bit of name juggling. Change your Basic Shop ID to something different, then click the "Open a New Shop" button in the "Create & Manage Shops" area and specify the name of the original Basic Shop as your new Premium Shop ID. (By the way, there's very little chance of anyone else snatching up your old ShopID during this process.) Then, just import your products into your Premium Shop from your Basic Shop. Why are there black t-shirts and other products in some CafePress Shops that aren't available to Premium Shops? These are Shops that are working with CafePress under the Corporate Solutions option. Products that aren't offered through CafePress are created by the shop owners and then shipped to CafePress for storage and fulfillment, such as black t-shirts. |
| How
do I add a Section to my Premium Store? First, give a little thought
to how you want to organize your store. (More info on store organization
in the Sections & Products overview.)
Once you've got a general plan in mind, and have created a 'thumbnail' graphic
for your section (optional): 1. Click "Create & Manage Shops" and then click on "Sections & Products" to the right of your Premium Shop listing. 2. Click the green "Add Section" button in the gold bar near the top of the page. 3. Under 'Section Display', click 'upload' next to Thumbnail and select the graphic you've created. (150x150 pixels is a good upper limit for thumbnail size, althought the max is 500x200 pixels.) Click "Upload". 4. After your thumbnail is uploaded (it MAY appear strangely in the thumbnail preview box due to display contraints, but it's probably fine.), type in the title of your new section in the "Caption" field, and then any additional description in the "Teaser" field. (The Teaser information appears in smaller text underneath the thumbnail and section Caption.) Click "Save". 5. After the red alert, "Your information has been updated!", click the "Section Info" tab and then enter a longer section description in the "Description Text" field. This is the text that will be displayed on the section page of your store, above any sections and products. Consider including a good description of the design, and even a little additional history, background, or story information. This will be read by search engines. You can use Custom HTML in this field if you wish. 6. Then, enter the number of items you want to appear in a single row across - we recommend three. When you are done, click the green "Save" button. 7. After the red alert, "Your information has been updated!", click the "Section Contents" tab. Now you have the option of making more SUBsections in this section or actually adding products. To create a subsection, follow these same instructions. How do I add a Product to my Premium Shop? This process is very similar to Adding A Section, above. To start, we'll assume you've already uploaded a 10"x10" image you want to put on your product (see the Images topic for more information), created the section in which you want the product, and have clicked the "Section Contents" tab. 1. Click the green "Add A Product" button in the gold bar near the top of the page. 2. You can check various options here: Add all products, certain categories of products, or just the products that you specifically check. For this example, we're just going to add one product, which means you can just click on the product itself, a white t-shirt. Do that now. (Note: if your adding products to a NON-hidden section, those products won't show up in your actual shop, for people to purchase, until you add an image to them.) 3. Next, on the Product Designer page, "Front" tab, you'll see a picture of a blank white t-shirt. If you want an image on the front of the t-shirt, click the blue "Select Image" button. (You can have images on the front and the back of shirts, but for this example, it will only be on the front.) In your Image Basket, click on the image (or the folder and then the image, if you've arranged your images in different folders) that you want on the front of the white t-shirt. 4. After you've clicked on the image, you'll go back to the Product Designer page, where you'll see your image on the front of the white t-shirt! The "Select Image Height" drop down box will give you the option of making your image smaller by selecting a new height measurement, which we'll leave as is right now, and the "Select Image Placement" buttons let you center it on the chest or make it a smaller 'pocket' image off to the side. We'll select 'center' and then click the blue "Next" button at the bottom of the page. 5. We're not putting an image on the back of the shirt, so we can continue on from the "Back Design" tab to the "Product Information" tab by clicking the blue "Next" button again. 6. Enter text into the "Product Name/Caption" field - make it short, but descriptive, like "Neo-Flower White T-shirt". 7. Enter a longer, more detailed description in the "Description" field, such as, "Red & Blue Abstract Flower design printed on the front of a white t-shirt." You get the idea. 8. If you want to make a profit from your shop, then you'll need to raise the price ABOVE the base price listed. Set a price you're comfortable with, although you can change it at any time. When you are done click the blue "Save & Finish" button. (Note - if you click the 'Done' tab at the top of the Product Designer screen instead of "Save & Finish", the information you added will NOT be recorded. The "Done" tab is for returning you to the previous pages.) Can I have a hidden or private section? How would this affect my shop? When you create a section, you have the option of making it private or 'hiding' it, by choosing the green 'Hide' button on the bottom right of the section square in the "Sections & Products" area of your shop. Hiding a section means that the section itself and any products or subsections within that section will not be linked anywhere in your shop, indexed by search engines, or included in the Browse by Product listings. This feature has many benefits, such as setting up sections just for specific people to access, with special designs or pricing, or creating a section just for yourself if you are creating specialized gifts for family and friends and don't want anyone else to order them. Another way people use hidden sections is to hide a section that they've already filled with blank products, with their usual prices set. (Or if you always have a specific design on the back of your apparel, for instance, with that design already added.) Then they create a new section, Import the hidden section's 'blank' products, and they've already halfway created a whole new set of products - all they have to do is add the new design and alter the description text! How do I link to hidden sections or products? Both sections and products have unique numbers associated with them. To access HIDDEN sections or products, find these unique numbers (in the "Sections & Products" area, in the colored bar right above each section or product) and use the following link templates, replacing the "######" symbols with the actual product or section number, and 'yourstorename' with your actual store ID:
How can I use Hidden Sections for Link Pages or as General HTML Pages? 1. Click on "Create & Manage Shops". 2. Then to the right of your Premium Shop listing, click "Sections & Products". 3. Click the green "Add Section" button in the gold bar near the top of the page. 4. Under Section Display, type "Links" (for example) in your Caption area, for your own reference and then click the green "Save" button at the bottom of the screen. (Since this section will be 'hidden', there's no reason to add a thumbnail or teaser text.) 5. After the red alert, "Your information has been updated!" appears at the top of your screen, click on the "Section Info" tab near the top of the page. 6. In the "Description Text" field, this is where you'll put all of your html for your links. (See Custom HTML for a brief discussion of html link syntax and further references.) Click "Save" when you are finished. 7. After the red alert, "Your information has been updated!", click the "Done" tab near the top right. You will be taken back to your Premium Shop "Sections & Products" area. 8. Find the new section you just created called "Links", and then click on the green "Hide" button at the bottom right of the "Links" box. You will then see this alert, "Your section is now hidden. You can still link to the section and view it, but it will not show up in the store or in the sidebar." The top bar in your "Links" section will now be grey instead of gold - get the section number listed there. The URL for your "Links" page is http://www.cafeshops.com/yourstorename/###### - "######" being the section number. 9. Check this URL to make sure your html is correct. To make adjustments, click on the green "Edit" button in the bottom left of the "Links" section box, and then click "Section Info" again to get back to the Description Text field. 10. When your Links page looks like you want it to, you can then add the link to, for example, the Sidebar using the "Extra Sidebar Content" field, or to the footer. You must deliberately put the link somewhere - because this section is hidden, it won't be automatically linked to in any way. Note: You can also use this technique for creating other pages like customer testimonial pages, etc. At the moment, this very Guide is a prime example of this "hidden section" technique! How can I make changes to an existing product? You use the same basic process as when you created a product. If you click on a product when in your "Sections & Products" area, you go to the Product Designer screen, where you can change any of the settings you defined previously. How can I change all of my products at once instead of having to edit each one individually? The good news is that you can change prices across the board for all your products by clicking the "Change Product Prices" link that's on the right side of the page, at the top of every "Sections & Products" page. The bad news is that there is no current way of editing a lot of products at once (changing names, descriptions, images, etc.) YET.... CafePress understands that this is a priority request among Premium Shop owners and is working to implement a system for this - hold tight! How can I remove a Product or Section? How can I remove a lot of Products at once? When you are in the "Sections & Products" area, each section or product has a green "Remove" button in it's 'square'. Just click that button, and confirm it by clicking the "Yes" (I'm sure I want to delete it) button, and it's gone! If you want to delete a lot of products, one clever way to do this is to create a Hidden Section called "Trash", move all of the items you want to delete into this Section (check the items and then click the green "move checked items" button in the gold bar near the top of the page and select the "Trash" section), and then simply delete/remove the "Trash" section. How can I import or copy existing products/sections into a different section? You can import products from any Basic Store, or Premium Shop section into any other Premium Shop section. Importing leaves the original products where they are and makes new copies of them, with new product (or section) numbers, within the current Premium Shop section. You can use your 15-day Premium Shop trial, for instance, to create a new Premium Shop while still retaining the products in your Basic Shop(s), while you are deciding. And here's another clever way to use the Import feature. How can I use a Product thumbnail as a Section thumbnail? For this process, you must have already created the desired product (and thus, thumbnail) (see Adding a Product for more information.) 1. In your browser, use your actual shop address to visit the section with the desired product; the link will be something like this: http://www.cafeshops.com/yourshopname/###### where ###### is the section number that you see in your "Sections & Products" section when editing your store. 2. Locate the product within the section, then right click on the product image (thumbnail) - click on "Save Image As" which will save the image to your computer's hard drive. 3. Then, login into your CafePress account, click "Create & Manage Shops", then "Sections & Products", then find the desired section and click the green "Edit" button in the section square. 4. Click "Thumbnail & Caption" and then click "upload". Using the browse feature, select the image you previously saved and then click "upload". 5. Click the green "Save" button at the bottom of the page. (Keep in mind that the product images have white backgrounds. If you don't want your section image to have a white background, you can alter it in a graphics program to have either the background color you want, or to make the white transparent and saving it in a transparent .gif format instead of as a .jpg. Then, just make sure you upload the changed version instead of the original. |
| If
I have customized html in my Premium Shop, but switch to a CafePress template,
can I easily switch back? When you use a template, all of your customized
html will be deleted. We suggest keeping local copies of your html so that
you can switch back anytime you like. I changed some colors in the Colors & Fonts area and now I can't see certain parts of my Shop or Shopping Cart! The most likely answer here is that you've set some of the text to be the same color as the background. If you can tell what particular text (i.e., product descriptions, links, etc.) or element isn't showing up, that will give you a place to start. How can I find the html codes for colors beyond the basic 'named' ones? You can start with this color chart: http://html-color-codes.com/ or you can search google for "html color codes". How can I learn html so I can do more things to my Premium Shop? Here are a few of the very basic html codes to get you started:
How can I get rid of the white CafeShop strip across the top of my Premium Shop? There's a way, but if we told you, we'd have to kill you. Seriously though, the white CafePress strip at the top has really important and handy links in it, plus it connects the store with the name on the invoice, just a few of the reasons that CafePress has put it there in the first place. If you're good enough at web design, you can probably figure out how to do this yourself - we're laying low on this one. If you want COMPLETE control over your Shop, you may want to consider hosting the store on your own domain using some of the existing hosting scripts that are available from third parties, such as CPSHOP or others. How do I make the sidebar wider? An easy way to make the sidebar wider is to add a graphic in the "Extra Sidebar Content" field that is wider than 125 pixels. Don't go too crazy with this though, you don't want that sidebar TOO wide. How can I change the color and placement of my newsletter signup box? Under "Promote Your Shop", click "Build Email List". On this page there are options for altering the text color and background color of the signup box. You can also specify 'successful subscription' and 'failed subscription' links if you have special pages set up for those purposes. If you are going to place the html yourself, click "Generate HTML" and copy the code next that applies to the size box you want. (See Customize for more information on places to add html code into your Shop.) If you just want your new newsletter box to appear in your sidebar, then make sure the Show Newsletter Subscription Form option is checked. How can I add a background image to my Shop? Add the following html tag to the Custom HTML: Body option: <body background="http://www.domain.com/yourimage.jpg"> (replacing domain.com with your own website name since this graphic will have to be remotely hosted, and yourimage.jpg with the name of your graphic file.) If you already have some Body code specified, then just add: background="http://www.domain.com/images/yourimage.jpg" with a space on each side, somewhere between the "<Body" and ">" tags. How can I add that neat Browse By Product option I see in other Shops? Use the following URL, replacing 'yourstorename' with your actual store ID: http://www.cafeshops.com/yourstorename?type=0 If you were adding this to your sidebar, for instance, the correct html would be: <a href="http://www.cafeshops.com/yourstorename?type=0">Browse By Product</a> When customers click on this link they will go to a page with a drop-down menu of all available (non-hidden) products they can browse through. |
| How
Do I create images for the products in my Premium Shop? Rather than
reinvent the wheel, we're just going to point you to the Excellent
Image FAQ in the CP Message Boards, which covers formats, resolutions,
the works. The major difference between Basic Shop images and Premium Shop
images is that Premium Shop owners get a larger print area for most apparel:
10"x10" instead of 8"x10". How do I upload an image to use on my products? Click "Create & Manage Shops", and then click "Media Basket" This takes you to your Image page - click "Upload Image", then "Browse" to find the image on your computer. then, check the box that says you've read and understood the terms and conditions of images, and then click "upload". A small popup window will appear telling you the percentage that has been uploaded. When finished, a thumbnail of your graphic will appear in your Image Basket. (The Image Basket is also the Media Basket, now that CafePress can sell CDs and books, which require different file formats. For more information on these other kinds of media uploads, visit the CafePress Message Boards, especially the CafePress Help Pages Links. When am I getting an error message when trying to upload an image? Sometimes this happens when CafePress is updating their systems, or when the internet itself is slow or really busy. Also, make sure that you have no web filters in place that could block the upload process (typical FireWall programs, like ZoneAlarm, shouldn't cause any problems.) If this problem persists, check out the Report Bugs Forum to see if anyone else is having trouble, and/or call CafePress's customer service line for help. How many images can I keep in my Image Basket? To date, no one has yet found an upper limit to the number of graphics you can upload. However, CafePress does reserve the right to delete any images that aren't being used on products, at their discretion. |