Yahoo Store: The Missing Manual

Daniel X. O’Neil (773) 960-6045 dan_x_oneil@yahoo.com

Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Main Tasks ..............................................................................................................1 Logins ......................................................................................................................2 Maintain Catalog .....................................................................................................2

Export Items from Filemaker Pro .......................................................................2 Get the Excel Spreadsheet Ready for Upload ..................................................4 Upload to Yahoo! Catalog Manager...................................................................7 Publish Changes .................................................................................................9 Upload Images ....................................................................................................9

Editing Inside the Store Editor..............................................................................10 The Store Editor Menu......................................................................................10

“Edit” Button in The Store Editor Menu ...............................................................12 Edit Home Page ................................................................................................12 Edit Product Type Page ....................................................................................17 Edit Product SubType Page .............................................................................20 Edit Artist Page..................................................................................................21 Edit “See All Artists” Page ................................................................................22 Add New Product to an Existing Product SubType Page ..............................23 Add New Product to a Product SubType that Doesn’t Exist Yet ...................24 Add New Product Type to the Site...................................................................25

Helpful Hints ..........................................................................................................25 Index of all pages on the site............................................................................25

Introduction This document is a genericized version of the documentation I created for a client for whom I implemented a Yahoo! Store. Yahoo! Store is really easy to use and maintain once it is all setup, but there a paucity of good documentation on how to use the Store Editor. This is some plain-language translation of that process. The client used a Macintosh to maintain the store, used FileMaker Pro for their database, and so this document is focused on those technologies. Still, it should be useful to anyone who looked at the Store Editor and wondered what the heck all those buttons do. Here are some main things to keep in mind:

• Patience. Just like anything else, • Try and try again. The internet is a goofy place that requires exact

functions to be performed at the exact right time. • Follow directions. When in doubt, just do what it says here.

Main Tasks In general, there are a few main tasks you’ll be doing:

• Update catalog. This is the essential first step in anything you do. First,

the items have to be there, and then you can design them and make them the way you want them to look. This is done in the Catalog Manager.

• Configure the public-facing store. Once you have the right items in the Catalog, you can create individual pages with the items organized the way you want them. This is done in the Store Editor.

• Create weblog entries. This is how you can promote particular items and artists. This is done in the Blog Manager.

Logins There are three different logins to maintain the system: General Login http://sbs.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/merchant/ Blog Manager Login Separate login for the Movable Type system. Yahoo! Security Key You’ll need this to deal with anything related to credit card or store checkout stuff. Please note that I kept a lot of the store maintenance URLS in here. They are exemplary of your own URLs. Lots of them won’t work. Maintain Catalog Export Items from Filemaker Pro My client used Filemaker Pro 5 to manage its store inventory. In order to upload items into the Yahoo! Catalog, items must be saved in CSV (comma-separated text) format. To do this, go to FILE > EXPORT; choose the Comma-Separated Text document type, and choose SAVE.

Click “Move All” then “Export” on the next screen:

Then you’re done with Filemaker Pro. Note: you ought to consider changes the table/ column format in your Filemaker Pro database, but for now we’ll use Excel to change the column names to fit those for Yahoo!. Get the Excel Spreadsheet Ready for Upload Open the Excel spreadsheet you just created. It will look like this:

Put the cursor in the 1A box. Choose INSERT > ROWS. Here are the steps I took to clean up the file and prepare it for Yahoo! Catalog Manager:

• Select the entire Column D (number order of items) by clicking the D. • Delete it by holding the CTRL and X key at the same time • Place cursor in the 1A box • Place the column here by holding the CTRL and V key at the same time • Put the word “code” in box 1A • Select, delete, and replace Column C into Column B • Put the word “caption” in box 1B • Select, delete, and replace Column E into Column C • Put the word “caption” in box 1C • Select, delete, and replace Column F into Column D • Put the word “price” in box 1D • Select, delete, and replace Column H into Column E • Put the word “name” in box 1E • Leave Column F blank • Put the word “sale-price” in box 1F • Put the word “taxable” in box 1G • Put the word “ship-weight” in box 1G • Put the word “orderable” in box 1G

Here’s an explanation of each column: code: product number caption: description path: this controls the navigation and where the item appears in the site price: price name: product name sale-price: if there is one taxable: tax price ship-weight: weight of item orderable: whether someone can order it Here are the paths necessary to create the proper navigation on the site: Glass:Paperweights & Sculptures:Glass Eye Studio Glass:Accessories:Glass Eye Studio

Ceramics:Vases & Bowls:Michel Harvey Kinetic Sculpture:David Roy Glass:Vases & Bowls:Robin Mix Glass:Paperweights & Sculptures:Tom Philabaum Glass:Vases & Bowls:Tom Philabaum

Glass:Vases & Bowls:Peet Robison

Glass:Vases & Bowls:Michael J. Amis / Kokomo Hot Glass Glass:Figurines:Stuart Abelman Glass:Figurines:Arnold Larson Ceramics:Vases & Bowls:Arnold Larson Fantasy Figurines: Amy Brown

Glass:Paperweights & Sculptures:Glass Eye Studio Glass:Vases & Bowls:Buzz Blodgett Glass:Paperweights & Sculptures:Glass Eye Studio

Glass:Vases & Bowls:Robert Eickholt

Glass:Perfumes Bottles:Stephen J. Cox

Glass:Perfumes Bottles:Fire Island Hot Glass Studio Ornaments:Global Village Art Glass Glass:Plates & Coasters:Kurt McVay Glass:Perfumes Bottles:Fire Island Hot Glass Studio

Jewelry:Encore Glass Jewelry

Ornaments:Glass Eye Studio Fantasy Figurines:Ornaments:Amy Brown Fantasy Figurines:Cicely Mary Barker Fantasy Figurines:Ornaments:Cicely Mary Barker

Fantasy Figurines:Cicely Mary Barker When you’re done, save the file in CSV (Windows) format.

It will give you a warning. Click YES

Upload to Yahoo! Catalog Manager

Now you’re ready to upload. Go to the Catalog Manager: http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/services/ > Store Manager > Catalog Manager.

Click on Upload Items. It shows details of your last upload.

Click the Upload link

Choose table: keep as default-table Choose Action: This is SUPER IMPORTANT. If you choose Rebuild, you will nuke the entire catalog and replace it with the one you are uploading. Any customizations you made to text, images, etc. will be lost. Choose file: click here to upload the file you want. The system will Upload. Check for errors, maybe look at a few of the records, then click Commit. Publish Changes In order to see the new items, you’ve got to publish the changes. Go to Store Manager and Click on Store Editor. Scroll to the menu at the bottom and click Publish. Navigate to one of the items you published and check that it is there. Upload Images Now you’re ready to associate an image with each of the items in the catalog. Make sure you prepare the images in the following fashion:

• Name sure the image names exactly match the code, or product ID, for the catalog item. If you want to check, just navigate through the Store Editor to the item click on the "Edit" button. The ID will be the first item displayed on the page. It is also the name of the page—“88.html”, for instance, means ID 88

• Images must be saved in a zip file that does not exceed 2 MB. This is not a big file.

• My suggestion in the long term is that you use Filemaker Pro to manage your images and your catalog items

Editing Inside the Store Editor This section covers in detail the entire Store Editor portion of the Yahoo! Merchant tool. This is the bulk of the ongoing work you’ll be doing. To access the Store Editor:

• Login here: http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/services/

• Click the “Store Manager” link • Click the “Store Editor” link

The Store Editor Menu Clicking the “Store Editor” link takes you into the Store Editor with the homepage of your store as the default. At the bottom of the page (and all pages in the Store Editor) is the Store Editor menu along with a short description of each menu item. Here’s a custom look at each menu item and why it’s important: Edit: This is the button you click when you want to edit the way the page that you are on looks. Since you are now on the homepage, you’ll edit the homepage if you click this. If you navigated to another page in the Store (by clicking around in the navigation, for instance) and clicked “Edit”, you’d be editing that page. Edit All: This is a shortcut button into managing prices, and product names. This applies to all of the items currently in your store, not just the page you’re currently on. Section: This is the button you click when you want to add a new section of the site. The most common use you’ll have for this is to create a new artist. Creating a new section automatically puts a link in the site navigation to that page. Item:

This is another way you can add a new product to a particular product section. It is page-specific. For instance, if you click on “Item” when you are on the Ceramics page, it will add a link to a new type of Ceramics. If you on “Item” when you are on a product page, it will add a new product to that page. Link: This allows you add a link to the page you are on. This is useful if you want to link to more information about an artist or link to a relevant other page on your site. Move: This is a homepage-specific button that allows you to handle the order of the navigation links. Image: Allows you to add or replace the image on the page. Page-specific button. Look: Allows you to change the “look”, or design, of the page. Probably will never need this. Layout: Similar to look, it allows you to change the structure (number of columns, placement of columns, etc.) of the page. Again, probably will never need this. Variables: This is the button you use to manage a whole host of things about your site. We’ll cover this in detail below. Manager: This button takes you back to the Store Manager. Publish: This one’s important. When you make a whole bunch of changes, make sure you click this (and follow the instructions after clicking) to make sure those changes are available out on the internet. Contents: This is kind-of a geeky page that is pretty useful for a number of reasons, mainly related to navigation. You can also see and access every page on your site from here. Templates: This is a list of every template, or page type, that makes up your site. It’s useful for a geek-type who wants to see and/or manipulate how the site actually works. For instance, if you want to customize the way the homepage looks, you’d copy the “home.” template, modify it, rename it, and apply that template using the “Edit” button. More below.

Types: This is a useful way for a developer to store and manage code for the site. Database Upload: This is another way into your Catalog Manager. You’re better off just accessing the Catalog Manager (and following instructions above) instead of using this. Variables: This is useful for all sorts of site settings. More on this later. Controls: This is the way to control how the Store Editor works. No need to mess with this. Now, let’s take a closer look at a number of the menu items that are important for maintaining your store in the context of tasks you’re going to want to do. “Edit” Button in The Store Editor Menu Edit Home Page To edit your homepage, click on “Store Editor” from the “Store Manager” page and then click Edit in the menu. Let’s take a look at each field in detail:

ID: this is the specific page name that appears in the URL on the site. For instance, this is the homepage, so it is available on the internet at http://store.example.com/index.hmtl. If this were the page for product 49, the ID would be 49 and the corresponding webpage would be http://store.example.com/49.html. Type: This is a Store Editor designation that controls what you can edit. This is useful if you ever want to customize the site and create new types of pages with different edit functions in the Store Editor. Template: This is Template id (i.e., the page style) used to generate the item page. This is useful if you want to customize the homepage from the built-in styles. Don’t change this. Message: This is the text that appears beneath the image on the homepage.

Page-title: This is the text that appears in the browser title bar of your homepage:

Contents: This is some code that handles the navigation on the left-hand side of the page. Don’t mess with this.

Page Elements: This is how you control the order in which things are displayed on the page. This is a good field to play around with as you learn the system because it relates to so many others. Just keep a screenshot of the original settings so you can restore them if you mess up. To create a screenshot, hold down SHIFT-CTRL-APPLE-4 at the same time, then use the mouse to click/drag over the box. You’ll hear a “camera shutter sound”. Then open the Stickies application, click APPLE-N, then APPLE-V. This will paste the screenshot into the Stickie so you can restore the settings if you mess up. Specials: This is a way to put thumbnail pictures and links to specific sections/ pages of your site. To put a new link/ image here, navigate to the page or section that you want to link to, copy/paste the page name see Page Field below in the “Edit Product Page” section). Image: This is how you can add an image to this page. Careful: if you already have an image there, it will be replaced. Image-format: Controls how image is displayed on page. If Left, image will be sized to item-height and -width and set to the left of following text. If Banner, image will be sized to the page width. If Unconstrained, original image will be shown. Banner is best.

Buttons: This is one way to control the order of the left-hand navigation (the MOVE button is another way to do it). Notice the “empty” element—this is the way to put a space in between two sets of navigation like here

Specials-format: Determines how the specials will be laid out on the page. If As-thumbnails, shown as a series of compact images. Otherwise displayed according to columns, contents-elements, and contents-format. Leave this as is. Contents-elements: This is how to control the content that is displayed in the specials. Here are the ones that are currently displayed: Columns: This controls the number of columns that the specials are displayed in. Intro-text: This is sort of a wild card text box. I use this on your homepage to put the text “Featured Items” above the specials. Note that you can change the order of display of page elements in the “Page Elements” field. Here’s what the homepage currently looks like using the method above:

Edit Product Type Page A Product Type page is the index page for one of the navigation items on the left-hand side of the site. As we saw above, these Product Types are automatically generated via the database import, based on the paths we’ve placed the items under. There are some Product Types that have a lot of Product SubTypes. Each Product SubType can, in turn, have a number of Artists underneath them. This automatic population of pages is one of the advantages of the system. Based on this taxonomy, the Product Type Page should have some general text about the Product Type, a list of all Product SubTypes, and a general image representing the Product SubType.

ID: The name of the page. This is how you refer to this page from other pages in the Contents field Type: A designation that determines the types of things you can edit in the Store Editor. Template: Type of web page it is. Name: This is where you can edit the ID. No need to ever do this. Image: You can place a large image here for the whole page. Headline: Place a sales-focused headline here. Caption: Put more detail here. You can put HTML in here so that you can link to any page you want to highlight. Contents: This is auto-generated links to the Product SubTypes pages associated with this Product Type. Usually there is no need to edit this. Abstract: This is a description of this page that can be used when you refer to this page from other pages. They way we’ve made the site, there is no need to use this field.

Icon: This is an image that will be used whenever you refer to this item from another page. Always use this—upload the most general, well-stocked image you can. Inset: This is an opportunity to upload a second, smaller image for the page. No need to use it here. Leaf: Not used here. More research needed. Product-url: Not used here. More research needed. The last thing that is necessary to make the Product Type Page the way you want it is to create an icon for each of the Product SubTypes that appear in the Contents section of the admin page. All you have to do is navigate to those the Product SubType Page and assign a suitable icon. Make sure it is a generalized image so you don’t have to worry about changing it if it goes out of stock. Here’s a good example of a Product Type Page created using the methods above: http://store.fabrilegallery.com/yhst-15952376014512/glass.html

Edit Product SubType Page A Product SubType page is the index page for one of the Product SubTypes. An example is the Paperweights & Sculptures portion of the Glass Product Type. The Product SubType page has the exact same fields as the Product Type page. The only fields you really have to worry about are as follows: Image: Assign a representative image for the page. Caption: Create general, descriptive sales text for the page Icon: Assign the same image here as you do for the page image. Here’s an example of a page created this way:

http://store.fabrilegallery.com/glass-paperweights---sculptures.html

Edit Artist Page An Artist Page serves as sort of a homepage for each artist. As a practical matter, the Artist Page is really just the Product SubType page that has the most products for that artist. Fabrile Gallery sells many artists that produce work under more than one Product Type, so just pick the one that has the most products and then link to the other Product SubType pages. The only fields you have to edit are as follows: Caption: Just copy/paste the biography of the artist into this field. The only tricky part is at the end, adding links to any other Product SubType pages. See the example below.

Since 1978 Glass Eye Studio has been creating exquisite handmade glass art. Located in Seattle, the American hub of glass blowing, their studio features captivating creations by dedicated artisans. To assure that you are receiving the finest American art glass - the talented Glass Eye artisans painstakingly create by hand all of the hot glass we sell. With the eruption of Mount St. Helens Volcano in 1980, volcanic ash has been added to the glass formulas making each piece more unique and collectible.

See also <a href="http://edit.store.yahoo.com/RT/NEWEDIT.yhst-15952376014512/4165e0da93b3/glass-accessories-glass-eye-studio.html">accessories</a> and <a href="http://store.fabrilegallery.com/yhst-15952376014512/ornaments-glass-eye-studio.html">ornaments</a> from Glass Eye Studio.

Icon: Add a representative image. That’s it! Here’s an example of an Artist page using the method above Edit “See All Artists” Page The “See All Artists” page is the way to present links to all of the artists represented on the website. This is not an automatic page—it is completely hand-created. I’ve already created this page. To edit it, all you have to worry about is to parts of the admin form: Headline: Change it to whatever you want. Caption: Not currently used. You can add it if you like. Contents: This is the key. As you can see from the two items that are in this field already. They are there because this code is placed there:

ceramics-vases---bowls-arnold-larson ceramics-vases---bowls-michel-harvey

There are two pieces of text here. They are separated by spaces. To get the code for each artist, go to the Artist page you created for the artist from the Product SubType page and find the ID at the top of the edit form. Copy/ paste this ID into the Content field wherever you want it to appear. Here’s the spot to look (top of the page) for the Arnold Larson artist page:

Here’s the See All Artists page thus far:

Add New Product to an Existing Product SubType Page To add a new product, follow these steps:

• In the Store Editor, navigate to the Product SubType page that you want to add a new item to

• Here’s an example: http://edit.store.yahoo.com/RT/NEWEDIT.yhst-15952376014512/4fd894866688/glass-paperweights---sculptures-glass-eye-studio.html

• Then click the “item” button at the bottom and fill out the form • Don’t forget to add an icon so that it can be referred to in other places

Add New Product to a Product SubType that Doesn’t Exist Yet In this instance, first you’ve got to create the product subtype before you can add an item to the Product SubType. Follow these steps:

• Go to the homepage in the Store Editor • Click on “Section” • Fill out the form, including Name, Image, Headline, and Icon, and click

Save • This will automatically create a new link to this page in the left-hand nav • Click on it and check to make sure that it will serve well as a new Product

SubType page • Remember the name of the page—this is what you’ll need to refer to it

from somewhere else • Also remember that the name of the page is the string of text after the

final “/” in the URL and before the “.html” • Edit it any way you like • Since you want it to be a Product Sub Type page, now you have to take

it off of the main navigation. So go back to the homepage in the Store Editor, click Edit, and take the page name (good idea to select and it do

“APPLE-X” to cut it and copy it at the same time) from the “contents” section on the Edit screen

• Then navigate to the Product Page you want to add this Product SubType Page to

• Click Edit • Paste (APPLE-V) the page name in the order you want the link to appear

on the Product Page • Click Save • Then you’re ready to add actual Products to this page—just navigate to

it, click “Item” and add a product • Repeat as often as you need to

Add New Product Type to the Site Basically, in order to create a new Product Type, follow the same steps as above. The only difference is that after you add the Section, you’ll may want to move it to another place in the left nav other than the bottom. As discussed above, all you have to do is click the “edit” button while on the homepage and then the “Buttons” button. Then just rearrange the nav however you like.

Helpful Hints Index of all pages on the site Here’s how to get links to every page on your site: http://store.fabrilegallery.com/ind.html Here’s how to get to it from the Store Editor: http://edit.store.yahoo.com/RT/NEWEDIT.yhst-15952376014512/407b8ec1d18a/ind.html