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You should pay attention to the following settings, most of which are important because they are displayed on in the front office, and therefore in plain sight of your customers.
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Setting | Description | Where to find it |
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Shop name | Defines your brand, most notably on search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing...). | "Shop Parameters" menu, "Contact" page, "Stores" tab, then in the "Contact details" section, edit the "Shop name" option. |
Shop logo | Defines your brand visually. The default logo says "Classic", which is the name of the default theme. | "Design" menu, "Theme & Logo" page, "Your current theme" section, then change the various default images to your logo. |
Default shop currency | The currency in which you want to set the default price for your products. | "International" menu, "Localization" page, "Configuration" section. |
Shop information | Several blocks presenting the phone number for your shop, your contact address and the email for your shop. These are displayed at various places in the front-offices. | The information comes from "Shop Parameters" menu, "Contact" page, "Stores" tab, then in the "Contact details" section. To disable it, refer to the "Contact information" module. |
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Image slider | The slider presents several images, scrolling one after the other. It is a strong visual signature for your store and products. | "Image slider" module. |
Pages | The content of static pages, such as "About Us", "Delivery", "Legal Notice", "Terms and Conditions", and "Secure Payment". Some of them have default content, which you should adapt to your business; some others are empty, and you should paste your own text. | "Design" menu, "pages" page, then edit and create pages at will. |
| Social networks | A block presenting several icons to follow your company on social media. It won't display by default, so make sure you enter your social media links on the module. | "Social media follow links" module. |
| Social media sharing | On each product page, 4 buttons to share the page's URL on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest. | "Social media share buttons" module. |
| Top menu | The top of the default theme uses a top menu to indicate categories that the visitor can go to, as well as links to other locations. | "Main menu" module. |
| Reassurance | On the product page, a block allows you to display some reassurance details. Use it to give some details about your return policy ("Free returns!"), your security policy ("Secured payments"), etc., so that visitors will feel it's safe to order on from your shop. | "Customer reassurance" module. |
Homepage content | The default theme contains a lot of demo content: texts, images, links, etc. If you intend on using that theme for your own store instead of buying your theme, you should make sure to remove all the default content first. | "Banner" module: change the image at the bottom of the home page. "Custom text blocks" module: display you your own messages at the bottom of the home page, below the banner. Other modules available in "Installed Modules", "Theme modules" section will help you define the various settings for your front office, make sure you check them all! |
| Legal compliance | Some countries require you to give specific information to your customers, regarding your various policies. The "Legal compliance" module is here to help. | Please read the "Complying with the European legislation" page to know more about the changes you should make. |
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PrestaShop is able to work with many languages, both on in the front office and the back office. As soon as more than one language is enabled in your back office, each back office text-field is accompanied with a language code selector, which indicates the current language, and which you can click in order to choose another language in which to write that field's content.
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The currently enabled language(s) have a green check mark, while the others have a red cross. Click on a check mark checkmark to disable the selected language; click on a cross to enable it back.
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| Note |
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Merchandise return is not enabled by default. If you want to allow your customers to return products and get a refund or a voucher, you can do it in the "Merchandise return (RMA) options" of the "Merchandise returnreturns" page, under the "OrdersCustomer service" menu. |
Choose your theme
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You can and should customize some of the theme's aspects, most notably its logo in various situations (header, mail, invoice, etc.). This is done using the "ThemesTheme & Logo" preferences page, which you can find under the "PreferencesDesign" menu.
Choose your modules
PrestaShop comes bundled with more than a hundred modules. These are very varied: analytics, front office features, payment, shipping... You should explore the available modules in full, in order to know which ones you might want to enable, and which you'd rather keep disabled.
See the "Managing Modules" and "Making The Native Modules Work" chapters of this guide in order to learn about them all.
You can also find many other modules on the Addons marketplace: http://addons.prestashop.com/en/2-modules-prestashop
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Create your products and product categories
This is described in details in the "Adding Managing Products" and Product "Managing Categories" chapterchapters.
Create your static content
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Some pages already exist, but their content should really be triple-checked, as they can have a lot of impact on your shop's legal status, among other things.
The default pages are "About Us", "Delivery", "Legal Notice", "Terms and Conditions of use", and "Secure Payment". Some of them have default content, which you should update; some others are empty, and you should paste your own text.
To edit these pages, go to the "PreferencesDesign" menu, click the "CMSPages" page, then choose the page you want to edit, or create new ones.
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Now that you have product categories and CMS static pages, you should arrange them in a logical and compelling way in the top menu.
This is done using the "Top horizontal Main menu" module: go to the "Installed Modules" tab of the "Modules" page, type "menu" in the module search form, and you should find the module. Enable it if it is disabled, then configure it: remove the pages or categories you deem unnecessary, add other pages, and move the content around, until you are satisfied with your menu's hierarchy.
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Now that all is set and done, you can finally open your shop to the public.
Go the "Preferences Shop Parameters / MaintenanceGeneral" page, and change the two options in the "Maintenance" tab:
- Enable Shop: set it back to "Yes".
- Maintenance IP: remove your IP from the list. This is optional: your shop will still work if you leave the field as it is.
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