How-To Tutorial

Cart How To . . .

Creating Your ORDER PAGES -- FAST 1 2 3 METHOD:

Select one of your existing web pages to edit. Load it in your favorite web editor. If you are using a graphical web editor such as FrontPage or Dreamweaver, be sure you switch over to "html" or "text" mode before inserting the HTML tags discussed.

Fast Product Add
The fastest easiest way to add a product is to click 'Add Product' in your cart control panel and add your product. When you click to save the product, the 'Add product' page comes back with the HTML to copy and paste into your web page. When pasting the HTML into your web page editor, you may need to click 'Paste Special' then select 'paste as HTML' or switch to HTML mode to properly paste the code. Try it both ways at first, and repeat the method that works for you.

Alternate Connection Method

Just before you insert the product you want to add, insert the following form tag exactly as shown:

Insert it as an HTML tag, not as viewable text! It will be invisible when you view the page in a browser.

Right after the <FORM> tag, insert the following tag with a minor edit:

Replace yourid with the ID that you chose when you signed up, leaving both the quote marks intact. This tag insures that the cart knows which merchant you are. For instance, if you notice that the cart is not prompting for the credit cards you accept, then the ID tag above is missing.

To add your first product to your page, move the cursor to the point in the page where you want your first product to appear, and insert the following tag and text:

<INPUT type=text size=3 name="28.85_Item For Sale_45"> Item For Sale - $28.85

When you look at the above tag in your browser, it should look like this:

Item for Sale - $28.85

You may be able to edit the properties of the control/tag by double clicking on the text box if you are in "graphical" mode with a graphical web editor.

Now edit the tag so that the "28.85" is the actual price of the item you're selling. Edit the tag so that the text "Item for Sale" is replaced by the actual name of the item you are selling, in both instances ("Item for Sale" appears twice above). Edit the 45 to reflect the shipping weight of the item. Leave the underscore characters ( _ ) intact -- the Universal Shopping Cart Server uses these to keep price _ Item Name _ weight separate. If these underscores are not present, the Universal Shopping Cart Server won't work with your page!

Finally, Add a submit button like this:

The button, when viewed in your browser, will look like this:

The VALUE= part of the SUBMIT button can say anything, such as "Buy Me" or anything else.

Test your page. If it doesn't work, make sure you've followed the steps above carefully.

You can use drop down lists, radio buttons, or any other type of input tag for merchandise items, as long as the NAME of the item follows the convention ( name = "28.85_Item For Sale_45" ) given above.

Reserved Submit Button Words

The words "ORDER" and "NOW" (Upper case only) are reserved for submit buttons where the merchant wishes to skip the address screen and send the user directly to the credit card screen. The word "View" (either case) will send the user directly to the address page. If either word appears on a submit button, the credit card will be the next screen shown and the address screen will be skipped. For instance, if a button says "FINISH MY ORDER" or "PAY NOW" or even "ORDER NOW" the address screen will be skipped.

Advanced Design Elements

Using a Graphical Submit Button

The button below clears the form so the user can start over:

If you've looked at the source already, (see above) you've probably been wondering why the funny name element in the INPUT tags which look something like this:
28.89_Item for Sale_33

This actually conveys THREE separate details to Cart. First, the 28.89 represents the price the item is selling for. The "Over Stuffed Chair" is the product you'll want to ship. Finally, the 33 represents the shipping weight of the item. The cart uses this information, along with the VALUE of the field as the quantity to extend the price. The underscore (_) characters are thrown away.

Sales Item Detail Fields

Sometimes you need to create an input field which is not an item for sale, but conveys information about another item which is for sale Information like size, color, embroidery text, etc. We call these Sales Item Detail Fields. Sales Item detail fields can be anything - a radio button, a checkbox, a drop down list, whatever. Simply start the NAME of the item with a ! character (making sure it otherwise matches name of the item you're selling, plus one extra word) thus:

Here's another example:

- Blue Baseball Jacket @ 39.99
Small or Large
- Blue Baseball Jacket Embroidery Text (limit 20 characters)

Which is done like this:
<INPUT type=text size=3 name="39.99_Blue Baseball Jacket_02"> - Blue Baseball Jacket @ 39.99
<INPUT TYPE=RADIO NAME="!Blue Baseball Jacket Size" Value="Small"> Small or
<INPUT TYPE=RADIO NAME="!Blue Baseball Jacket Size" Value="Large"> Large
<INPUT type=text size=20 name="!Blue Baseball Jacket Embroidery">- Blue Baseball Jacket Embroidery Text (limit 20 characters)

IMPORTANT RULE: Your item detail field MUST appear word for word exactly as the item it describes, except for one extra word at the end (and the !)! See the example below:

Blue Baseball Jacket << Main item for sale
!Blue Baseball Jacket Size
!Blue Baseball Jacket Embroidery

If you DO NOT follow this convention, then when a customer changes their mind and tries to delete the "Blue Baseball Jacket" from the shopping cart, the "size" and "embroidery" will remain, confusing your customer.

As you can see, designing html for the Universal Shopping Cart Server is easy! Try it yourself with your own pages, and just make sure the opening <FORM> tag always looks like this:

You can ALWAYS test or demo your own pages against the Universal Shopping Cart Server for no charge!

Pass-Thru Items

Pass- Thru items are similar to "Sales Item Details" described above, in that they allow the customer to convey information to you, and that information will show up on your order document, but the information does not have to be associated with any particular order item.

For instance, if you are selling vet supplies and you want to ask your customers what their dog's name is (and this expect this information to be passed thru to you regardless of what the customer orders, then use a pass-thru item. You create one simply by creating your input field (any name input filed is allowed) and beginning the name of the filed with a pipe (|) character. Example:

<input type=text size=10 name=<|Dogs Name"> What's Your Dog's Name?

How to Give the Cart Your Site's Look 'n' Feel

Select the page from your web site that has the appearance you desire. Edit it to remove all content except the page headline and the top or side links (links to your shopping or catalog pages) you desire, and the information you want at the very bottom of the page. Make sure that all hyperlinks are fully qualified URLs to your site (i.e.: http://www.yoursite.com/yourpage.html) and not just a filename such as "index.html."

Paste the HTML you want for the top portion of your page into the "Top HTML Template" text area. Paste the HTML you want for the bottom portion of the page into the "Bottom HTML Template" text area. If you have special HTML for the "Success" page after a sale is complete, you can paste that HTML into the "HTML Success Page text area. Be sure to click the "Change" button at the bottom.

Test your changes to ensure the Universal Shopping Cart Server now has the appearance you desire.

How To Upload Your Art with Us

Follow the instructions on that page to upload you image. Once your image is successfully uploaded, the 'Image Upload' page ill give you the HTML to use to refer to that image in your template.

How to By-Pass the Address Screen (and go straight to the credit card screen)

Some merchants sell merchandise which does not need to be shipped (see electronic delivery below) and do not wish to collect the address of their customers. If you wish to bypass the address screen and go straight to the credit card screen, simply insure that you SUBMIT button has the word ORDER or the word NOW in it (in caps), and the address screen will be by-passed - they'll go straight to the credit card screen.

Support for returning customers - no need to enter address WITHOUT usernames and passwords!

Asking for the shopper to chose or remember a username or password is a great way to ensure that shoppers surf off and never buy from you - the savvy surfer has too many passwords to remember already - so we don't use them!

This is a variation on the above feature - Place an "ORDER NOW" button (actually, all you need is the word ORDER (in caps) or the word NOW (in caps) and any other wording) on your order page, and mark it for use only by returning customers who have purchased before and want "express check out". On the credit card screen we still ask the customer for their e-mail address. (you may have noticed that a lot of the more clever sites are using e-mail addresses to identify returnees - because e-mail addresses are unique and don't get for gotten like "yet another username and password I'm going to forget.") The e-mail address is then used to look up the original shipping address.

How to add the customer invoice number to the Success Page

Simply embed the tag  in the page where you wish the invoice number to appear. When the success page is printed, the invoice number is printed in the place of the tag.

Bumping to Another URL After Adding to the Cart (hiding the cart)

If you want to bump the user to another URL when they add something to the cart (in other words, you do not want them to see the cart each time they add something), there are two methods to do this:

1. Fill in a URL for the BUMP URL in your account management page. The user will be bumped to that URL when their order has been approved. This is useful to bump them to a "Table of Contents" or a department listing page - it will bump them to the same page every time unless overridden by number 2 below.

2. In any order page the user visits, you can code a tag into the order form like this:

This will send them to the page cited in the tag if they deposit something in their cart.

If a tag similar to the one above is present on a page, it takes precedence over #1 above.

See also "BOUNCEURL," too, which will always take the user back to the page they were on before.

Of course, you'll want to provide for a shopper to get to the address screen when they DO want it -- you must provide a button that says "View" somewhere on the button (as in "View Shopping Cart"), and clicking this will take them to the address page with a recap of their cart contents.

Skipping the Cart Screen: BOUNCEURL

Normally, whenever a shopper adds something to the cart, the next page they see is the shopping cart "address screen" which recaps their sale so far and lets them begin to check out if they are ready to check out.

You may wish to "skip" this screen when a shopper adds something to their cart. To do this, click the "BOUNCEURL" checkbox in your cart control panel.

Commissions to Other Web Sites or

If you have an order page on Wendy's site (she is selling for you) the page should
have a tag (somewhere inside the order form) in it like this:

<input type=hidden name=COMMISSION value="Wendy">

<input type=hidden name=COMMISSION value="Wendy@hersite.com">

Each page of your products on Wendy's site should have a tag like the above inside the order form.

Then when Wendy's customer orders and you get the sales order, you'll see that the sale came from Wendy's site. If the tag has an e-mail address for the value as in the second
example, then we'll automatically send Wendy a copy of the order (without the
credit card number).

There is no limit to the number of order pages or products Wendy can sell for you from her site.

How to Suppress Customer Confirmation E-Mail

In your Account Management Page, there is a checkbox that allows your to suppress customer confirmation e-mail - simply check off this box and confirmation e-mail will not be sent.

How to Skip Taxes on Nontaxable Items

In coding the <FORM> HTML on an item for sale, simply code it with the string nontaxable somewhere in the product string thus:

The parentheses () are not required, but the exact spelling of nontaxable in lower case is required.