Adding E-Commerce to Xara WebSite

[FluffyGoo]

I purchased Xara Web Designer Pro 9 recently and am in the process of creating a new website.
I'm trying to find a way to turn the website I've created into an online store.
I've looked into the e-commerce widgets and the different stores you can create but none of them are very customizable.
You can add products that can be added to a cart and check-out but you can't take a product and add your own options it doesn't seem.
I'm looking for a store that I can have products where they choose their options (color, title, style, etc) where they can check out.

If anybody has any insight or answers to this problem, I'd greatly appreciate it.
I'm still trying to look up any options in the meantime.

-Lindsay

[Cloud]

Hi Lindsay

If you want to use a xara created website as an ecommerce solution then the best option by far is ecwid. I have done a number of sites using ecwid and it is fully customisable. Everything from the font, size of text, colour of text, position of text etc, plus size and position of images, options such as size, colour etc can be changed. Here are a couple of sites I have created using xara webdesigner and ecwid: http://www.citybathrooms.biz/index.htm http://www.poochpooch.com/index.htm and http://www.lovelingerie.biz/index.htm , on this last site you can check the following item which shows size, colours etc http://www.lovelingerie.biz/lingerie...10&id=19538012

It has a free option so you can try it out and see if it is right for you.

[richinri]

My take on this would be different. I would use paypal buttons which gives me total freedom on everything else at no extra cost. I agree sites such as ecwid can be nice at first but, for me, I find getting locked into someone else's setup eventually causes me to hit a wall on the design or cost end.

[FluffyGoo]

Hi Lindsay

If you want to use a xara created website as an ecommerce solution then the best option by far is ecwid. I have done a number of sites using ecwid and it is fully customisable. Everything from the font, size of text, colour of text, position of text etc, plus size and position of images, options such as size, colour etc can be changed. Here are a couple of sites I have created using xara webdesigner and ecwid: http://www.citybathrooms.biz/index.htm http://www.poochpooch.com/index.htm and http://www.lovelingerie.biz/index.htm , on this last site you can check the following item which shows size, colours etc http://www.lovelingerie.biz/lingerie...10&id=19538012

It has a free option so you can try it out and see if it is right for you.

That looks perfect!
Did you have to upgrade from the free plan into the venture or business to have those options?
When you create an account with ecwid it shows a catalog and/or storefront rather than having the customizable add to cart button for each page like you've shown on your website.

[FluffyGoo]

Hi Lindsay

If you want to use a xara created website as an ecommerce solution then the best option by far is ecwid. I have done a number of sites using ecwid and it is fully customisable. Everything from the font, size of text, colour of text, position of text etc, plus size and position of images, options such as size, colour etc can be changed. Here are a couple of sites I have created using xara webdesigner and ecwid: http://www.citybathrooms.biz/index.htm http://www.poochpooch.com/index.htm and http://www.lovelingerie.biz/index.htm , on this last site you can check the following item which shows size, colours etc http://www.lovelingerie.biz/lingerie...10&id=19538012

It has a free option so you can try it out and see if it is right for you.

I know this is a very late reply, so i'm not sure if it'll be read.
I took your advice and set up a store through ecwid.
After playing around with it I realized I had no idea to set it up like you have in the websites you posted.
(For example...having a specific category or product for a page set up with your site navigation bar.) As far as I can see the only options they easily provide are putting the entire store on one page or putting each individual product browser on a page.
I would appreciate it very much if you could let me know how you did that.

I think how you integrated ecwid in your poochpooch.com is the closest to how I was setting up pages in my website with Xara.

Also, I noticed when I placed the categories menu in Xara using a placeholder, it still gets cut off when previewing the page?
No matter how large I make the placeholder.

Thanks!
Lindsay

[Cloud]

Some of the sites we have done have quite complicated ecwid customisation done on them through various coding methods, but the simplest request you have of linking directly to a category can be done by:

Firstly navigate your way to a particular category you want and pull the information from that, so for instance on the poochpooch site, if you click on the 'Beds' tab in the navigation menu it takes you to the following link

poochpooch.com/store.htm#ecwid:category=1607562&mode=category&offset=0&sor t=normal

The red text is the page where you have pasted the code from ecwid, the blue text is the code for the category, simply link to this link and that's it.

The categories menu width is independent of the rest of it, so you would have to change that, you can try the following methods. Post the code below into the CSS Design field within the ecwid control panel (Go to 'system settings' then click the 'Design' tab and paste the following into the 'Custom CSS Themes' section (make sure that you have duplicated a theme first - (click on the theme and click 'duplicate'))


This makes long category names flow on to two lines:

/*vertical categories text on two lines to shorten width*/
span.ecwid-categories-category {
white-space: normal;
}



This changes the text itself so that you can make it as small or large as you want: (just change the font-size)

a span.ecwid-categories-category {
font-size:13px !important;
color: #00bff !important;
}

[angelize]

Another solution is XT-CMS created by TG member XTom. I'm currently using it with a Xara built site I'm working on to turn it into an online store. It's a little expensive but worth it. It gives you a full CMS backend and it's really easy to use. And I've got to say the customer service has been excellent.

[FluffyGoo]

Okay, I think I get the general idea of what you're getting but i'm still a touch confused.
Forgive me.

For one, because my site is still being made within the Xara program and hasn't been published I don't think switching out "poochpooch.com" for my website url will work because it doesn't exist yet?
For the red text, are you saying that store.htm is a single page you made in Xara with the product browser code that all of the buttons link to but with a different category number?

So what i'm gathering is that I make one page and name it something and replace your store.htm with it's name, and switch out the category number with a number from my store and put it in the site navigation bar under link to, correct? Otherwise using the same link?

[Cloud]

So what i'm gathering is that I make one page and name it something and replace your store.htm with it's name, and switch out the category number with a number from my store and put it in the site navigation bar under link to, correct?

That's right.

[FluffyGoo]

So would I have to publish my website to see if the links work?
If I published it, would I still be able to make changes?