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1. In the upper left hand corner of the admin page you will see several links, Admin Home, | 1. In the upper left hand corner of the admin page you will see several links, Admin Home, | ||
Manage Home Page | 1. In the upper left hand corner of the admin page you will see several links, Admin Home, Manage Home Page, Manage Collections\Categories, Manage Products, and Page Manager. You are currently on the Admin Home, click the link for Manage Home Page. This will bring you to the Manage Home Page.
2. If you think of your new eFashionCentral.com website as your ‘virtual store,’ you can
think of your home page as your store front. In some cases it will be the first thing your
potential customer sees.
Note: If you will be integrating a custom designed website with your
eFashionCentral.com virtual store and you will not be using your
eFashionCentral.com program to create a Home Page then you can skip to
the next section Manage Collections/Categories (page 5). We will work
with you and/or your web designer to integrate your existing website with
your eFashioncentral.com virtual store.
3. If look at the Manage Home Page you will see it is broken up into four boxes, each one
focusing on what you are changing about your home page. These boxes are called, Site
Look and Feel, Home Page Text, Home Page Photo, and Featured Products. First look at
the box that says Site Look and Feel.
4. The first thing you will notice is a drop down bar with different Designs listed; the
second thing you will notice is that Design 5 is missing! This is because Design 5 is our
blank IFrame template. This is only available to advanced users that are familiar with
CSS web design programming. If you are ort plan to hire a web designer to create your
own unique website then we will add Design 5 to your options. Once you select one of
the Design options the colors that are available in that design will appear in the Pick a
new color scheme drop down bar. If you wish to keep the Design you have selected butwant to
change the color, you still must select the Design first for the colors to appear in the drop down bar.
5. In the Home Page Text box you will see the words “Your current home page text” above
a white text box. Home page text is a verbal introduction to your store. This is where
you will put a quick blurb about your store. If your store has a motto or a slogan this is
where you would put it. If not put in a short message about the store. I would suggest no
more than one sentence. Just something to catch the eye. When you have thought about
what you will type in the text box, type it in and click submit. Don’t forget that at any
time if you want to view the changes you are making to your site just pull up the
eFashionCentral.com site and click the refresh.
6. The second box says Home Page Photo. This is where you are going to put a photo that
will introduce the customer to the website. This can be a picture of yourself, or a picture
of the store front, but we prefer that a picture of a dress is used as it adds a professional,
elegant look to the home page. To enter a picture into the Home Page Photo you first
have to find a suitable photo.
7. This next bit will explain the finer points of saving a photo to your computer. It is by no
means the only way to save a photo but I believe it is the easiest way to learn. Open up a
third Internet browser. In this address bar type in the web address of any of your supplies
that have images on their website. Navigate the site to find the place where you can view
the collection. Once you have found the image you want to put on your website be sure
to access the largest image available on the supplier’s website; usually there is a click to
enlarge, use that image whenever possible. Once you have the image on your screen
Right click anywhere on the picture. A grey box will appear with several options in it.
One of those options is Save Picture As… Click that option. A box will come up that
says Save Picture. At the top of the box to the left of where it says Save in: there is a
drop down box. Click the arrow and select Desktop from the drop down menu. To the
right of the drop down box are several icons, click the one that is a manila folder with a
small starburst coming out of the top of it. This will create a new folder. Name your new
folder eFashionCentral Pictures and press enter, then click the Open button in the lower
right hand corner. Where it says Save in: will have changed from saying Desktop to
saying eFashionCentral Pictures and the Open button will have changed into a Save
button. Click the Save button. Close the manufacturer’s website. You should now be
looking at the Manage Home Page. In the Home Page Photo box you will see the words
Browse to upload a new file: with a white text box next to it. Next to the text box is a
button that says Browse… click on the Browse… button. A box will come up that says
Choose File. At the top of the Choose File box you will see the words Look in: with a
drop down box next to them. Click the arrow to open the dropdown menu and select
Desktop. Double-click on the folder that says eFashionCentral Pictures and select the file
you just saved. Click the Open button in the lower right hand corner of the box. Click
Submit in the Home Page Photo box. There you have the basics of saving and uploading
a file from the Internet to your eFashionCentral.com website. You obviously will not
want to keep that picture up on your homepage, but the same format applies to saving and
uploading any picture from the Internet so find one you like and, using the same steps put
in on your home page photo. NOTE: the height of the picture must be big enough to
reach the top of the eFashionCentral.com homepage box, if it is not it will automatically
resize the picture to fill the space oftentimes distorting the picture. You should resize the
photo first before you upload it if possible, the best dimensions for the home page photo
is a height of 457 pixels at 72 dpi and a width of no more then 400 pixels. If you right
click on a picture and click properties you can see these dimensions. The first number is
the width and the second is the height. If you are uploading an image that is less then 457
height the program will resize it. If this results in a width that is greater then 400, the
image will be cropped on the right side. If the image is greater then 457 height the
program will reduce it. The best image to upload is one that has already been resized to
a height of 457. To maximize the image on the homepage you can use a program like
Photoshop to create an image with the maximum dimensions of 400 x 457.
8. It is possible that a manufacturer’s website will be blocked to not allow you to copy
images. In this case it is necessary for you to contact the manufacturer and request a CD
of images. Usually the images on a CD are very large whereas the images you copy from
a website are already reduced to an Internet ready size. If you get a CD from the
manufacturer with very large images please DO NOT attempt to load them. Contact us
and we will advise you how to proceed. You may also choose to scan the images if you
have the manufacturer’s catalog, but we recommend against this.
9. Next we will discuss the Featured Products Module. If you think of your new
eFashionCentral site as your virtual store, the Featured Products Module is your virtual
storefront window, where you display the items you want your customer to see first when
they view your website. The Featured Products Module will allow you to display two
items on the homepage of your site. These items can be something that is popular, or
maybe something that isn’t selling too well that you want to move. What ever your
motivation for putting these items up, here’s how you do it: When you enter a product
into the product manager, that product will be assigned a “product id” (We will explain
into the product id when we discuss the Product Manager). To put a product into the
Featured Product Module, take the corresponding product id and enter it into either the
“left” or “right” box and click submit. In the event that you do not wish to display any
products on your homepage, for example if you are having a special event at the store and
want the customer to see that instead, click the check box that says “Disable the
Featured Products module by checking here,” then you can type the information
regarding the special event into the text box and when you are done click the submit
button.