Volusion mCommerce User Guide

Volusion mCommerce enables Winter '09 and later stores to offer customers a mobile-optimized storefront, making it convenient for them to quickly browse categories and products, then add products to their cart. It's a very simple process to enable mCommerce. You set a variable and special category menus and product pages are created for your store. Customers viewing your site on conventional PC and laptops will see the same site they normally see.

Note that the Apple iPad will show the normal storefront rather than the mobile version.

Enabling mCommerce

  1. From the Admin page, select Settings > Config Variables.
  2. Click Search to display the Configuration Setup | Search page.
  3. Enter "mc" in the Name field and click Search. The Enable mCommerce variable is displayed.
  4. Check the Enable mCommerce variable checkbox*.
  5. Make sure that Enable Members Only Browsing and Enable Members Only Prices and Purchasing  are unchecked**.
  6. Click Save.

 

The moment you click Save, your store is mCommerce-optimized.

* In W'09 this was called Config_Mcommerce.

** In W'09 these were called Config_EnableMembersOnlyBrowsing and Config_EnableMembersOnlyWebsite.

Loading an mCommerce-optimized Logo

By default, your store name is displayed in place of a logo at the top of the mobile-optimized display. You should therefore create and load a mobile-optimized logo as soon as possible for full graphical effect. This should be a 320px x 80px jpg file. Note that larger graphics will be resized but smaller graphics will not be expanded, so they should be avoided.

To upload your logo:

  1. From the Admin page, select Design > Logos.
  2. The third field on this screen is called Mobile Storefront Logo. Click on the Browse button next to this field and find the mCommerce-optimized logo on your PC.
  3. Click Save.
  4. Test how the logo looks by visiting your site on a suitable enabled mobile device or enter the address (with /mobile appended to the URL) in an iPhone emulating website such as http://iphonetester.com/ or http://testiphone.com.

Your Customers and mCommerce

You may want to alert your customers to this new feature and how they can now browse your store and place items in their cart through the new optimized mobile storefront. If so, you should let them know that although mCommerce has been created as a no-nonsense way to overcome difficulties many mobile users face, it is not designed so they can perform all their interactions this way. Currently,the checkout process is not optimized for mobile browsers.

Deactivating mCommerce

Should you ever want to deactivate mCommerce, simple uncheck the mCommerce variable.

  1. From the Admin page, select Settings > Config Variables.
  2. Make the sure mCommerce variable is unchecked.
  3. Click Save.

Notes

How categories are displayed

If enabled, Featured Products, New Products, Superdeal and/or Top Sellers are displayed first.

These are followed by all categories that contain one or more products. They are displayed by Parent ID, then Category Order, then Category #.

Note that certain nonstandard ways of setting up menus on your Volusion storefront may result in categories being duplicated.

Recurring products

A Product Price of $0.00 for will be displayed for recurring products, instead of the Recurring Start Price or the Recurring Price. However products will add to the cart properly, and will show the proper pricing  once in the cart.

A category will not be displayed if:

  • It does not have any products or subcategories
  • It has an Alternate URL specified in Advanced settings
  • It has a Custom Where Clause set up in Advanced settings.
  • It contains products that will not display on the store front
  • It has custom HTML content only
  • It is configured to be accessible for specific customers only (private categories)

A product will not be displayed if:

  • It is marked as hidden
  • It is out of stock and cannot be back ordered
  • It uses the multi child add to cart feature
  • It is a downloadable product
  • It has a value in the Min Qty field

The following Volusion features are not mobile-optimized in this release

  • Shopping cart and checkout
  • Store admin
  • Web content other than content and products
  • Graphics other than logo and product images

  • Add to Cart for Better Price and Email a Better Price functionality is not available. The Sale Price will be displayed for those products with this variable set.

The following features are not enabled:

  • Multi-child add to cart
  • Downloadable products
  • Members' prices and any kind of experience dependent on being logged in
  • Hidden Categories
  • Hiding the Add to Cart button using Add To Cart Replacement Text field in a product
  • International Tax settings such as:
    • Prices Inc VAT
    • Prices Exc VAT
    • Prices Inc VAT and Exc VAT
    • Prices Exc VAT and Inc VAT
    • Prices Inc GST
    • Prices Exc GST
    • Prices Inc GST and Exc GST
    • Prices Exc GST and Inc GST

CSS

Expert users may be interested to know that the CSS used to style the mCommerce interface is available in Design > File Editor. The file is called mobile_interface.css and displayed in the list on the left of the screen. You can change the font, font color, background color, graphics and spacing if you have a good understanding of CSS editing. If you would like assistance with this, please submit a custom hourly quote request.

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