X-Cart feature tour: Configuration

The database stores and maintains all order information and customer histories. You can view recent orders, search for old orders by customer, id, date or status. You can view all the order details, print out an invoice and update the order status to keep your customers informed.

You can export/import any information from X-Cart store into CSV format lists (MS Excel compatible):

• config data
• states
• users
• categories (including international category descriptions)
• products (including international product descriptions, featured products and product links)
• destination zones
• taxes (including tax rates)
• shipping rates, orders (including order items)
• other types of data (depending on the set of enabled modules and add-ons)

Export and import procedures facilitate the updating of your store data and allow you to consistently transfer data when upgrading your store or moving it to a new location. Thus you can keep shop information up to date by importing product list files instead of updating information through the web interface. Also X-Cart has the ability to import CSV files with field names in the first row. This helps to re-import products that have just been exported to a CSV file. You can use product import for adding new products. It may be especially convenient if the products you want to add do not differ much from the products which are already in your database.

When the product is added to the cart its quantity is decreased. The product will not be available if the quantity in the stock is less than the minimal amount in the stock. Thus, each customer can't add to the cart more products than quantity in stock. If you do not want to track items in the stock you can disable item tracking.

The checkout process is "user-friendly" to customers and includes 3 steps only:

1. Specifying customer personal and contact information, billing and shipping addresses (registered customers starting checkout while being logged in skip this step).
2. Selecting delivery and payment methods.
If shipping cost calculation is enabled in your store, your customer can choose a method of delivery, so the price of delivery is calculated depending on his/her shipping address and the chosen method.
3. Providing payment details.

At this stage the customer can check if his/her personal and contact information was entered correctly and is supposed to enter the required information for the selected payment method.

X-Cart allows editing all text-based and HTML-based e-mail notifications which you send to customers.

X-Cart allows defining different product price levels for different membership groups. These prices depend on the quantity of the product items being ordered and/or on the membership level of the customer who orders them.

You can print invoices for selected orders.

You can print labels for selected orders. X-Cart Shipping Label Generator allows to create printable shipping labels for orders shipped by USPS and UPS.

QuickBooks is the most popular financial software and it supports for importing data from X-Cart. The orders can be exported directly to QuickBooks format just by pressing a single button. This is useful for the following audiences:

• Merchants who used to work with QuickBooks;
• Shop owners who have 2 or more online stores;
• Accounting firms;
• SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) companies.

With X-Cart you can enable your customers to choose product options at the time of placing an order. X-Cart options mechanism offers you two solutions, depending on the quantity of product available for sale:

1. Using product options with so-called Modificators type. It enables you to modify the price of your product by means of mark-ups and discounts depending on the option variants the customer selects.
2. Using so-called Variant type. A variant is a set of products with the same combination of options. Choosing this type, you will be able to create option classes and option variants as well as in Modificator, but you will have more flexibility in setting the product variants' price, weight and quantity in stock.

Both Modificator and Variant option types enable your customers to choose from a pre-defined list of option variants. Also X-Cart provides a text type of product option that makes it possible for customers to provide custom information about what exactly they want to get.

You can add unlimited additional non-standard fields to the product.

X-Cart enables your customers to set their prices for the products. This is a good opportunity for the product selling by auction.

You can freely use HTML-tags in the product description text.

X-Cart allows you to add unlimited detailed images to the product for better presentation. You can either add detailed images to your products one by one, or automate this process. To use import images feature you have to upload images onto the server and prepare a CSV file.

Images used in your shop can be stored either in the database or on the file system. You can select images location switching your X-Cart shop to store images (category icons, product thumbnails and/or detailed product images) in the database or on the file system. By default, all images are stored in the database. Storing images on the file system may be helpful if your database performance is poor or its size is limited.

X-Cart allows choosing which categories the product should be displayed in. You can assign the product to only one category. If you need the product to be displayed in more than one category, you can specify additional categories for it.

Some customers may prefer to find products by the manufacturer. X-Cart shopping cart software allows you to create manufacturers and assign products to them. Products sorted by the manufacturers can be seen by your customers through the Manufacturers menu.

You can select an image for the product thumbnail with recommended size from 50x50 px to 150x150 px.

X-Cart allows importing/exporting products into X-Cart store using CSV format lists (MS Excel compatible). Thus you can keep shop information up to date by importing product list files instead of updating information through the web interface. Also X-Cart has the ability to import CSV files with field names in the first row. This helps to re-import products that have just been exported to a CSV file.
You can use product import for adding new products. It may be especially convenient if the products you want to add do not differ much from the products which are already in your database.

Froogle is an extension of the Google search engine that millions of people around the globe use daily to research products before they purchase. Listing your product in Froogle is a free way to extend the access of your marketing efforts to millions of new customers. X-Cart has a special module that enables you to submit a data feed to Froogle via Google Base directly from your store. Doing so ensures that your entire product catalog is included in Froogle, and it also allows you to control the freshness and accuracy of your product information.