How can I see all of the people in my mailing list?

Your mailing list is one of the most important marketing tools you can use to resell to your clients. BV Commerce 5 is so big and is a learning experience, and some have difficulty finding where this is located. So, here is a step by step on how to see where your mailing list is located and how to see who is on your list.

1. Log into your admin
2. In the top navigation, click on the "People" tab.
3. In the top navigation you will see some other options right under the tabs, one of these is "Mailing Lists". Click on that link.
4. Here you will see a list of all your mailing lists.
5. The Store Mailing List is the default mailing list. Please note, when someone purchases, they are not automatically added to this list.
6. You will also see the type of mailing list, whether private or public. A private mailing list is just for you. For example, you may want to make a private mailing list for your vendors or manufacturers.
7. If you click on the "Edit" link next to your mailing list, it will bring up a new page.
8. The mailing list detail page will show you all of the people on your mailing list. NOTE: here you can import a mailing list!

Cross Sells and Upsells

Ok, so what are these things.

Cross-sells: Think of cross sells as a potentially competitive product. Maybe even a similar product with more features. We recommend choosing a similar product which is slightly more expensive. As an example, if you were selling an an HP printer, you could have the HP printer deluxe as your cross sell. This will show up on your product detail page.

Up-sells: Think of up sells as something you want to sell to your customer that they may need when they purchase this product. For example, in following with the HP Printer example, an upsell may be printer cartridges. Retail companies are famous for this. A lot of times, they will reduce the cost of the main product (printer) to sell you an overpriced upsell. This is done a lot of times with printers and printer connection cables. This does not show on your product detail page.

One BIG note, the upsell will show up (if configured correctly) right after you click on "Add to Cart." So, if you add it and don't see it on your product detail page, click on the "Add to Cart" button to see your results.

Another BIG note, don't forget, you can add customer choices to your products instead of doing an up-sell or cross-sell!

Here is BV's definition: http://www.bvsoftware.com/BVCommerce5Manual/BVAdministratorGuide/Catalog/Product/Up%20Sells%20Cross%20Sells.aspx

Up Sells and Cross Sells offer the ability to market other products in your store to a customer while they’re viewing a product or attempting to add a product to their cart. Up Sells/Cross Sells can be added from the “Up Sells/Cross Sells” menu on the edit product page.

Upsells:
You can configure how the Up Sells are displayed to the customer under the Options > Orders menu. Depending on these settings, the Up Sells will either be displayed in an intermediary screen between the product and cart page or on the cart page itself. If a customer chooses an Up Sell product, the chosen product will replace the original product the customer was adding to the cart.

Cross Sells:
Cross Sells are very similar to Up Sells; however these products will not replace the product being added to the cart. These are normally “recommended” products or products that a customer may want to add to their cart in addition to the product they’re purchasing.

How come "Peers" shows in my left hand navigation?

BVCommerce 5

When creating your new BV Commerce website, you may browse through your site and notice "Peers" shows up on the top of your left hand navigation. Here's how to find out why and change it.

BV Commerce allows you to customize many areas of your site. The most common place to make changes is on the left hand side of your site, where your left hand navigation appears. In the case of navigation and display, it can be different for many sections of your site, pretty nice. For example, you can display different navigation on the home page, category pages, and the product pages.

So, why does "Peers" display? Peers is displaying because that is the default navigation header for the home page, categories page, and products pages. Here's how to change it.

1. Log in as the administrator
2. Click on the "Content" tab
3. Click on the sub navigation at the top labeled "Columns"
4. If you review the columns options, you will see several options. I would suggest walking through them just to find out what possibilities you have.
5. To fix the Peers, we'll use the "System Product Page." So, click on the "Edit" link in the row labeled "System Product Page."
6. Here you will see what objects you will display whenever you look at an individual product.
7. You may see it already, your navigation is in one of the blocks. You will see "Peers" as the header for your subcategories.
8. To change this, click on the "Edit" button in that block.
9. Now, simply change the "Menu Title" to whatever you want. Then click the "Save Changes" button.
10. Repeat this process for the "System Category Page", and the "System Home Page" to fix the normal areas where this will appear.

Having troubles with the price display? BV Commerce 5

In the new BV Commerce 5 system, there are 4 different prices as follows:

1. MSRP - Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price that will appear on the site.
2. Cost - The stores cost of the product. The cost will not appear on the site.
3. Price - The price of the product is the amount the customer will pay if purchasing the product. The price will appear on the site.
4. Text - Text entered into this field will replace the price shown on the store. This feature helps compliment minimum advertised pricing policies. Example text may include “Add to Cart for Price” or “Too low to show”.

Initially, a lot of customers started adding the price to this field... Don't do it. When shown with the other prices, it adds a lot of confusion, especially if there are customer choices which include a price. Therefore, don't put your price in the text field. Instead, use standard text as mentioned above.

Also, double check to make sure your Cost is lower than your price or MSRP.

Saving, Updating and BVCommerce 5

Have you ever noticed that sometimes you may click the save button or the update button and it causes your site to crash? If it's sporadic, don't worry.

We've found that unless you let the page completely load before hitting a save button the page will crash. For those of you that are pretty fast, no worries, just give it a second, try again and you will see success.

Creating new products

When creating new products, don't forget to put in meta tags. It may seem like a pain now, but all of that effort will pay off in search engines. If you can't think of what to say, simply copy your product descriptions to the appropriate areas.

One tip, on meta tags and names in general. Always put the name first. We also try to keep detailed or temporary information toward the end of the product name. For example, if you're selling item 1234 Big shirt, name it Big Shirt - 1234 instead. Also, instead of On Sale Now - Big Shirt 1234, try Big Shirt 1234 - On Sale now.

Just those simple changes will help with SEO.

If I have 1 product that weighs 1 pound will shipping adjust the weight if I have 10?

The shipping calculator will add up the weight based on the number of items. It simply multiplies it out. Before launching, always run a price check with your shipping provider to make sure you don't lose money on shipping.

Here are some other tips:

• You can add to the weight if you are not getting the correct weight
• Keep in mind that you can add to the cost of rate quotes from FedEx and UPS
• Don't forget to put in dimensions for air freight options.

Can volume pricing be a shared product choice

Question: We will be having several products that are this simple volume does it make sense to have it as a "shared"

Answer: Volume pricing is specific to the product, yes, it may be used very often. But, it can not be a shared product choice. Therefore, we recommend cloning this product.

How to change your BV Commerce Theme bv2004

These are the instructions on how to change your theme in BV Commerce. Changing your theme will reflect a new look on your entire website. Don't forget, if you have customized your theme, those customizations won't be reflected in other themes.

If you would like to make small adjustments to your theme, for seasonal changes (Christmas), then we recommend copying your existing theme, and changing the new one. This way, you can use it each year. A discussion on that is in here too.

How to change your theme

1. Log in to the administrator
2. Click on the settings tab
3. Click Themes in the left hand navigation. This will list all of your themes. Note, the theme names are the same as the theme directory names in your BVThemes directory located on your server.
4. Click the select button next to the theme you wish to use.

If you want to create a new theme and have it list here, here's how to do it. Note, you will need FTP access to your site to complete this task.

1. First step is to obtain a copy of a theme you would like to use.
2. Using your FTP software, log into your site.
3. Browse to the directory labeled BVThemes
4. Here, you will see all of your themes you are using.
5. Download one of the directories.
6. On your local machine, change the name of the directory.
7. Make any edits you wish whether it's stylesheet changes or graphic changes. The stylesheet is called styles.css and will be found in the directory you just downloaded.
8. To allow your new theme to show up on the website, upload your newly named directory.
9. When you go back into the administrator as described above, you will now see your new theme.
10. If you would like to use your new theme, simply click the select button next to your new theme. Instructions were given above.

Google Analytics and BV Commerce

Yes, you can implement Google Analytics into BVCommerce 2004 and 5. We can help you with the details and integrating Google Analytics into your site. For specific instructions, please visit the BVCommerce Forums found here: http://www.bvsoftware.com/Forums

Google Analytics has proven to be successful for clients such as Cornerstone Cookie. Contact us to help you implement it.

How do I access my website statistics?

Each Blue Creek Web receives free website statistics using LiveStats.XSP.

To access your statistics, type in your web address and add /webstats to the end. For example, www.bluecreekweb.com/webstats. this will bring up your login page. From here, all you should have to do is type in your ftp password. This should have been provided to you, if not, please let us know and we'll send it to you immediately.

Where is the manual for BVCommerce 5

The manual can be found here: http://www.bvsoftware.com/BVCommerce5Manual/Default.aspx