Getting Started
The Sophio ecommerce system was initially created to make it easy for merchants to use a third party parts catalog from a number of different catalog pubishers. You can also build your own catalog and use it along with a catalog you license. If you have no idea what we are talking about, no worries - you can use our "Fulfillment by Sophio" (FBS) catalog to power your web store. Most sellers who signup for a free trial, use the FBS catalog configuration to power their store. If you need to build your own catalog because you only want to sell parts you have in stock, then you should contact our partner WHI Solutions and get a license to use their Nexpart catalog.
Here is a checklist to start with.
1) Choose catalog or upload your own products via Excel/CSV file.
2) Figure out how you will get paid. We suggest signing up for PAYPAL to get started (it is free and you need to accept Paypal no matter what)
3) Go through the Settings page in your control panel and review each and every option. There are a lot of them! This will not only show you how powerful our system is, but it will answer lots of questions you might have about whether the system can or cannot do this or that. The advanced settings page is: storesetup.wws (add this to your url and it should open after you enter user id and password. if you click the 'settings' link in the top right corner of the control panel it will load the basic settings (setup.wws).
4) Choose one of our design templates and upload your logo. You can choose a design by visiting the page choosedesign.wws. When you choose the design, the files that make up the design will be copied to a folder that you can access to modify the template. These are entirely free templates for you to do with what you want. If you want our help, you can contact our design department and we'd be glad to customize a template or create an entirely fresh design for you. Design changes are billable by the hour and you'll be quoted before we do a thing. You can choose from our templates by visiting the page: choosedesign.wws
5) Setup your tax. Tax is configured from the page: storesetup.wws (click the tax tab)
6) Do some test orders and make sure you understand how your site works.
7) When you have a question, simply create a ticket by clicking the 'Support Ticket' link on the control panel. Here is a link in case you cannot find it: https://billing.sophio.com/submitticket.php
8) Have a look around our searchable Knowledge Base here: https://billing.sophio.com/knowledgebase.php
9) If you want to upload your own product catalog, you can do so at the page: wwsitemsupload.wws
10) If you are wondering how to advertise your site, that's pretty easy. We suggest you have a look at Google Adwords and Bing for pay per click advertising solutions. This is not an inexpensive process, but it is a necessary evil in the ecommerce business.
