Introduction¶

The dashboard area gives you a complete overview of the system’s working. Take an example of a window which acts as your lens to the outer world. Similarly, dashboard is the area which allows you to configure settings for all the sections in one place. The very first field allows you to view individual orders on a monthly or annual basis. You can also have a look at the total income incurred month wise that will be sum total of the all the orders received in a month. The life time sales record can also be viewed easily on the dashboard. You can apply various filters to retrieve information about the revenue margins. Choose category, subcategory or products from the dropdown to have access to the income recorded for the chosen articles. In other words, the admin can evaluate the orders received for a particular product, category or subcategory. You can set date and time in the fields below and review the total income earned during that particular period. At the same time, you can even compare the income generated in the previous years. On the top, you will see search dialogue box where you can search for anything on the dashboard. To its right, you will see quick links, view site and log out options. As the name suggests, the quick links option lets you define new links to be added to the dashboard. For example, you can add current page to the existing links. You can also manage links by making desired modifications. The “view site” option will show you the front layout of the website and hiding the backend settings. You can click “log out” if you no longer require access to the dashboard settings. However, you have to login again to gain access to the configuration.

A. Customers Section - The customers section is very important as customers are an essential element of the e-commerce website. The website holds no use without the support of customers who will purchase products and make payments. However you need to configure few settings that will assure the customers can access the website with ease. Adding customers and assigning them privileges is the first step towards defining customers. At the time of creating customers, it is foremost important to assign roles to them. This is helpful especially when you need to set different prices for varied customers.

B. Manufacturers Section - The manufacturer's section will contain a list of all manufacturers whose products are being sold on the website. It is important to attach the manufacturer’s information to that of the product. The configuration settings for the manufacturer can be set from the backend in the dashboard area.

C. Products - This section lets you add products for the website. You can also manage products; create categories and subcategories of the product. You get to set prices of the product, assign its category and even define product combinations if you want. Products are the essential ingredients of an e-commerce website. It can be sold only by setting its price, uploading product image and configuring few settings. You can even enable customer reviews for the product to promote it globally. Besides this, it allows setting coupons and discounts for the concession purposes that are given to the customers. You can define various attributes of the product such as size, color, etc to let customers buy it according to their preferences.

D. Inventory - Another important category in the products section is keeping track of its stock in the inventory tab. This section is useful where you can access all product-related stock in one place. Also, you can download inventory anytime you want to have a look at it later. Upload documents in CSV file format with the latest inventory to keep you updated. Manage inventory by making desired modifications.

E. Pricing - Just like inventory, prices of the product can be uploaded and managed in the same way. This has the advantage when you would like to update the prices of the product without wasting much time. Without this section, you may have to update the prices of the product by editing each product, change its prices and publish it. The process repeats for each product there in the dashboard area. However, through this section, you can easily upload a pricing file to update product prices in one instance.

F. Orders - This section is there to retrieve all orders related information in one place. You can easily view which product has generated maximum and least income. Moreover, you can access customer’s information such as a delivery address, billing and shipping details, payment mode, etc.

G. Marketing - This section is the need for an e-commerce website. The marketing section encourages the promotion of products and services in a way to generate high incomes overall. Another purpose is to offer easy-to-use functionality to the customers for the best performances.

H. Settings - This is the tab where you can configure rest of the settings. You can change complete layout of the website, modify its appearance, and integrate payment gateways. The area also supports various API settings that are there to integrate functionalities into the website. An example of it could be Google merchant API, Google Analytics, Sellbrite, Google Geocoding, etc. This section also allows you to set up user Q/A configuration to make it work efficiently as an interface for the users. One can also change the passwords in this screen.