Tutorial Text

• In this tutorial we will be exploring the VirtueMart configuration
• Navigate to Admin >> Configuration
• You can turn your shop offline. This works similarly to the main Joomla/Mambo offline switch. You can also set a message to display while the shop is offline
• You can turn off the shopping cart features of VirtueMart and just use it as a catalogue
• You can also turn off the display of prices. This is often used in conjunction with catalogue mode
• You can also set a number of different options for when and how to display the price
• You can have VirtueMart automatically create user accounts or you can let the users create an account. Either way users will need an account to shop
• These are values taken from the Joomla/Mambo global configuration
• There are several controls for tax. If you are unsure of what to set here, you will want to speak with a tax specialist in your area
• If you plan to use coupons with your cart, you will want to enable this option
• If you want to allow customers to review/rate your items you will want to enable this option. This is useful for creating a community feeling, and can help drive sales
• If you want to let your customers enter their bank account data enable this option. This is only recommended if you have a VERY secure system
• If you need customers to have the ability to select the state/region they are from enable this option. You can use this for shipping or marketing data
• If you have a terms of service you can set it so that users need to agree to them either once or with every order they place
• If you have a return policy you can display it during the order process. You can then set the information
• If you maintain stock you can set VirtueMart to check stock before finishing the order
• If you want to run an affiliate program through VirtueMart you can enable it here
• You can set the format of the email that is sent to confirm the order
• The encode key is used to encrypt data to store in the database/li>
• You can allow users who do not have backend access to administer your shop from the frontend of your site
• If you have a secure site you can set the secure URL here. This will be used for the checkout
• If you need to change the database prefix you can do that here
• You can set the location of your template files. These will be found in the administrator/components/com_virtuemart/html directory
• If you are having problems with your cart you can turn on debugging to get details on the errors. It's not recommended to have this turned on for a live shop as hackers can use this information to gain access to your systems
• If you want people to be able to view PDFs of your items you can enable it here
• You can set the flypage template name here. The flypage is the page that shows the item details. The template will be in the administrator/components/com_virtuemart/html directory
• You can set the category template name here
• If you have a lot of products you will want to enable pagination
• You can set the default field to sort your products by
• You can also set the available fields that shoppers can sort by
• You can show the number of products in a category in the categories overview page
• You can set the number of products to show per row of results
• If you don't have an image for a product you can change the image that gets displayed
• You can choose to display the VirtueMart footer
• You can change the style of "Add to Cart" button that VirtueMart uses
• You can set up the thumbnail options. VirtueMart can create a thumbnail for you automatically
• You can set the background colors of the search result rows. This helps with readability
• If you need to ship products to customers you can select the methods here
• If you only sell digital products select this checkbox
• You can set the checkout process your shop uses
• If you sell downloadable goods you will want to enable this feature
• You can set the order status at which the user gets notified about their download
• Conversely, you can set the status that disables the download ability
• If you have downloadable files you will need to set the location you will be uploading the files to
• You can set the maximum number of times a file can be downloaded per purchase. This is useful for curbing fraud
• You can also set the amount of time (in seconds) that a user has to download the file