Discovery Channels: Setting up Your DotFeed Account MiniSite Settings
Account Setup
Once you're successfully validated your account by submitting your registration key, many other fields will be available for editing. You'll need to use the 'Edit Configuration' button in the right hand corner to access these fields.
There are four very important things that you will be setting on the Account page.
My Subdomain
Currency
Default Skin
Company Name
Logo
My Subdomain
You're able to enter whatever you like as your subdomain, but remember that this will be seen a lot and it's important to consider SEO when choosing this name. You'll also want to keep in mind other copyright laws and choose a subdomain that will represent your company well.
When you are ready to set your subdomain just start typing into the available field. You will notice that what you type is mirrored in the 'My Web Address' Box. This is what you're actual subdomain will be. Special charactors are not allowed and will be stripped out.
You are only able to set your Subdomain once so be thoughtful during this process.
Currency
This section enables you to set the overall currency for your Minisites to either USD or GBP. Be aware that only Google Checkout and PayPal are available for non-USD currencies and you'll want to make sure your payment processor account is set for the same currency that you configured here. We'll show you how to setup Currency for your payment processer accounts in the Payments section. All products will be fed to the Channels with the currency selected here.
Default Skin
It pleases many online sellers to adopt a consistent design across all of their Sales Pages. This setting determines the default layout for your pages. It's usually best to select a Default Skin that reflects the kind of merchandise you are selling.
Company Name
This is primarily important for those online sellers without a logo - DotFeed will (in the absence of a logo) use a bold, large-font version of the company name.
Company Logo
Upload your company logo for use on your Sales Pages.
My Topics
Each of your Sales Pages will carry links to four pages. This is "best practice" when selling online. Your "returns" and "privacy" pages arrive pre-populated with generic content to help you along. The contact-us form is built for you. It simply remains for you to add some words to "About Us". HTML is not accepted on these pages, plain text only.
TIP: Shipping and taxes are configured within your payment method. For example, if you use Paypal, then go to your Paypal account to setup these elements
Next we'll move on to Step: 3: Adding products.
Adding Products, one at a time
If this is your first time using DotFeed, please read and follow the instructions under "Validation" (see left hand tab).
Once you are hooked up to use DotFeed, (try it for free by signing uphere) then you will be delivered to the heart of the platform - to the place where you add your products.
Add as many products as you wish, using the button for "new product".
For each product you will wish to add an image:
A dialog box will open up, allowing you to select your image.NOTICEThe image will be resized to 400px x 400px. If your image is not already square, then we are obliged to either crop or pad. We choose to pad with white space and you will be much happier with the end result if you begin with a square image.
The image will upload and show a green bar to represent success. It's time to move on and complete your other information.
There are a number of fields that carry some importance - please read on:
Name
You may wish to embed a keyword (or phrase) into your product name
Price in USD
This is your selling price (see later note on "sale price") - it should be entered in US dollars and with two decimal places but without a currency symbol.
Sale Price
If you would like to sell your product at a discount and SHOW it as being discounted, then google/shopping will accommodate that. You need to leave the full price in the field called "Price in USD" and the sale price goes here - it should be entered in US dollars and with two decimal places but without a currency symbol. When your sale ends, simply remove any entry from this field.
Lowest Shipping Price
The actual shipping price will be determined at the time of payment, by which time the shipping address will be known. You can display a shipping price on your DotFeed Sales Page, which should exactly match the shipping price you are feeding to the shopping engines - it should be entered in US dollars and with two decimal places but without a currency symbol.
Weight in lbs
In order to calculate the shipping price, the engines must know the weight of the product. Please enter it here, in pounds with two decimal places.
Description
This is your product description. It must exactly represent the product itself and you should write it with care. It is a good idea to embed your keywords or phrases.
Show Quantity?
This is simply "yes" or "no". If you only ever sell your product in units of one, then you can turn this to "no".
Skin
You can drop down this box and choose your design, take a look at the result and then change it as many times as you like.
SKU
This is your SKU. It is assumed that it will be the identifier you use, within your own company, to identify a product. It may well match the "MPN" (see later note) in which case you should key it into both fields.
UPC
This is a very important value. The UPC of a product is a registered number, internationally recognized. If you are selling products which you manufacture yourself, then you may not have registered a UPC, in which case you can leave it blank. If however you are reselling a product that is manufactured by a third party, then you should check to see if they have registered UPC codes and input that information here. If the products well are packaged, you may well find the UPC code on the packaging.
Category
This is a field where you can divide your products into groups. Perhaps more importantly, it is very useful for reinforcing your keywords or key phrases.
Department
Some of the shopping engines put great value on the value you give to your department. It is a variation on the term "category" and is again a great opportunity for making sure that your key words are embedded.
MPN
Almost all manufacturers of note will provide you with their part number. Wherever you have a Manufacturer's Part Number, be sure to provide it here - this will take a great part in your success. If you don't have any value for MPN (which most likely means that you are manufacturing goods yourself) then you can replicate your SKU.
Brand
If the manufacturer of your product has different brands (for example, Ralph Lauren sells a brand called "Polo") then you can key it here. If you do not know the brand name, then you can input the manufacturer.
Manufacturer
Key the name of the manufacturer of the product. If this is your own company, then use your company name.
SE Keywords
Another opportunity to input your keywords or phrases. Please separate them with commas.
SE Description
Your search engine description goes here. If you are uncertain about the use of the meta tag for "description" then you can google the term. It is exceedingly well documented.
When you are finished, click the SAVE button. Your product will be added to the product set in the left hand list.
Choosing (clicking on) a product on the list will show you that product on the right hand side of the page.
Finally, it is time for the real fun.If you have not yet validated your subscription, please be sure to do so. This is well documented in this HowTo guide. You cannot build DotFeed Minisite until you are a valid license holder.
View Product
Before you can preview your sales pages, you must have done these things:
Validated your license
Entered your domain name
Set up a Payment Method on the Payments tab.
When you've set up all these items, clickView Productto generate your Sales Pages. Experiment with changing the skin to see the design transform.
Adding many products
If you are adding enough products to make it unsuitable for you to manually input items one at a time, then you will likely enjoy using file upload.
We have deliberately provided buttons to both "Import products" and "Export Products".
It is intended that you will use "Export Products" , even with just the one sample product, in order to see the layout of an import file.
Complete your spreadsheet, remembering:
That the following fields are mandatory: Product Name / Price / Lowest Shipping Fee / Weight / Description
That images are added later through the product entry page
That unless you are subscribed, the maximum limit for the "free" membership is five products. An import will fail if you attempt to upload more than your allowance. You can increase your subscriptionhere.
Save your spreadsheet as a .csv file.
Now it's time to import your products. Click the button and select your import file.
The import will run and show you the results. Duplicates are skipped. Edited products are modified and new products are added. You can make a decision at this point about whether or not to commit your input to your product list.
