Providing bookkeeping & payroll services, typesetting and website & database design since 1990.
https://www.jolanders.com
Case Study: E-commerce Site - The Administrative Back-End
Ecommerce Site Makeover 3
It was critical that the backend be easy for the site administrater or staff to use, and that it minimize data entry errors so the catalog and order form could access information correctly and consistently. Besides the image uploader, which ensures that product images are named correctly and stored on the server in the expected location, it includes other error checking. For example, if a product does not have pricing information, it automatically makes that product inactive, hiding it from customers until the store is ready to begin selling it. Products with add-on items (such as RSVP cards for invitations) show the add-on items when editing the primary product, making it immediately apparent if anything is missing, and letting you edit pricing for all related products at the same time you edit the primary product. If a product requires the customer to upload digital images, the admin is prompted to enter the number of images and size for each. This is used on both the catalog pages (letting the customer know they will need to provide images) and the order form, which allows a customer to upload as many images as the product needs.
Since the new catalog template generates meta-data from the product information, it seemed like a good idea to show that on the product editing screen, so descriptions could be written with SEO in mind. Therefore, the admin not only has a link they can use to see exactly what the customer will see, but also information showing them exactly what will be generated for the title, description and keywords a search engine sees.
Once the product editing sections were done, I added order management and reporting features.
Product Management - allows the site admin to add or edit individual products, create new categories, or edit pricing for all items within a category.
Edit Prices - view all products within a category and edit prices, or jump to individual products to edit descriptions.
Edit Product - detailed data entry screen allowing the site admin to edit title, pricing and description, specify customer options, upload or replace images, and view SEO information. Click to view a screenshot.