Quickstart
To get started in a hurry do the following:
Install CartThrob
Basically:
- upload the files via FTP
- go to EE addons » modules menu and click "install" for both CartThrob and after it's installed install the "CartThrob Order Manager"
- go to CartThrob settings » install, and run the auto-installer
- Add basic store detail in the installation settings
Set Up Products
- Add products to the products channel
- Go to your new cart page to see your product (http://example.com/store) add this product to the cart
Test a transaction
- Add a product to the cart, then check out
Look at reports
- Once you've run through a test transaction, go to the CartThrob Order Manager in the addons » modules panel (or use the menu item: "Ecommerce" to navigate to it) and take a look at the dashboard
- Then look at the "orders" tab, and check out the 3 main order views: quickview, manage, and view entry (will show order channel entry)
Configure
Now that you've seen the whole thing in action, review CartThrob's settings by going to the CartThrob settings in the addons » modules panel (or use the CartThrob menu item to navigate to it).
- Create notification email templates
- Adjust global settings for default locations & currency types
- Adjust payment settings for your gateway
Modify templates or start from scratch
The CartThrob team does not usually start with the auto-install templates when building a new site. The default templates are great for quick testing, but we generally find that every site's pretty unique, so we start building our templates from scratch. The "store" template is a good example, but we usually just create the HTML for our sites, and once that's done, we then incorporate CartThrob template tags, all of which are documented in detail. The CartThrob documentation lists the "most popular" tags in its navigation, and generally those are the tags you'll use the most.