merchant login / store directory / about us / contact

Users Manual

Welcome to the Users Manual for Cerizmo! This manual serves as your guide to configuring and using every part of the system. We aim to be as clear and concise as possible with our documentation, and we value your feedback. If you are unclear about something, or find an omission which you believe should be documented, let us know about it!

Are you a power user, or just in a hurry? Check out the Quick Start Guide for instructions on getting up and running in just 5 easy steps!

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
    1. How it Works
    2. What can be Sold
  2. Quick Start Guide
  3. Your Store
    1. Shopping Cart and Checkout
    2. Buy Now
    3. Download Delivery
    4. Customization
  4. Merchant Control Panel
    1. Dashboard
    2. Settings
    3. Items
      1. Adding/Editing Items
      2. Viewing Items
      3. Getting "Buy Now" HTML Code
    4. Categories
      1. Adding/Editing Categories
      2. Viewing Categories
    5. File Library
      1. Uploading Files
      2. Editing Files
      3. Viewing Files
      4. Viewing Disk Usage
    6. Orders
      1. Viewing Orders
      2. Sales Statistics
    7. Customers
    8. Download Pages
      1. Viewing Download Pages
      2. Resetting Download Pages
      4. Sending Manual Download Pages
    9. Themes
      1. Layout
      2. Stylesheet
  5. PayPal Setup
  6. Tips and Tricks
    1. Advanced Search
    2. Selling Non-Digital Items and Services
  7. Technical Specifications

Introduction

Cerizmo is a system for selling and delivering digital goods online. To put it simply - it allows you to sell downloadable files of all kinds. It is a fully hosted, on-demand service that provides everything you need to start selling - a customizable online store, a control panel to manage it, payment integration, and automatic delivery of downloads. There's no software to install or configure - we manage everything on our own servers.

By focusing only on digital goods, we've made the system as streamlined as possible for delivering your content. We've eliminated the complexity usually associated with e-commerce systems, and omitted anything not relevant to selling digital goods (like shipping).

And the best part - the money goes straight into your own merchant account instantly when you make a sale. We don't hold funds in our system or delay them in any way.

How it Works

To illustrate how the system works, let's walk through a typical sale - first from the customer's point of view, then from ther merchant's.

Customer Experience

  1. Customer browses your online store. Like most e-commerce systems, they just add the items they want to their Shopping Cart.
  2. Customer clicks on Checkout. Using the simple one page checkout process - they enter their email address and a password for future purchases, then click "Proceed to Payment"
  3. Customer is redirected to PayPal to complete the payment process.
  4. PayPal redirects the customer directly to their download page, where they can download their purchases items.
  5. Customer is emailed an order receipt, and a link to their downloads in case they closed their browser and weren't redirected, or if they want to get their downloads later.

Merchant Experience

  1. Money is deposited into your account instantly when you make the sale. We do not hold your funds or delay payment.
  2. An order notification is emailed to you, alerting you that you have made a sale.
  3. The order and customer information are immediately available in your control panel. You can see what items were ordered, and your customers' detailed information including their location.

What can be Sold

Anything that can be downloaded as a file! This includes, but is not limited to, the following examples:

Software, eBooks, digital artwork, templates, movies, screencasts, manuals, forms, documents, and more.

You can package multiple files into one product, and any number of downloads can be delivered to the customer upon purchase. You can also re-use files between products.

Quick Start Guide

The Quick Start Guide shows you how to get up and running in just 5 easy steps.

Your Store

Your store is a fully customizable shopping cart system, designed specifically for digital products. Your customers can browse products with descriptions and screenshots, and add items to their cart. Checkout is a simple one step process that forwards the customer directly to the payment processor. Optionally, you can use direct "Buy Now" links to take a customer directly to the checkout page from an external site (outside of your store).

Your store is hosted on our servers, and can be accessed either by your store domain name (http://www.example.com/) or your subdomain (http://example.cerizmo.com)

Shopping Cart and Checkout

Your shopping cart functions similarly to a typical shopping cart system - customers add items to the cart, and proceed to checkout when they are ready to purchase.

The checkout page is a simple one-page process that is designed to be as quick and easy as possible. If your customer is new, they enter their email address and choose a password for future purchases. If they are an existing customer, they enter the email and password they chose previously. Next, the customer is forwarded to the chosen payment processor to complete the purchase.

Buy Now

The "Buy Now" feature allows your customers to be taken directly to the checkout page for a single item purchase from outside of your store. This allows you to have a direct link to checkout from a site outside of your store - such as a separate marketing site, an email, or an online auction.

The checkout process is identical to the one used with the shopping cart - it is a one page process asking for an email, password, and payment method.

Download Delivery

After completing a purchase, your customer is automatically forwarded to a "Download Page", which is a secure page containing all of the downloads associated with their purcahse. This download page automatically expires and the downloads are protected from unauthorized access. You can customize the expiration date and the maximum number of download attempts in your Settings.

Your customer will also receive an email containing a link to this download page. This serves as a backup in case the customer closes his/her browser before being forwarded to the download page, and also allows it to be accessed later (within the expiration date, of course).

Customization

The look and feel of your store is completely customizable through a simple layout and style system. Your layout wraps around all pages in your store (as a header and footer), and your stylesheet is a standard CSS file that controls colors, fonts, and positioning of items on the screen. To learn more, please view the documentation on Themes.

Merchant Control Panel

Your Merchant Control Panel is a web-based administration area that allows you to control and customize every aspect of your store.

Accessing your Merchant Control Panel (replace example with your actual domain/subdomain)

http://www.example.com/admin

or

http://example.cerizmo.com/admin

You will log in using the email address and password you chose when you signed up for your account.

Dashboard

The Dashboard is the first page you will see when you log in, and displays basic information about your store and account - your plan, database information and disk usage, and sales statistics.

Settings

Your settings control the configuration and options for your account. To edit your settings, go to Settings at the top of the control panel, or click View/Change Settings on the Dashboard.

Merchant Name
The business name of your store or company. This is displayed in your store, on order receipts and other emails sent to your customers.
Timezone
Your current timezone. All dates displayed in the software will be relative to this timezone. It does not change how dates are stored in the database - so you can change your timezone at any time and the dates will be updated accordingly.
Copyright Notice
This is your own copyright notice, displayed at the bottom of all of your store pages.
Date Formats
Enable Store
Whether to make your store available. If this is not checked, your store cannot be accessed by customers (this may be useful when you are still setting up your products, or you are performing some kind of maintenance).
Store Welcome Message
This message is displayed on the front page of your store.
Download Page Expiration Time
The amount of time (in hours) before a download page expires. The time starts as soon as the download page is created (when an order is completed). After this time, the page will no longer be accessible. The maximum allowed value is 72 hours (3 days)
Download Max Tries
The maximum number of times the customer can download any one file on a download page. It does not consider whether the download is completed or not, just that it was attempted. You should set this to a reasonable number in case your customer's downloads fail, or they accidentally double click. However, setting it too high may allow them to share the download with others. The maximum allowed value is 4
Merchant Contact Email
Email address where your customers can contact you. It is displayed in the store, and on order pages and receipts.
Order Notification Email
Where to email you when you receive an order. You will receive notifications of completed, pending, and failed orders.
Automailer Email

This is where automated emails will be sent from. This includes emails such as order receipts, download links, and other emails sent to your customers.

You should use a real email address here (many spam filters check to see if the From address actually exists). This will also allow your customers to reply to emails to contact you.

PayPal Seller Email
This is your PayPal account email, to which your customers will send payment. It is the email address you use to log into your PayPal account.
PayPal Identity Token
The PayPal identity token is used to identify your Paypal account to the server (for security reasons). Please see PayPal Setup for information on how to get this token.

Items

Adding/Editing Items

To add a new item, go to Store > Add Item

To edit an existing item, go to Store > View Items and click the edit link (the pencil) to the right of the item listing.

Fill in the following fields when adding or editing an item.

Name
The name of your product.
Short Description
This short, one-line description is displayed in the item listing, on the download page, and order receipts.
Long Description
This full description is displayed only on the item's full page on your store.
Price
The price of the item in US dollars.
Category
The category in which to display this item in your store. Select (Uncategorized) if you do not want to use a category - this will place the item on the front page of your store.
Available for Sale?
Whether to make this item available for sale in your store (or through the Buy Now feature). If this is unchecked, the item cannot be purchased in your store.
Allow Quantity
Whether to allow a customer to purchase more than one of this item. Quantities do not apply to many digital items, so this is turned off by default. Consider the product you are selling. Is there a reason for your customer to buy more than one (such as software for which they may want multiple copies), or is one the most they would ever need (such as an eBook - they only need one)?
ID/Number
This optional field allows you to set an item id, number, or SKU. There are three uses for this number:
  1. Your own records, if you have an inventory system which needs certain naming convention.
  2. Order receipts sent to your customer.
  3. It is passed to the payment gateway (i.e. PayPal and stored in that transaction log).
Downloads
These are the actual digital goods (files) delivered to your customer when this item is purchased. These files are selected from your File Library - so you must upload them there before they can be attached to an item. You can attach any number of downloads to an item, or none at all (see documentation on selling non-digital items such as services)
Images

You can attach any number of pictures, screenshots, or other images to your item. These images are displayed in your store next to the item. Supported formats are GIF, JPEG, and PNG. Thumbnails and a scaled version of the image (640x480 max) are automatically created - just upload the full size image and the system does the rest.

If adding multiple images, you can check "Primary" (next to the image upload field) to make that image appear in the listing by default.

Viewing Items

To view your existing items, go to Store > View Items

Searching

Entering a query into the search box will search on the following fields: See advanced search for more search options.

Item Display

Each row in the table represents an item. The default image for the item is displayed to the left. You can view more item details, edit the item, get "Buy Now" html codes, or delete the item using the buttons on the right.

Categories

Categories allow you to organized your items in your store. Categories are optional, and any item not placed in a category will be shown on the front page of your store.

Adding/Editing Categories

To add a new item, go to Store > Add Category

To edit an existing category, go to Store > View Categories and click the edit link (the pencil) to the right of the category listing.

Fill in the following fields when adding or editing a category:

Name
The name of the category.
Description
A short description of the category.

Viewing Categories

To view your existing items, go to Store > View Categories

Searching

Entering a query into the search box will search on the following fields: See advanced search for more search options.

Category Display

Each row in the table represents a category. The category name and number of items contained in the category are displayed on each row. You can view more category details, edit the category, or delete the category using the buttons on the right.

File Library

Your File Library holds all of your file assets, which can be attached to items as downloads. You can re-use files between items (example: having an item which bundles several products together), and you can attach any number of files to one item.

You can upload files of up to 1 gigabyte (1GB) through the Upload File form in the control panel.

Uploading Files

To upload a file, go to File Library > Upload File

Fill in the following fields when adding a file:

File Upload
Select the file to upload from your computer. You can upload up to a 100MB file.
Description (Optional)
An optional description. This description is displayed next to the filename on the download pages delivered to your customers - so it is recommended that you enter a good description.
New Filename (Optional)
A new filename to use if you don't want to use the existing name of the file you upload.

Editing Files

To edit a filename/description, or to replace an existing file, go to File Library > View Files and click the edit link (the pencil) to the right of the file listing.

Description (Optional)
New Filename (Optional)
Change the existing filename. If this is left blank and a new file is uploaded, the filename of that new file will be used.
Replace File (Optional)
Select a new file from your computer to replace the existing file. This will overwrite the existing file entirely, and change its filename.

Viewing Files

To view your existing files, go to File Library > View Files

Searching

Entering a query into the search box will search on the following fields: See advanced search for more search options.

File Display

Each row in the table represents a file. The filename and file type (based on its extension) are displayed on each row. You can view more file details (such as the items with which the file is associated), edit the file, or delete it by using the buttons to the right.

Viewing Disk Usage

Your total disk space usage (all of your files) is listed on the Dashboard, under "Database Info"

Orders

Customers

Download Pages

A download page is a secure page containing all of the downloads associated with a customer's purchase. It is accessed by a secure link, and is automatically created and emailed upon successful purchase. Download pages automatically expire and are protected from unauthorized access.

You can customize the expiration date and the maximum number of download attempts in your Settings.

You can also manually create and send download pages. This is a useful feature for sending item updates or free downloads to anyone with an email address.

Viewing Download Pages

To view download pages that have been created, go to Store > Download Pages.

Searching

Entering a query into the search box will search on the following fields: See advanced search for more search options.

Download Page Display

Each row in the table represents a download page. Each row contains the email to which the download was sent, the associated order (if any), the full link to the page, and the expiration date.

Retrieving Download Page Links

Click on the text box under "Download Page Link", and press Control+C. This will copy the full download link.

Resetting Download Pages

It may sometimes be necessary to reset a download page - for example if your customer was not able to complete the downloads before it expired.

To reset a download page, go to Store > Download Pages and click the "Reset" icon to the right of the download page you wish to reset. This will reset the expiration date and the download count, allowing your customer to access the same link again.

Sending Manual Download Pages

You can use the "Send Download Page" feature to create and send a download page to any email address. This is separate from a purchase and can be done to send free downloads or updates to existing customers.

To manually send a download page, go to Store > Download Pages, then click Send a Download Page.

Email

The email to which to send this download page.

Expires

The exact date and time when it will expire.

Note

This is a small note that is displayed in the email as well as on the download page itself.

Items

The items to add to this download page. Note that you add items and not files directly. This allows you to use the item names and descriptions next to the downloads. The download page will look just like as if the user had purchased the items - except there won't be any order information listed.

If you need to create a download page with an arbitrary set of downloads, you can create an item but not make it available for sale in the store.

Themes

Your theme controls the "look and feel" of your store. This includes all pages your customers would see - the store, item, shopping cart, checkout, download page, and order "thank you" page.

We use a very simple but effective theme system consisting of two components: the layout and the stylesheet.

Layout

Your layout is a HTML file which "wraps" every page displayed in your store. It controls everything around the page content - mainly the header and footer. To match the look of your existing site or to add your own logo, the layout is the only thing you need to edit. For more control over fonts, colors, or page positioning - edit your Stylesheet.

Your layout is standard XHTML 1.0, with a couple of special variables that are inserted automatically: You shouldn't need to modify or remove any of these, but you can move them around in the layout file if necessary.

%%STYLESHEET%%
Your stylesheet (from your theme) will be inserted here.
%%MERCHANT_NAME%%
Your Merchant Name (from your Settings)
%%CONTENT%%
The actual content of the specific page (item page, checkout, download page, etc.) is inserted here. You can move this variable around in the layout, but do not remove it - your pages will be blank.
%%COPYRIGHT_NOTICE%%
Copyright notice (from your Settings)

Stylesheet

Your Stylesheet is a CSS file that controls the look and feel of your store. This includes the colors, fonts, and positioning of elements on each page. To some extent it can control the layout of the store (we make use of CSS positioning where appropriate). For more generic control of the layout, such as wrapping a head and footer around all pages or inserting your own logo - edit your Layout.

PayPal Setup

Cerizmo uses PayPal as the standard payment processor that takes payment after the checkout process in our system is complete. You use your own PayPal account with our system - so you receive payments instantly and your customers see your company name on their receipts.

Before you can start selling your products, you will need to set a few options in your PayPal account so that it can communicate with our system.

  1. Log into your PayPal account, then go to Profile > Settings > Website Payment Preferences
  2. Set your options as follows:
    • Auto-Return - On
    • Return URL - http://yourstore.com
    • Payment Data Transfer - On
    • PayPal Account Optional - On
  3. After saving your options, your PayPal Identity Token will be displayed. It is a long string of random letters. Copy this token, and paste it into the PayPal Identity Token field in your Settings

Tips and Tricks

Advanced Search

We use a powerful full-text searching engine throughout the control panel. The result - just about every field is searchable from everywhere. This includes associated fields - for example, searching "United States" on your Orders view will show all orders from customers located there.

Most advanced options will work for searches. Examples:

"United States" -Bob

This will return all customers in the United States that are not named Bob (or don't have "bob" anywhere else in their info - since search automatically inludes all fields)

Bob OR John

Find all customers named either "Bob" or "John".

Selling Non-Digital Items and Services

It is possible to sell Items that do not contain any downloads. One example is selling a service or contract related to another item (such as installation services for a software product, or a support contract)

To sell a non-digital item, simply add an item as usual, but do not add any downloads to it.

Nothing will be delivered with this item, so it is your responsibility to correspond with the customer after the order.

Technical Specifications

Internationalization/Localization

UTF-8 Compliance
The system is entirely UTF-8 compliant, from the database to the web pages that are displayed. Thus, any language supported through UTF-8 will work anywhere within the program - from item names and descriptions, to your theme layout.
Time Zone Independent
The system uses UTC dates throughout the code and database. Your time zone can be changed in your Settings and all dates will be adjusted accordingly.
Customizable Date Formats
Date and times displayed throughout the software can be customized to any format.

Item Images

Supported Formats
Maximum Size
6 megabytes
Resizing/Thumbnails

Files