First of all you must have an active PayPal Business or Premier Account, and you must have entered this information into your details in the website administration section. If you have not entered this then you can do so by logging in and following the link to change your log in details. In this section you can enter your PayPal user name (usually an email address). Without this then your online shop simply won’t work.

The first thing you should do before diving in is turn the computer off and get a piece of paper and a pen. Some preliminary planning is required here, and the more thought that you give this then the easier the whole thing will be.

The shop is organised in three tiers. These are Category, Sub-Category and Detail Category. These must be set up by each shop owner before ANY items are added to the shop. The Category section is pre-defined, these are the main site sections such as Fine Art, Photography, Glass, Ceramics, Papercrafts etc, etc. Every shop has these as their main categories. Some will use only one – in my case I will only have items under the Photography section. Others use three of four. You can’t add a category and you can’t take one away, these are static and don’t change. However, if you don’t use a category then it won’t appear in your shop.

Sub categories can be defined for your unique shop irrespective of what other members do. For example, as a photographer I may decide that I would like a Sub Category of ‘Colour’ and an Sub Category of ‘Black and White’.

Detail Categories drill down again, in my case I may choose detail categories of Landscapes, Abstract, Architecture, Flowers and People.

This means that I can now allocate an item to a Category, Sub Category and Detail Category. For example, a black and white image of the Millennium Bridge (now we’ve all got one of them haven’t we!) would come under Photography / Black and White / Architecture. On the other hand, a colourful picture of a Tulip would come under Photography / Colour / Flowers. This is just one way to organise items, there are others that may suit different businesses. A glass artist may decide to have sub categories of Tableware and Architectural with detail categories of bowls, coasters and wall panels, so one of their items may be Glass / Tableware / Bowls. Or how about Papercrafts / Cards / Anniversary?

The reason that the shop has been built like this is so we can utilise a quick menu navigation system. Within three clicks of the mouse a user will be in a section that they are interested in. You can have as many Sub Categories and Detail Categories as you like.  So, it is very important that you are clear in your mind how you are going to organise your shop before you start adding your items.

Once you have your Sub Categories and Detail Categories entered and organised you can now start adding your items. Upload your images first making sure that they have names that you recognise (ie warkworth.jpg makes more sense than DSCF44433.jpg) and then fill in the details of the item. You’ll need a title, short description, long description, image and price.

The best thing to do at this early stage is to keep things simple. Remember that an additional benefit of the PayPal system is that you also have the facility to send email PayPal invoices, and therefore you can still take payment online for commissions or bespoke work. Again, using Photography as an example, keep it simple by offering your photographs at one size, but let your customers know on your shop homepage that you can print them any size that they would like. For example, I will add an image to my Photography / Colour / Flowers section, it will be called ‘Tulips’, it will be sized 20″ x 30″ and it will be a snip at £5000. I could go on and add another item exactly the same except a different size and price but rather than do that I would have a note on my site saying “Prints available in bespoke sizes, contact me for details”.

The whole basis of the online shop is that we end up with lots of mini stores rather than one big store. Each member has their own microsite and their own microstore. Your shop is all yours. We did this so that you can all market your own site by purchasing a domain name and forwarding it direct. When a user clicks a link to visit your shop then that’s exactly what they do, they don’t see anyone elses work, just yours.

On a final note, remember that the shop must be designed in a way that works with 200 members of all different disciplines, and as such there may be some instances when the solution you find may be less than perfect. I think that generally it will be perfectly usable for the bulk of artists, but if there is a feature you would like to see then let me know. It may not be possible but I would be happy to take a look.

If you are after something incredibly specific then maybe you need your own shop, in which case I would be delighted to quote!