1. Using Oracle Commerce
  2. Work with the Dashboard
  3. Enter basic store information

Enter basic store information

You must enter basic information about your store before you perform any other setup steps.

In some cases, you will not be able to change this information after you enter it.

To enter the basic information for your store:

  1. Log into the administration interface at the URL provided to you by Oracle. Typically you would use the administration interface in your test environment for this task. (See Become familiar with the administration interface.)
  2. Click the Settings icon.
  3. Select Setup.
  4. If your Commerce instance runs multiple sites (stores), pick a site to configure from the list that appears above the settings list. See Run Multiple Stores from One Commerce Instance for more information.
  5. Click the General tab.
  6. In the Site Title field, enter the value you want to use for the HTML <title> tag of your store’s home page. This value is typically used by search engines as the title that appears for your store in a list of search results. It is also visible to shoppers in a number of places, for example in browser tabs, and it is offered to them as the default text for bookmarks.
  7. In the Site Base URL field, enter your production store’s base URL. You do not need to include the protocol (HTTP or HTTPS) in the URL. If you do, it will be stripped off when you save the settings. The actual protocol used will always be HTTPS, regardless of what you specify. So, for example, if you enter www.examplestore.com in the Site Base URL field, the actual base URL for the site is https://www.examplestore.com. See Understand the site base URL for more information.
  8. On the Location tab, fill in the following fields:
    • Default Time Zone
    • Site Time Zone
    • Store Default Language
    • Additional Store Languages for the Store
    • Reporting Currency

    Important: Do not change your store’s default language once you set it, especially if you have already created catalog items such as products, SKUs, and collections. See Localize Your Store for more information.

    You do not have to select a default language for the administration interface. The administration interface automatically displays in your browser’s preferred language, provided it is a language that Oracle Commerce supports. See Languages supported by the storefront for more information.

  9. On the URL Patterns tab, customize the URL pattern for your store’s product and collection pages. See Configure URL patterns for more information.

Understand the site base URL

Each site running on your Commerce instance must have a different base URL. The site base URL setting is used as the prefix for all of the site’s URLs. For example, if a site’s base URL is https://www.examplestore.com, the URL for a specific product might be https://www.examplestore.com/cowboy-shirt/product/prod10002.

If your Commerce instance runs multiple sites, there are several strategies available for using site base URLs to distinguish between sites:

  • Use unique domain names. For example, www.shoestore.com and www.glovestore.com.
  • Use unique top-level domains. In particular, country-code top-level domains are often used to distinguish country stores. For example, www.examplestore.fr and www.examplestore.it.
  • Use unique subdomains. For example, shoestore.examplestore.com and glovestore.examplestore.com, or fr.examplestore.com and it.examplestore.com.
  • Use unique pathnames. This approach uses context roots (subdirectories) to distinguish sites. For example, www.examplestore.com/shoes and www.examplestore.com/gloves, or www.examplestore.com/fr and www.examplestore.com/it.

If your site uses the subdirectory structure for the base URL, and a shopper with items in their cart switches from one site to another site with the same base URL, if those items are available for sale on the site they switch to, those particular items will remain in the cart. Any items not available for sale on the site the shopper switches to will be removed from the cart.

Define additional store settings

As described in the previous section, the Setup page contains some required values you must specify before you start development on your store. The page also contains some general settings that are optional or can be specified later in the development process. These additional settings are described below.

  • Favicon: Optional. Select an image to use as the favorite or shortcut icon for your site’s pages. Browsers display this image in a number of places, for example in a bookmark list.
  • No-Image Image: Optional. Select the default image to use for any product if no other image is available.
  • Theme: Optional. Select a theme for this site. If your Commerce instance includes multiple sites, you can select a different theme for each site. See Run Multiple Stores from One Commerce Instance for more information about creating and configuring multiple sites. See Customize Your Store’s Design Theme for more information about themes.
  • Default catalog: Optional. If you create multiple catalogs, select a default catalog for the site. By default, the value of this setting is the default catalog, called Product Catalog. For more information, see Manage Your Catalog.
  • Make Default Site: Optional. If your Commerce instance includes multiple sites, select the Make Default Site checkbox to make the current site the default. See Run Multiple Stores from One Commerce Instance for more information about creating and configuring multiple sites.
  • Location tab: Default Price Group and Additional Price Groups (optional).

Oracle Commerce uses price groups to manage and display prices in different currencies. Your Oracle Commerce instance comes with one configured price group, whose currency is US Dollars. If you want to display prices in other currencies, you must create new price groups, one for each currency. See Configure Price Groups for more information.

Important: Price groups you add to the Additional Price Groups field can be seen and selected by all shoppers who visit your store. If your store uses account-based commerce, do not select price groups that are associated with accounts in the Additional Price Groups field. Prices associated with specific accounts should be seen only by logged-in contacts from those accounts. See Configure Business Accounts for more information.