(by 9 people)
How to interlink your cafepress shops
With the new CP chop limits it is important for large shopkeepers to know how to seamlessly interlink their shops. This page will be a tutorial on how to link multiple premium shops so they all appear to be one large shop.
Approaches
There are several approaches to linking shops together - all of them basically work in the same way - with just slight variations
the first is "similar shops different colors" exemplified by SagArt where all of the shops are interlinked each using a similar template with different color themes for each page
The next is "Unique Shops" all still interlinking but without attempting to mask the transition such as the holiday section on Shopaholic Chick where it is obvious that it links into Celebrate Today, a division of Shopaholic Chick
The final is "Identical Seamless" where all shops look exactly the same and without looking at the address bar you would not known you had shifted shops an example is Love ~ Hearts
Each is slightly different so there are 3 sets of directions below one for each style
the first is "similar shops different colors" exemplified by SagArt where all of the shops are interlinked each using a similar template with different color themes for each page
The next is "Unique Shops" all still interlinking but without attempting to mask the transition such as the holiday section on Shopaholic Chick where it is obvious that it links into Celebrate Today, a division of Shopaholic Chick
The final is "Identical Seamless" where all shops look exactly the same and without looking at the address bar you would not known you had shifted shops an example is Love ~ Hearts
Each is slightly different so there are 3 sets of directions below one for each style
Similar Shops - different color schemes
How to link from A-Z
This will outline from beginning to end how to link your seamless shops - I know I may have included some steps that appear to be obvious - but I wanted to make this easy for anyone to follow!!
- Set up your Primary Premium Shop
- Make 2nd Premium Shop
- Open notepad - word - wordpad - somewhere that you can copy information and store it for a few minutes
- go to the original premium shop
- go to the edit HTML screen
- Copy the imformation in each of the boxxes pasting it into your blank notepad - make sure to label which box each set of information came from so you can repaste it into those boxxes on the other shop
- go back to the your account page - this is important because occasionally if you only go to the shops page and switch shops it will cause problems (intermixing of the shops)
- go into your 2nd premium shop
- insert all the information taken from the other shop into the html section of the new shop
- adjust the colors and banner to the new color scheme for the 2nd shop & save
- Add designs to your new shop
- once you have a sufficient number of designs into the new shop that you are ready to link from the primary shop return to the your account page
- go into the primary shop and add a new section
- fill in the section name and teaser how you want it to appear on the primary shop
- in the section description enter the following code inserting the URL of your 2nd shop
{script language="javascript"}
{!--
location.replace("http://www.cafepress.com/********");
--}
{/script}
replace the {} with <> - save & preview
- return to your account - then to your 2nd shop and place a link back to your primary shop
Unique Shops - all shops are different with one main shop thats links to them
How to link from A-Z
This will outline from beginning to end how to link your unique shops - I know I may have included some steps that appear to be obvious - but I wanted to make this easy for anyone to follow!!
- Make your primary shop
- Make your 2nd shop
- in your primary shop make a section to link to your new shop
- fill in the teaser & name to match the others in your section
- in the description field place the following code replace the URL with your new shop
{script language="javascript"}
{!--
location.replace("http://www.cafepress.com/********");
--}
{/script}
replace the {} with <>
Seamless Shops - where they all look identical
How to link from A-Z
This will outline from beginning to end how to link your seamless shops - I know I may have included some steps that appear to be obvious - but I wanted to make this easy for anyone to follow!!
- Set up your Primary Premium Shop with all designs in sections
- Make 2nd Premium Shop
- Open notepad - word - wordpad - somewhere that you can copy information and store it for a few minutes
- go to the original premium shop
- go to the edit HTML screen & color screen if you adjusted colors
- Copy the imformation in each of the boxxes pasting it into your blank notepad - make sure to label which box each set of information came from so you can repaste it into those boxxes on the other shop
- go back to the your account page - this is important because occasionally if you only go tot he shops page and switch shops it will cause problems (intermixing of the shops)
- go into your 2nd premium shop
- insert all the information taken from the other shop into the html section & color section of the new shop & save
- add new "dummy" section to your new shop
- use the same name, teaser and image as 1 section in your primary shop
(open another window ot tab so you can copy & paste the name and teaser if needed) - in the description field place the following code replace the URL with the URl of the section in the old shop
{script language="javascript"}
{!--
location.replace("http://www.cafepress.com/********");
--}
{/script}
replace the {} with <> - repeat until all sections from the primary shop are in the 2nd shop & reorder to match
- add new sections filled with designs to your new shop
- return to your 1st shop and add "dummy" sections to your primary shop linking to the section of the new shop
- reorder to make them match
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