Once you've created your eBay Store subscription, you likely did the Quick Store Setup when you subscribed, but those settings are not locked in forever. You can now edit your eBay Store up by going to your My eBay and selecting "Manage My Store" (MMS) under subscriptions on the left side.

That takes you to the Manage My Store landing page:

STORE CATEGORIES

One of the first things you may want to do is set up your store categories. These can reflect the eBay category names or be those which make sense for your offerings. It is assumed you will have already decided which categories you want in your store and any sub-categories you may wish to have. Of course, consider what is easiest for you in your organization of categories, but it's most important to set things up in a logical manner from the point of view of shoppers. You may have a total of 300 categories & sub-categories, each one up to 30 characters long.

To set up your store categories, on the left side of the MMS under Store Design, click on Store Categories. You will set up your top-level categories. To do so, click on the Add Category button
A new page will open. Add your category names in the fields as shown to right. If you click the Add more categories link at the bottom of the Category Name fields, more fields will open below the Category Name fields.

NOTE: Please be sure to click on the links to information which may further assist you in setting up your store, such as these:


We have our 3 main store categories set up for ABC Coins, but now need to create subcategories in each. To add sub-categories to a main category, click on the main category link. It opens a page to which you add these 2nd level store sub-categories. You may add 3rd level categories by clicking on the 2nd level category links as just done for creating the 2nd level categories.

DISPLAY SETTINGS

BASIC INFORMATION

This is the section from which you name your eBay store, select its logo & enter its description - or to change these in the future. Click on the Change link to the right in the Basic Information bar to edit these settings.

On the Edit Basic Information page which opens from that Change link, enter your store name & description into the appropriate fields. Resist the urge to use fluffy, "Welcome to our eBay Store" sort of text in the description: USE KEYWORDS such as the product you sell, brand names, etc. - terms shoppers may search on. This will assist in search engine placement.

You next choose a store logo from this section.

You may use one of the eBay-supplied logos , you may upload a 310 x 90 pixel store logo image to your free Picture Manager account, you may enter the URL of the store logo you have hosted online off-eBay or choose to not display a logo.
Be aware your default store logo must fit into the 310 x 90 pixel space. If your logo is taller rather than wide, it will be compressed to fit the available space. If you choose to customize your eBay store, you may use your other-sized logo within the customized HTML. (More on customization later.)

THEME AND DISPLAY

The store theme is the general layout of your eBay Store. You may click the link to Change to another theme to pick a different layout. Look thru the various available themes by clicking on theme links shown in image to right. Please note, the Custom Header Only theme under Easily Customizable will not include anything in the header until you insert your custom HTML (with graphics, if appropriate) into the Custom Header (more on this later).

To change the color scheme, click on the Edit current theme link. You may click on the color chooser to open the palette shown and select your colors that way. If you have custom colors, you will enter their Hex Color code into the fields. (Some photo editing software, such as Photoshop, will provide the Hex codes in the color chooser. You might also do a web search for "hex color chart" to find many pages with the colors & their Hex codes.) Click Save Settings to save your color scheme.

The Left Navigation Bar settings allow you to choose whether or not you want to display a store search box, categories, buyer display options and links to your store pages.

The Store Header Display settings allow you to insert a custom header if you wish. (This is custom HTML you insert.) If you want a custom header or to add info to the header, you'll check the Yes, include… radio button rather than the No, do not… button. Also, if you wish to include an image you have in Picture Manager, you will click the Yes, include… button, then click the Picture Manage link to open a pop-up window to choose that image. By clicking on the Stores HTML Builder link, a pop-up window will open. Within that window, you can create links to items, a Store page or Store search which will appear in your header.

On the Edit Store Header Display page, you may also choose to have a minimal eBay header on your store pages IF you have a subscription for a Premier or Anchor Store.
On the Display Settings page, your last option is to set the Item Display. Choose whether you want your store to display in a list or gallery view and to sort via highest price, lowest price, ending first or newly listed. This is how your shoppers will see your listings when they first visit your store.

CUSTOM PAGES

Please see this advanced information below.

PROMOTION BOXES

You may click on the Guided Setup link for an easy way to create promotion boxes in your eBay store. On the Guided Setup page, you may choose to include the default promotion boxes or may change (edit) them by clicking on the Change promotion box link. As those steps are easy to follow, this tutorial will show you how to create a promotion box without using the Guided Setup.

To begin, click on the Create New Promotion Box button. From the Promotion box types page which opens, you'll select which type of Promotion box you're creating - to Advertise items, Provide links to other parts of your Store or to Communicate to your buyers (fully customizable).



Click on the Continue> button once you've chosen the type. This opens a page on which you select the Promotion Box Location and Store page(s) where that promotion box should appear.

Create Promotion Box: Content and Color

Click on & Refresh preview the various display types to choose which type of promo box you want to create. Choose the Item selection criteria. You may rename your Promotion box title if you wish. (Click on Refresh preview to see how your new title looks.) Select the ending time period and from which category to show items in this promo box.

You will next Change color and font if desired. (I have been unable to do this in Firefox, but have to change the color and font in Internet Explorer. Perhaps this is due to some obscure Firefox setting I have.)

Name your Promotion box for your own information. You may then want to Preview sample page then save your promotion box you've just created.
If you don't want to currently use this promo box but do want to save it for future use, select Remove from the Actions Drop-down selector as shown to right. You will then be able to Make this promotion box inactive or Delete this promotion box permanently.
When you do want to activate this promotion box, click on the Inactive link to see this (and any other inactive) promo box listed as in sample to right.

STORE MARKETING

EMAIL MARKETING

eBay has a good tutorial covering email marketing in eBay Stores, so please see that information at http://pages.ebay.com/stores/email-marketing/tutorial/index.html.

LISTING FRAME

A listing frame includes your settings from your eBay Store to include on your auction, fixed price and store listing pages on eBay. You may choose to include (or not) your default store header (a custom header will NOT show up - this will only include the default information you have in your store's Display Settings). You may choose to show your store logo & links to Add to Favorite Seller, Sign up for Store Newsletter (email marketing) and Link to Items on Sale (from items you've placed on sale thru the Markdown Manager). You may also choose store pages to have links to & a store search box.

The image below shows the listing header just under the start of the description on your eBay listing page. In this case, the eBay-provided coins store header is shown on the background of the color scheme chosen. The 2 links, Add to Favorite Stores & Sign up for Store newsletter, were chosen when setting the Listing Frame.

PROMOTIONAL FLYER

You may create a promotional flyer to print out and distribute as you wish. Click the Create Promotional Flyer button to go to the page on which you'll select the information to be included in this flyer. Keeping most of the default settings, this 8½" x 11" printable flyer (image to right) was generated for ABC Coins.

LISTING FEEDS

As a convenience to your web-savvy shoppers, you may wish to make available an RSS feed, which will notify these shoppers when you've added new listings on eBay. You may also export your listings to third-parties with whom you've set up a partnership, such as Google Base, thru the Listing Feeds selection, Search engine and comparison sites.

ITEM PROMOTION

MARKDOWN MANAGER

eBay has a tutorial about Markdown Manager at http://pages.ebay.com/stores/markdown-manager/tutorial/index.html. Learn how to apply discounts to one, more or all of your store items.

CROSS PROMOTION

You may set up rules to cross-promote other items you have on eBay when a shopper views or bids on another item. For example, if ABC Coins receives a bid on a Morgan dollar, they may wish the bidder to view other silver US coins they have listed.

FAVORITE SELLER TOP PICKS

You may select the items which you want to promote to those who have you chosen as one of their favorite sellers.

PROMOTE SIMILAR ITEMS

You may choose to promote your items on other sellers' notices and closed eBay listings and have other sellers' items promoted similarly on your notices and closed listings.

LOGOS AND BRANDING

CUSTOMIZE END OF AUCTION EMAILS

You may customize the end of auction email notice eBay sends to your buyers. (This is sent by default to all auction winners and fixed-price/Buy It Now buyers.) You may include your store logo and a custom message if desired and also have a copy of that email sent to you.

CUSTOMIZE INVOICE

If your buyers do eBay Checkout, they will receive an automatic invoice from eBay with cost information. You may choose to include your store logo and a custom message if desired.

CUSTOM PAGES

When I set up ABC Coins Fake Store, I used the Quick Store Setup which resulted in a storefront which looked like this:

CUSTOM STORE HEADER

To set up a custom store header, it is assumed you'll have the HTML code ready to go & any images used in it hosted online. (If you do not have this, you'll need to learn HTML elsewhere, ask for assistance on the Photos/HTML or Stores Discussion forums or hire someone to create this for you. eBay has a Certified Stores Designer directory at http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/designdirectory.html.)
The image to the right is the custom store header created for this tutorial. In this, 4 images were placed into a table with appropriate text and linking code added.
Once you have your store header code ready to go, you will put it into Manage My Store>Display Settings> Theme and Display>Store Header Display. Click on the Change link to go to the page to add this code.

Click on the Yes, include… radio button as to the left of the top arrow. Paste your header code into the window to the left of the bottom arrow.

At this point, both the default store header & your custom header will show in your store:

To remove the default store header, you'll need to change your theme to allow for the custom header. Under Display Settings>Theme and Display>Store theme, click on the link, Change to another theme. Go to the Easily Customizable themes & select Custom Header Only and its color scheme (which can be next edited by clicking the Edit current theme link in the section shown to right) and click the Save Settings button.

Your custom store header will now appear on all of your store pages as well as your About Me page if you have one.

CUSTOM PAGES

With a basic eBay Store subscription, you may have up to 5 custom store pages. (Even more available with a Premium or Anchor Store subscription!) Many store owners will make their store landing page one of the custom pages. Some use one or more of the custom pages for FAQs, Grading or further information about their eBay Store or business. Some store owners use a custom page with tips about their industry. Some store owners use custom pages to feature categories within their stores. Some list their Terms of Service on a custom page - but please be aware, it is the terms on your listing pages which are considered the terms recognized by eBay. Terms on a store page or your About Me page are not considered binding as these pages may be edited after the listing ends.

Please review the Special HTML tags for eBay Stores page at http://pages.ebay.com/help/specialtysites/stores-specific-tags.html . These tags allow you to place some features into your custom pages as desired.

First, how to create a simple custom store home/landing page...

Click on Custom Pages under Store Design on the left side of the MMS page. On the Custom Pages page, click the Create new page link.

On the next page, Create Custom Page: Select Layout, you may select any of the layouts. I tend to use 1 Text Section, as everything I want is within my HTML. Click the Continue button to go to the next page.

Name the page as you desire. For a main/landing store page, I will generally name it with the Store name - in this case, ABC Coins.

In the Text Section 1, delete the default text within the field and paste in your HTML for the custom layout.

Under the Left Navigation Bar section, choose whether you want to show the left navigation bar or not. If you have navigation as part of your custom page HTML, you will want to Hide... If you'll be displaying the default or custom navigation on all of your store pages and do not have navigation as part of your custom page HTML, click to Show...

Click the Continue> button to preview the page content. Save and Publish if correctly displayed.

To make this your main/landing store page, on the Custom Pages section of MMS, Select your Store Homepage.

This is what the store homepage looks like thus far.



Next, we'll be creating a Promotion box to use for the custom side navigation.

Under Store Design, click on the link, Promotion Boxes. Remove or make inactive any Promotion boxes which you have for a Left Navigation location, then click the button, Create New Promotion box.

On the page, Create Promotion Box: Type, choose the type, Communicate to your buyers and Continue>. Choose Left navigation - Upper for your Promotion Box Location, then Continue. (For Store page where..., keep the default, All category pages in the Store.)

You will then Create Promotion Box: Content and Color.

1. Choose Custom for the Information type.

2. Delete the default text in the entry field and paste your HTML into that field.

3. Name your Promotion box

Click Save.

You will now want to turn off the remaining default navigation. Under Store Design>Display Settings>Theme and Display>Left navigation boxes, click the Change link. Uncheck any or all components to show and click button, Save Settings.

We will now create one more custom page, in this case, Coin FAQs. Go to the Custom Pages page and click the link, Create new page. The layout, 1 Text Section, was chosen for this page. It was titled Coin FAQs and the code was placed into the Text Section 1.

After previewing, this was saved and published. It now appears under Active Pages.

Should you need more information on setting up, modifying or customizing your eBay Store, please refer to the following:

eBay Stores Discussion Forum - http://forums.ebay.com/db2/forum.jspa?forumID=21

Photos/HTML Discussion Forum - http://forums.ebay.com/db2/forum.jspa?forumID=99

Storefront Start Page - http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/start.html (See links along the left side of this page to go to further information pages.)

To see this guide complete & with screenshots, please see http://stores.ebay.com/GOing1nceLLC/StoreTutorial.html .