Key system configurations

Magento's real power comes from its ability to adapt and accommodate almost any type of online selling needs. We will go through the most important backend configurations that you need to review when setting up a new Magento store. As you'll see, there are many settings. However, the more you know about how they affect your store, the more productive your selling opportunities can be.

The various configurations we are going to discuss are contained within two main navigation menus: Stores and System. First, let's explore the Stores menu.

Tip

For now, we will approach configurations as if you have a single Magento store front. Setting up and configuring multiple stores in a single installation will be covered in Chapter 3, Catalogs and Stores.

Configuration

There are six side tabs under the Stores top-level menu on the Configuration screen: General, Catalog, Customers, Sales, Services, and Advanced. Let's discuss each configuration set.

To expand each side menu, click on the down arrow on the right, and click to select a sub-menu item. The main content area of your screen will then contain various configuration panels. To expand each panel, click the down arrow within a circle located to the far right of each panel title.

General panels

Under the General panel you would see the following options:

General settings

You will find the following options within the General settings of the General panel (yes, we know it's a bit confusing):

Country Options

• Default Country: Select the "home" country for the store. If you're building multiple stores, you can select a different Default Country for each store.
• Allow Countries: Set the countries from where you will allow certain activities within your site. As you go through various settings for payments, shipping, and more, you will have the option to allow certain activities with Allowed Countries or to select certain target countries. If you know you're only going to do business within a select group of countries, you can preselect that group within this configuration.
• Zip/Postal Code is Optional for: You can also add to the countries for which a postal code is optional (not required, but desired).
• European Union Countries: Change the selection of countries that are part of the European Union (this does change from time to time).
• Top Destinations: The countries you select in this list will appear at the top of any country selection list. For instance, if you select United Kingdom and United States, the Country selector on the Checkout page would list these countries at the top and all other Allowed Countries in the list below.

Tip

When configuring multi-select fields (such as the list of Allowed Countries), scroll through the list to see what is already selected by default. If you wish to add to those selected, click while holding the Ctrl key (cmd for Macs). Likewise, use this to de-select the selected values. In this way, you don't change other already-selected values. If you make a selection error, simply refresh your web page and try again.

State Options

• State is Required for: Add or subtract from the list of countries in which the selection of a state is required during checkout or account registration. The United States is one, for example, in which you will want to require a state selection.
• Allow to Choose State if It is Optional for Country: In some cases, the selection of a state or province is not required, yet you may want the user to have the ability to enter one.

Locale Options

• Timezone: Set the applicable time zone for your store.
• Locale: This sets the regional language and formats for your store. For instance, if you choose English (United States), the store language will be English and numbers will appear as 9,999.00.
• Weight Unit: Choose pounds (lbs) or kilograms (kgs) as the default weight measure.
• First Day of Week: Many countries consider Monday as the first day of the Week. In the USA, Sunday is generally considered the first day of the week. This setting affects reports showing weekly activity (for example, sales).
• Weekend Days: If you want to separate the weekends from weekdays, select the days that are considered weekend days.

Store Information

The information here will be available to shoppers, and should reflect the information you wish to communicate for your store (which may be different from your actual business entity).

Single-Store Mode

If you're sure you will not use multiple stores in your Magento installation, you can set Enable Single-Store Mode to Yes. This will remove the configuration scope choices, and prevent you from making different configurations at the Website and/or Store View levels. When selected (and saved), the Configuration Scope menu at the top-left of your screen will be removed, as will the scope labels beside each configuration field.

Tip

Even if you plan to possibly use multiple stores later on, enabling the single-store mode can, for now, avoid any confusion when configuring your stores. Unless you're intent on immediately configuring multiple Websites or Stores, we recommend using this feature to reduce backend complexity. Once you add additional Websites or Stores, this selection becomes moot.

Note

When saving configurations, you may see a warning that you need to review your caching or indexing. We will discuss these important Magento features later in the chapter.

Web settings

The Web settings are settings that affect public access to your site.

Note

Be very careful when changing the settings in this section, as they can easily disable your site. A qualified Magento developer can help advise you on these settings, as they can also be affected by how your site is installed and configured on a server. If you don't understand a setting here, do not change it.

URL Options

Consult your Magento developer for these settings. We select add store codes to URLs when we build a store that will use a common SSL URL (for example, https://www.domain.com) across multiple stores with different domains. Otherwise, this is probably not needed.

Tip

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the full web address, such as http://www.domain.com or https://www.domain.com.

In most cases, you will want to select Auto-redirect to Base URL, as this will help prevent duplicate content. We usually set this to Yes (301 Move Permanently).

Search Engine Optimization.

In most cases, you will want to use Web Server Rewrites.

Tip

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is much, much more than just this setting, of course. In Chapter 7, Content and SEO, we will discuss ways to improve your search engine visibility.

Base URLs

The base URL is the web address that people will use to access your website. You can set different URLs for static view and media files in the event that you're using a different server for delivering these assets. Your developer can best advise you on these settings.

Base URLs (Secure)

Security for your customers (and for you) is very important. Once you have an SSL certificate installed on your server, you can enter the secure URL for your site here. You can also choose to secure the frontend of your site, as well as the admin backend.

Tip

Google has started to reward websites that use SSL encryption throughout the site. Therefore, when you have SSL installed on your server, you should use secure URLs on your...