How To: Configure Global Entry Point for Your Store

Important

This article applies only to CS-Cart, not Multi-Vendor.

About Global Entry Points

The global entry point is a pop-up window that your visitors see when they open a storefront for the first time. This window contains a list of countries and regions. Every item in the list is linked to some specific storefront. Visitors choose a country or a region from the list, then they get redirected to the respective storefront.

Select all stores to switch to the root administrator mode.

This feature comes in handy when you want to create several localized storefronts with different products for specific countries or regions.

For example, you have a flagship store www.example.com that is intended mainly for visitors from the US. Its localized version www.example.ru targets the Russian market. And four other storefronts www.example.au, www.example.ca, www.example.eu, and www.example.co.uk contain information specific to Australia, Canada, the European Union, and the UK, respectively.

In this case the global entry point becomes an initial point of contact between the bunch of your storefronts and your visitors, ensuring that all of them find the necessary web store.

Important

The global entry point does not detect the location of visitors: they are free to choose their region or country themselves.

How to Create a Global Entry Point?

A global entry point is generated automatically based on the properties of the individual storefronts. To add a global entry point, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Administration → Stores.

  2. Click the name of the storefront you want to add a global entry point for.

  3. Switch to the Regions tab.

  4. Specify the global entry point settings:

    • Enable the global entry point:

      You can choose whether to activate the global entry point on the home page only, or on any storefront pages. The second option is useful when a visitor opens a specific page through a direct link.

      Important

      Even if you do not enable the global entry point for a particular storefront, you can still link this storefront to a region or a country in the list. To do so, assign regions and countries to the storefront as described below.

    • Assign regions and countries to specific storefronts:

      The box on the right contains the list of all available countries and regions; the box on the left contains the list of countries and regions assigned to this storefront. If no countries and regions are selected, then the global entry point won’t direct visitors to this storefront.

      To move items from one list to the other, use the twin horizontal arrows between the lists. To select multiple items, press and hold the Ctrl or Shift key while selecting.

      Note

      To adjust the list of countries supported in your store, go to Administration → Shipping & Taxes → Countries.

Assign regions and countries to the storefront for the global entry point to redirect visitors choosing those regions and countries to the specified storefront.
  1. Repeat step 4 for all the storefronts you need.

Note

CS-Cart imposes no limitations on the set of countries and regions that you can assign to a storefront. If you assign a country/region to two or more storefronts, the corresponding list item of the global entry point will point to the first storefront you assigned this country/region to.