The Design Wizard allows you to quickly select either a layout and color palette for their store, or select from a series of pre-designed templates.

You can access the Design Wizard from the Open for Business control panel and also from the Design Wizard link in the Store Manager. You will first see the Design Intro page.

Note: Merchants interested in building using their own tools or hiring a Yahoo! Merchant Solutions developer can find links to information about both of those options below the "Start" button on the intro page.

You then come to a page which offers a choice between two options: choosing your own site layout and color palette or selecting a pre-designed template. You can consult the available help resources to understand if generic templates or pre-designed templates are the better choice.

If you select "generic" you will need to first select a site navigation layout (where your category/product links appear in your pages) either side or top navigation. You will then need to select a color palette.

Notes:

• You can click the "Display section page preview" link in the Notes section to see a preview of what a category (section) page looks like for the selected color palette.
• The Notes section also contains a recommendation for when side or top navigation is best. Merchants with many categories (sections) are recommended to select a side navigation layout.

If you select pre-designed templates, you can click any of the thumbnail images to view a larger preview of the selected theme. You can also click the arrows to scroll between the choices available.

Notes:

• The Notes section contains a recommendation for which industries are recommended for a specific pre-designed template. These are just recommendations and you can certainly use any template for any type of store.
• Keep in mind that regardless of your choice in the Design Wizard, you can completely customize the look of your store in the Store Editor. You can also always repeat the Design Wizard again to choose a new look.

After selecting a template, you will customize the site header—the top part of your template. You can choose to use plain text, upload a company logo, or upload an entire header background graphic. Learn more.

After customizing your header, you can add content to your non-product pages such as your About Us page, Privacy Policy page, and other areas of your store. These pages are created automatically. Learn more about what information your store needs.

Note: Established merchants are strongly encouraged to review whether or not they should use the Design Wizard. Any custom templates will be deleted by using the Design Wizard so merchants with custom templates should not use the Design Wizard unless they wish to start over. Also, even merchants who are not using custom templates will need to do some work before using the Design Wizard. Established merchants should review the reasons to migrate to the new templates.

See Also

• Are generic templates best for me?
• Are pre-designed templates best for me?
• Which site header option is best for me?
• What information does my store need?
• Should established merchants use the Design Wizard?