Step 3

With the "Order Minimums" tab you can specify a minimum number of items, or a minimum dollar value, that must be met by the customer before he/she can check out.  You can require only one of the two or check the "Must Meet Both Minimums" box to require both of them together.

In the "Minimum Not Met Message" box you should put a nicely written message telling the customer what the minimums are and possibly explaining to them why it is to their advantage to meet the minimum requirements. A curt message may make them uneasy or even worse may make them click to another store.  A nice soft sell message will encourage most to go back and stock up.

Step 4

"Customer Fields" is the next tab and here you will configure the information you require from the customer as he/she is checking out.  The "Billing Information" drop down box allows you to make the customer's billing information "Hidden" or "Optional".  If you select "Optional" the customer will not need to fill in both the "shipping" and "billing" information if they are the same.  In this case, Merchant will fill in the "bill to" fields with the "ship to" information that the customer types in, unless they enter different "bill to" information.

Selecting "Hidden" will hide the "bill to" fields completely which is useful for vendors who will ONLY ship to the customer's billing address.  The next step is to specify which fields you require the customer to fill in.  You can "remove" certain fields by making them hidden.  This is good for people who feel that requesting the fax number is useless and should not only be optional but should not be there in the first place.

Step 5

"State Based Sales Tax" will let you specify the ship to states that need to have taxes collected for them.  Before you can configure anything you will need to click on the yellow "Add" button.  You will then get a drop down list with all available states.

Select the one you want to collect the taxes for and enter the correct rate.  If you need the shipping charges to be taxable you will need to select the checkbox.  If you only need to configure one state move on to the editing of other tabs.  If you need to collect taxes for more than state you will need to click update, and configure the next one until you have added all the states you need.