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The Store Editor and the Web Hosting File Manager are the two publishing platforms that you will use to create your online presence with Merchant Solutions. These two platforms can be used separately or in unison depending on your needs. This page will help to explain the differences between the Store Editor and Web Hosting as well as help make the decision of whether to build your site in Store Editor or in Web Hosting.
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Your Merchant Solutions account has two separate tools for building Web pages, Web Hosting and Store Editor. Table 1 shows some of the important differences between each tool.
| Web Hosting | Store Editor | |
| How new pages are developed | You build your pages on your own computer using an HTML building tool such as Dreamweaver. | You build your pages in the Store Editor tool using only your web browser. |
| Secure and mobile-friendly store and checkout pages | Normal Web Hosting content is secure and mobile-friendly. | Pages built in Store Editor will be loaded securely via HTTPS after enabling secure storefront. Learn more. After enabling the mobile storefront and checkout, your store and checkout pages will be mobile-friendly. |
The reason your Merchant Solutions account has both Web Hosting and Store Editor is so that you have more options in building your store. Each tool has its own advantages, summarized as follows:
In particular, there are four issues that affect your decision to use Web Hosting or Store Editor:
Table 2 shows some of the comparative advantages of Web Hosting and Store Editor for these four issues.
| Web Hosting | Store Editor | |
| Ease of development | If you know HTML, customization is important to you and you are creating a small to medium sized store then building your store in Web Hosting may be the right choice. You have to create or choose a site template, and you also must either import the Catalog Manager data or manually insert Store Tags and Store Modules. If you want to design your store from the ground up, including custom artwork and layout, then it takes even more work for you to build and test your store. | If you are new to website building, don't know HTML or you wish to create a database-driven site with many products then building your store in Store Editor may be the right choice. Each time you add product data to Catalog Manager, Store Editor automatically creates a page for that product. Store Editor also comes with a default page design consisting of a left or top navigation bar and a preset layout for product and section pages. |
| Ease of design customizability | It's easier to customize your site in Web Hosting, assuming you have experience creating HTML and custom images. You have complete control over your HTML page, so if you're already experienced in web design, you can create your site design and page layout to your exact specifications. | It's less easy to customize your site in Store Editor, assuming you have experience creating HTML and have exact specifications. While it's not hard to make significant design edits to Store Editor in the Variables page, if you are already experienced in building websites using a particular HTML editor, Store Editor may seem less intuitive than your current method of development. |
| Your amount of experience using HTML editing tools | If you have a great deal of experience using one or more HTML building tools, then you may prefer to develop your site in Web Hosting. That way you can continue using tools you're comfortable with, and you can control your site design to the same degree you're used to. | If you don't have a great deal of experience using an HTML building tool, you may prefer to develop your site in Store Editor. Store Editor comes with a pre-set look and feel that you can change, and the only tool you need to make any edits to your site is your web browser. |
| Mobile storefront and checkout | Store pages built in Web Hosting can still utilize the mobile checkout, but not the mobile storefront. | In 2015, Google began boosting the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results. Learn more. |
Note: Even if you have a lot of experience using an HTML building tool, you may still prefer to build your site in Store Editor. Since Store Editor automatically creates a page for every product in Catalog Manager, that means you don't need to do any extra work to create these pages. Instead, you can concentrate on editing the Variables or editing the Templates to customize the site-wide design.
If you are considering building your store using an HTML editing tool, the following help document lists the advantages and disadvantages of various editing tools, and also presents information to choose a tool based on your knowledge of these editing tools and the projected size of your store.
When creating your site, you have both of these platforms at your disposal but are not required to use both. We recommend you create a few test pages in each to see which you are most comfortable with using. In general, if you had planned on building your pages from scratch when signing up for your Merchant Solutions account, you will want to be using the Web Hosting portion of your package. If you are looking for a more automated process for building your storefront, we recommend using the Store Editor.
Please review the help pages listed below to get started with your account:
Note: If you are currently using Store v.1 and want to upgrade to Merchant Solutions, you may want to consider continuing to use the Store Editor for the bulk of your pages and using Hosting for additional informational pages and file storage. If you choose to rebuild your store pages and upload them to the Web Hosting File Manager in order to have complete control over the look and feel of your website, it is best to complete the entire storefront before switching traffic over to the Web Hosting portion of your account.