Inventory
ProductsContents
Navigating to the Products section
How to Add a Product with Advanced Product Setup
How to Add a Product with Express Product Setup
Introduction
The Products Manager page is where you enter, edit, and manage your store's various products. You can create several types of products, including product bundles, which are all controlled on this page. Products may have variations (such as a shirt that comes in small, medium, and large sizes), personalizations, related products, and more.
You can have up to 100,000 active products (not including variations) and up to 500 variation options per product.
Navigating to the Products Section
To get to the Product Manger section of the Control Panel (Figure A):
- Click the Inventory tab at the top of the Control Panel.
- On the Inventory Page, click the Products link. This will open the Product Manager.
(Figure A)
Product Manager Overview
After navingating to the Products section of the control panel, you are presented with the Products Overview (Figure B) page. This gives you access to some common features needed to quickly manage your store.
Within the Poduct Overview you can sort, search, and peform some quick actions. These actions include:
- Sort by will let you resort your products for quicker access to a specific one.
- Price Level allows a user to view pricing at each level.
- Search by Keyword, Category, Manufacturer, or Warehouse. This helps to quickly filter your products.
- Action Checkbox allows your to perform some bulk actions.
- Sort Order allows you to quickly reorganize products.
- Product Name links to the edit page.
- View on Storefront will take you to the specific product page for viewing.
- Pricing can be quickly modified at each level.
- This is not accessible if there is different pricing at the variation level.
- Summary Info provides quick snapshot of the count of each attribute and gives a hyperlink to that area of the product:
- Images
- Variations
- Personalizations
- Related Products
- Recommended Products
- Options quickly control which products are a Category Special, Homepage Special, or Hidden.
- Action area allows you to:
- Edit the product.
- Clone will copy the product exactly and let you modify it. This is useful when you have very similar products being added.
- Delete will permenantly remove the product from the online store.
- Bulk Actions include:
- Save Selected which will commit any changes to the above actions on the Product Overview.
- Delete Selected which will remove the products with a checkbox in front of them, from the online store.
(Figure B)
How to Add a Product with Advanced Product Setup
After navigating to the Products Overview of the Control Panel:
- Click either Express Product Setup or Advanced Product Setup (Figure C) to create a new product.
- Express Product Setup - Allows you to quickly add a regular product (physical product) to your inventory.
- Advanced Product Setup - Gives you advanced product configuration options, and gives you additional product type options.
- Note that you must fill out the required fields (denoted by the red asterisk) in order to save your new product.
- Fill out the details of your product. Note that you must fill in the required fields in order to save your new product.
(Figure C)
Complete by filling out all the appropriate fields (Figure D).
- Product Type * - This is the type of product you would like to create. Learn more about the different product types.
- Product Name * - The title of the product as it will display on the store.
- Item No. - The "stock" number that you will associate with the product.
- Sort Order - A number that controls the order in which Product listings are displayed. A Sort Order of zero displays at the top of the list, higher numbers display lower on the list.
- Product Image - When you upload an image, thumbnail and display images are automatically created.
- Stock Quantity - The total amount of the product that you have on hand. You can also specify a quantity for a Low Inventory Alert.
- Manufacturer - Assign a Manufacturer who supplies this product to you.
- You can add a Manufacturer by clicking on the Add a New Manufacturer link underneath the drop-down list.
- Mfr. Part No - Assign a part number associated with the manufacturer.
- Domestic Weight - (Length x Weight x Height)/194
- International Weight - (Length x Weight x Height)/166
- General Price * - This is the basic price of the product. This price is used to calculate the savings of different price levels.
- Message - Show a short message instead of a price on the product list and product details page. The price will show when the item is added to cart.
- For Sale - Specify whether the product can be purchased by the customer. Individual product prices may be set for each price level. By selecting the For Sale checkbox, the item will display and be available for purchase. If the checkbox is de-selected, the item will display but will not be available for purchase.
- MSRP - The Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. When this is filled out the cart can show a "Savings" to visitors.
- Store's Cost - The cost to the store owner, also used as COGS in reporting section.
- Handling - The additional handling costs specific with this product.
- Categories - Select the categories that you want your products to display within. You may select as many categories and subcategories for each product as you like. You may also Add a New Category by clicking the link below the Categories section.
- Short Description - A text summary of your Product, which displays to customers while navigating Categories and Subcategories in your store. This is also in the mobile version of a store.
- Full Description - Informative text review of your Product, which provides customers with all of the details about your Products.
- Featured Product - The product can be featured on the home page or the category landing page. Designating a product as a Category special will move this project to the front of any sort order you may have setup for your products. After your products with this designation are displayed, the rest of your products will be shown according to the sort order of your products.
- Hide - Select the Hide option if you wish your product to be hidden and unavailable for sale to your customers.
After filling out all of the required fields, click Save or Save & Return to commit your changes.
(Figure D)
How to Add a Product with Express Product Setup
After navigating to the Products Overview of the Control Panel:
- Click Express Product Setup to quickly add a regular product (physical product) to your inventory.
- Advanced Product Setup - Gives you advanced product configuration options, and gives you additional product type options.
- Fill out the details of your product. Note that you must fill in the required fields in order to save your new product.
Complete desired fields:
- Product Name * - The title of the product as it will display on the store.
- Price * - This is the General Price of the product. This price is used to calculate the savings of different price levels.
- Short Description - A text summary of your Product, which displays to customers while navigating Categories and Subcategories in your store. This is also in the mobile version of a store.
- In Express Product Setup, the Short Description is also copied into the Long Description field upon creation.
- Categories - Select the categories that you want your products to display within. You may select as many categories and subcategories for each product as you like. You may also Add a New Category by clicking the link below the Categories section.
- Product Image - When you upload an image, thumbnail and display images are automatically created.
After configuring the product fields, you will now have 4 choices:
- Cancel - Which does not save the changes and returns you to your previous screen.
- Save & Return - Saves the product information and returns you to your previous screen.
- Save & Add Another - Saves the product information, and then reloads the Express Product Setup for another product.
- Save & Advanced Edit - Saves the initial product information and then takes you to the Advanced Product Edit page for additional configuration.
Advanced Product Options
After adding a product or when editing an exising product, a user is presented with a handful of optional tabs (Figure E). Within each of these tabs there are more features that can be customized for each product.
Tabs include: General, Advanced, Gallery, Variations, Personalizations, SEO Info and Related Products.
(Figure E)
General
The General tab contains the basic information needed to initially create your product. This tab is explained in detail above.
Advanced
This tab (Figure F) contains a variety details including:
- Tax - Select this option if you wish your product to be Tax Free.
- Special Shipping - Select this option if you wish your product to be Shippable, Eligible for Free Shipping, or Shipping not Required. An explanation of the Free Shipping option follows below.
- Dimensions - Specify the dimensions of your product (in inches).
- Order Quantity - Specify a minimum and maximum order quantity for you product. Leave Max empty if there is no limit.
- In Stock Message - Specify a message to display when this item is in stock.
- Out of Stock Message - Specify a message to display when this item is out of stock.
- Page Layout - Select a specific Product Layout for this specific product.
- Notes - Add product notes to your product. These are internal notes fo the site owner.
- Product Attributes - Select your custom fields for internal use or to display to your customer. Learn more about Product Attributes here.
- Discounts Applied to this product - Shows the Discounts applied to the product.
- Warehouses/Drop Shipping - Select your Warehouse or Drop-shipper for the product or add a new warehouse.
- Product Reviews - See the average review rating for the product.
- Remote Add to Cart - Copy this HTML code to create a Remote Add to Cart button for this product on another website such as ImageCafe or Facebook. See more below.
(Figure F)
Gallery
This tab (Figure G) lets you assign images to your product. Options include:
- Add a Product Image - Upload an image for use with your product. If you do not wish the store to create your display and thumbnail images for you, click the Upload Product Images Individually link.
- Edit Image - Assign an image caption or alternate text for your image.
- Thumbnail, Display, and Detail Image Path - Use these paths to specify the images for your thumbnail, display, and detail images, respectively.
- Delete - Removes the image from this product
(Figure G)
Variations
The Variations Tab (Figure H) allows you to assign variations to your products. Please note that once a product has variations, certain product-specific items (weight, customer price, etc) will be grayed-out on the General tab as you will now manage those details in the Variations tab. For a detailed explanation on creating variation groups and options, click here.
(Figure H)
Personalization
The Personalization tab (Figure I) lets you add specific personalization questions to your product. For more information, click here.
(Figure I)
SEO Info
The SEO Info tab (Figure J) lets you set the information necessary for Search Engine Optimization. For more information on this tab, click here.
(Figure J)
Related Products
This tab (Figure K) lets you set a number of products that will be displayed as your Related or Recommended Products. For more information, click here.
(Figure K)
Product Types
There are four different types of products (Figure L) you can create in the Product Manager; Regular Products, eGift Certificates, and eProducts. Learn More about the differences:
- Regular Product - A regular product is purchased by customers from your store via payment method and is normally shipped to the customer utilize a shipping method. Regular products usually have weight and can have variations.
- eGift Certificate - An eGift Certificate is a gift certificate you create for your customers to purchase for use with your store. eGift Certificates can have variations.
- NOTE: eGift certificates are not the same as Gift Certificates (Inventory > Gift Certificates). An eGift certificate is purchased by the customer while a Gift Certificate is issued by the store owner.
- eProducts - An eProduct is a purchased by customers from your store but is not shipped. Once the customer has successfully completed the transaction, they receive download instructions to retrieve their product.
- Bundled Product - A Bundled Product is a product that contains packages. Each package can have one or more product options your customer can choose from. Because this product is fairly complicated, it is explained in greater detail here.
(Figure L)
Additional Product Settings
In the Operations section, under Site Settings there is a tab that deals with many different product options and settings you can use or change to suit your business needs. These options are discussed in detail here.
