Manually Adding Products
Import vs. Manual
This article explains how to add products to your store. Having products in your store is the most important part of selling online. Before you begin the process of adding products to your site you will want to decide, based on the number of products and the format of your product information, if you want to import or manually create products.
Note: If you decide to import, please visit the Importing article for our detailed instructions on creating products using the WSM importing feature.
Contents
Overview
- First, you must create your Categories in WSM. You can't save a product until you have created a Category for it.
- Second, we also recommend that you create your Brands. This is so that you can assign your products to a brand before saving. This will help make the process of adding products more efficient, and will help you, to plan in advance, how you want to organize your products.
Other elements that you may want available when creating products are: Product Name, Price, Dealer ID, Description and, an Image. Of course you can edit and update your products at any time but this is a good foundation to build upon.
Steps for Adding Products To Your Web Shop Manager(WSM) Store
- Log into the backend of your WSM
- Hover over Catalog
- Click Products
- Click Add Product button
- Fill out the fields according to the information in the below table, then click Add Product at the bottom right
| Identification | |
| Product Name* | Your product name will be the largest text on your product page and will be the text displayed when your customer is viewing your category list. It is best to write a good descriptive product name both for your customers and for the search engines. For example: Brown Leather Belt With Gold Buckle is a better product name than Brown Belt |
| Your Stock # | It can be an internal SKU or Item Number that you use. If you currently have your products in an accounting software (such as Quickbooks) you may want to use that same number. |
| Dealer/Supplier # | Mandatory for your products to be submitted to Google Shopping Feed. Usually, this number provided by the product manufacturer. If your product is not manufactured by another company (aka your company is the manufacture) then you can use your Stock # as the Dealer # and leave Stock # blank |
| UPC # | Universal Product Codes are assigned to manufactured products and are displayed as 12 digits under the bar code of your actual product. If you use this field, the UPC will be displayed on your product page and will allow customers to search by UPC in the search bar of your website Additionally, if you utilize a bar code scanner in your physical store, then you can scan the product when using the Add Order feature NEED LINK |
| Scheduled Remotely | Used for sites using an API Connection with a 3rd party program, learn more. |
| Pricing | |
| Price $ | The price that you would like to sell your product for. Next to price is a 'Taxable' box, most products will be taxable so leave that box checked. Learn more about online taxing NEED LINK |
| Sale $ | If this field is filled out, then a strike through will appear through your Price and Sale will be the price passed to the cart. Next to Sale is a 'Add to cart to see price' box. You only want to check this if you do not want sale prices displayed until the product is added to the cart. Most WSM users do not check this box. |
| Cost $ | The figure put in this field will only be displayed to backend users of WSM. Your customers will not see this figure ever |
| Tiered Pricing | Tiered pricing allows you to set discounted prices for your product when: a quantity amount is met; a customer is in the specified group; or both. Learn more about Tiered & Group Pricing NEED LINK. If you want to control pricing by customer level, this feature is directly tied to the Customer Group feature in WSM. This feature is only available to WSM accounts that are at the Dealer Level. Please contact us to enable this feature |
Shipping & Handling Shipping and handling is a very import part of an eCommerce store. Below is a brief description of each field available. Visit our Shipping and Handling section in WSMU for full details. | |
| Handling | The handling charges for this product. This amount will be added to the Configuration Handling, if used. The total cart handling amount is viewable on the customer's checkout screen. This is commonaly used for items that require additional fees for shipping. |
| Requires Shipping | Occasionaly you may have a product that does not require shipping such as a Electronic Gift Certificate or an service that requires the customer to attend or pickup. For these type of products you will set this value to No. All products that need to be shipped require a Yes setting. The field default is Yes. |
| Free Ground Shipping | This feature allows you to specify at the product level if or when Free Shipping is applicable. If you want a product to always receive free shipping, select Yes. If you want a product to never receive free shipping, select No. If you want the product to receive free shipping only when Free Shipping enabled in the sites's Configuration. |
| Warehouse | This feature requires the Dealer Level for WSM. When used you can specify a Warehouse as this shipping origin at the product level. This feature only works with shipping methods for UPS, USPS, FedEx. This is useful for companies that utilize dropshipping. |
| Shipping | This feature is only availalbe when Basic or International Shipping Methods are enabled at the site's Configuration. The amount entered here will be added to the amount specified for the appropriate method. |
| Package | The weight field of this area is required if you plan to use any type of calculated shipping (UPS, USPS, FedEx). If you want to provide the product dimenstional information (length, width, height) it will be displayed on the product page but will not be used for calcalting shipping unless it is oversized. Note weight must be entered in pounds and dimensions are entered in inches. |
| Own Box | When set to Yes this product will be calculated with it's own weight and deminsions. It is used only if you will never package this product with other products. |
| Quote Shipping | This feature is great for items that require freight shipping. When set to Yes, it is the only shipping method offered to the customer on checkout. |
| Shipping Remarks | Information provided in this field is displayed on the Shipping tab/section on the product page and on Category pages when the Enhanced Catalog Layout is enable in your Site's Configuration. |
| Inventory | |
| Availability | By default your product is set to Available. This status will always allow the customer to add the product to their cart. You also have options for Sold, Out of Stock, Not for Sale, or Please Call in these cases, the customers will not be able to add the item to their cart. Unique will allow the product to only be purchased once after the one purchase the availability status is changed to Not for Sale. When using Limited Supply the customer can purchase an unlimited about but a "Limited Supply" message is displayed on the product page. Inventory is used to control the amount of products that are available for purchase. WSM will automatic adjust the inventory number each time the product is purchased. If the remaining inventory is zero (0), then customers will not be able to add the item to their cart. |
| Availability Remarks | You can use this field to provide any additional/unique information about the shipping of this product. For example to let your customers know how long an item will be out of stock, or the amount of time it will be on back order. |
| Condition | Most WSM users set their products to the default value of New, but other conditions are available if you are selling different conditions of products |
| Product Information | |
| Page Title | This is the page title for the product. This title is displayed in the browser window title bar. If you do not provide a page title, WSM will use the information provided for the Product Name. |
| Description | The description is the text displayed on the product page. If you want to apply any special formatting or use separate paragraphs, you must type the HTML codes. The minimal amount of code you should type to keep the text consistent with the rest of your site is <p> this should appear at the beginning of your text and </p> should appear at the end. The <p> tag starts a new paragraph. If you want a line break but not a new paragraph use the <br/>at the end of the line. To bold type <b>before the text to start and </b> at the end where you want to stop the bold. Avoid the use of the <,>, and & symbols in the text itself, and use them only for HTML. |
| Extended Description | This can be used to display additional information after the images on the product page and is a great place to add more SEO content to your products |
| Meta Keywords | The Search feature on your site and other search engines such as Google.com will use these key words to display a link to this page. Type as many words that apply to this product and separate them with commas. Limit to 1000 characters or 45 words with the most important first, and do not repeat any word more than 7 times. |
| Meta Description | Use this area to control the information people see when your page is included on search result pages. Limit to 200 characters or 2 sentences and do not repeat any word more than 4 times. |
| Tags | This is very similar to Meta Keywords, but the these 'keywords' will be able to be viewed by customers on the front end of your product page |
| Categorization | |
| Brand | Brands are a way to categorize your products. If you are using the Brand (see the Intermediate Site Settings & Features chapter) feature on your site you must first create the Brands. Then you can specify which brand this product belongs to by clicking the drop-down arrow and selecting the appropriate brand name. For more information about using Brand, Options, and Tags see the Additional Setting manual (under development). |
| Brand Code | The code used to identify a brand. An example of this would be: AAIAID, DCi CatCode or Line Code |
| Categories* | A product can be listed in multiple categories. Click the checkbox for each Category and/or Sub Category where you want this product listed. If you want it listed on a sub-category page, click the blue arrow to expand the main category heading. Please note that the screen shot below is just an example. On your product page your Categories will have names that are relevant to your products. |
| Googlebase Category** | As a service we submit your products to Google Shopping on a daily basis. Google has recently enhanced their Shopping site with the addition of categories. Each product can only be assigned to one Googlebase Category, select wisely. |
| Hidden | When checked will set your product to hidden and it is not viewable on the frontend of your site. See available status above for product status' that will allow your product to be viewed but not purchased. |
| Options & Attributes | |
| Options | Options allow you to add a single product that is available in multiple variations. The best is example is a shirt that is available in S, M, L, and XL options. There are several configurations available with Option Sets; more than one option, text field, date, image upload, as well as Option Inventory Configuration. |
| Attributes | Attributes are a way to label your products so that a useful search feature in the form of a drop down list or Guided Navigation can be used by your customers to filter the number of products they are viewing. The most common application of this feature is a Year, Make, Model lookup. However, it can be used to filter any type of product from personal electronics to laundry parts! View the helpful Attributes article to learn more. Product Attribute Sets If you add values to an attribute set ("Year, Make, Model" or "Year, Make, Model, Submodel", etc. you must fill in all attribute values. If you leave a value blank, the product may not be searchable using the vehicle selector widget on your site.
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| Additional Details | |
| Extra Details | Details can be used to create an additional tab or section on your product page. It is popular to use this field for videos, ingredients, product instructions, and/or product specifications. Text entered in the Title field is used as the heading. The text or html entered in the Details field will be the content. To add more then one Extra Details, click the Add Row button. Both the Title & Details Fields tab must have content in them in order for the Extra Details tab to save. |
| File Attachments | |
Attachments | The attachment field only allows .pdf file attachments to add to products. Click Choose File button to upload a PDF file from your computer. Most clients will use this for installation guides, warranty forms, or instruction manuals. Text entered in the Caption field is used as the link text on the product page for a customer to click and download/view the PDF file. To add more than one attachment, click the Add Row button. |
| Image Gallery | |
| Add Photos** | Images are a vital part of shopping online. Verify that you are following Google Shopping image requirements. The first file you upload is the main product image and will is displayed as the largest image on your product page. It is also used on category pages, cart screen, and checkout. There is no limit to the number of images you can upload to a product page. Note you can reorder your images after creating the product. View our recommendations for preparing product images. |
| Cross-Sell | |
| When enabled through the Catalog tab in your System's Configuration, this button becomes active for all products on your site. Click the Open Cross Sell button to specify what products you want displayed on the product page. Note if this feature is enabled and you do not specify products WSM will select related products for you. | |
| Metadata | |
| Email Notes | The information provided in this field will appear in the order email confirmation that is sent to your customer after checkout. It is useful for additional instructions that are needed for an individual products such as links for installation guides or directions for will call location. |
| Admin Notes | This field is for your internal use only. Most clients do not use this field but when it is used if includes instruction for employees. |
| Added* | This date will default to the date you are adding the product. You can modify this to any date you wish. If this date is within 30 days of the current date your product will be marked as New and will appear on a /new.html page. If you are adding products to a site that is not live and you plan to go live within 30 days, you may want to set this day back an additional 30 days. |
| Customer Access | |
| Login Required | When enabled, allows you to specify additional product details to be listed with the product. Keep in mind, if you disable additional details while there are defined details they will be permanently removed from the product. |
| Access Group | When enabled, allows you to specify additional product details to be listed with the product. Keep in mind, if you disable additional details while there are defined details they will be permanently removed from the product. |
Summary
While the product screen allows you to create a very robust product page, do not get overwhelmed by all of the fields! You can start your store with simple product pages (name, category, price, image & description) and work your way up to extended descriptions and embedded video! Updating your products periodically with fresh pictures, content or videos will help your pages rank better on search engines and sell more products!