Products

Products Help System

This is the doorway to your online inventory system. Please take the time to review all of the options that are available to you before diving into creating your online inventory. On the surface, this is an actual real-time inventory control system that implements many features that are affluent in real world scenarios. There are two main functions to this section, Adding new products or Modify/View existing products.

	Product System Choices
Modify/View:	Please choose a category type and press View Products to get a quick page listing of all the currently assigned products in this category. To Modify/View a product, click on the View link associated with each listing.

	Before diving into specifics, there are two categories that need to be addressed first
Unassigned:	This classification is used for multiple purposes. Any product with this category classification is in an area considered to be in "limbo" or temporarily suspended. These products will not appear in the website categories or in any searches made by your customers. Unassigned products are also the only products that can actually be deleted from the system. To remove a product from the inventory control system, you must first assign it to this category and then remove it. When, the product quantity of an item reaches zero, the system will automatically re-assign the product to this category so that no more purchases will be allowed.
Special:	This category serves as an on-sale area that allows your users to see the Regular price of an item and the On Sale price of an item. You may move products in and out of this category as if it were any other category listing. Please note that you have the additional listing of Old Price in this category. You must use the Specials section to view and modify listings once they are assigned as a Specials product.

	PRODUCT FIELD DEFINITIONS for New or existing products
Category:	This dropdown menu is used for classifying the proper category associated with this product. Please choose the appropriate category so that your users may easily find the products they may be looking for. You may use this dropdown to move products to the 'Unassigned' and/or 'Specials' category listing as well.
Product ID:	This field serves as a unique identifier for your products. You may use the actual UPC codes, the Manufacturer codes or even define your own. This field is limited to 50 characters and each entry must be unique or an error will occur. The ProductID field is printed in the invoice under the Order Details section.
Name:	This is the general purpose name for your products. The field shows up in your customer's shopping cart as they move through the site and in the Order Details sections of the invoice. This field is limited to 50 characters and is used as a field for customer searches by keyword.
Description:	This information is for customer purposes and search purposes only. This information is displayed under each product listing as customers move throughout the shopping categories. This field is limited to 255 characters and is used as a field for customer searches by keyword. NOTE: For website owners who need more than 255 character descriptions, this field can be extended to accomodate larger descriptions. However, the extended field will no longer be searchable and the keywords field will need to be used for defining keywords.
Product Weight:	Used for shipping purposes only. This field defaults to one pound if left empty. This field represents the total shippable weight of each item individually.
Unit Price:	Self explanatory, please do not use the $ sign. Use decimals only.
Keywords:	This field is used for product search purposes only. You may define customized phrases or keywords that are not part of the Product Name or Description field that will help your customers find the products they are searching for. This field is limited to 255 characters only. NOTE: For website owners with extended description fields, you must use this field for extending the search capabilities of your products because the description field is not searchable.
Quantity:	This area is designed for setting the amount of items that you want to allow to be sold online. As each customer purchase is finalized, these numbers are decreased according to the invoice details. This is a crucial field for implementing a real-time inventory system. However, this field defaults to One million, representing an amount of products you will never run out of.
Options:	DO NOT USE THIS CHECKBOX UNLESS YOU HAVE ALREADY DEFINED OPTIONS FOR THIS PRODUCT. It only acts as an activation mechanism for Product Drop Down Menus.

	PRODUCT OPTION FIELD DEFINITIONS for existing products
Example 1:	You have four different flavors of one pet food. Instead of entering four different products, create one product called pet food and create four product options (one for each flavor).
Example 2:	You have 3 different sizes of dog food. Create one products for the dog food and define a product option for each of the size. Each can have a different ProductID, Weight, Price and Name.

Choice:	This is the extended name of the product choice, as in (Chicken Flavor, 12oz, etc...). This field shows up in the dropdown menu created for the product to help the customer decide which choice they can make.
Optional Price:	Use this field only if the price of the item is different than the UnitPrice of the Product listed. This field defaults to the UnitPrice of the Product.
Optional Weight:	Use this field if the shipping weight is different than the Weight of the Product listed.
Optional ID:	Use this field if the Product ID is different than the ProductID of the product listed above.
	NOTE: Once your options are defined, please set the Options checkbox to checked to activate the drop down menu for your product options

	PRODUCT IMAGE FIELD for existing products
	Use the link to upload an image with the listed product. This field is optional and is not necessary for selling products. Please note the smaller the product images, the faster the pages will load and stay more proportioned.
Browse:	Use this button to locate an image on your computer system. Once located, press Upload! and your image will automatically be put on your website with the product listing.