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  4. Creating and maintaining a product

Creating and maintaining a product

A whole range does not normally arrive by hand but from your ERP system through its channel or as a file through the custom channel. By hand you create the individual product that has no source of its own, and maintaining happens on every product, wherever it came from. This page walks the sections of the detail view in the order in which a new product becomes complete. What every single field means is under products (reference) and is not repeated here.

Prerequisites

  • A product number following your own scheme. It is the only mandatory field and has to be unique within the client.
  • For prices with tax calculation: a tax rate that has been set up, see prices.

Step by step

  1. Create. Open the list through the Products navigation entry and click New. The detail view opens with the save bar at the top and the collapsible sections below. All of them may be open at the same time. The order of the sections is the order of this guide.

Detail view of a newly created product with the save bar, the Active checkbox and the opened Common section above the remaining collapsed sections

  1. Common section: the numbers. Enter the Product Number. It is mandatory, unique, and a channel can use it as the identifier by which it finds the product again in the connected system. Besides it, Manufacturer Product Number and EAN qualify for that. So fill in what your range provides, and pick the Manufacturer where it already exists in the client.

  2. Description section: the texts. The Name is the designation the list and the shop display. You write Short Description and Description formatted in the Visual tab, the Html tab shows the source behind it. You create a further language version through Insert at the head of the section. The button is absent as long as your client runs a single localization, because then there is nothing to add. How the languages play together is under multiple languages.

  3. Categories section: file it. The Edit button shows the full tree with checkboxes. Tick where the article belongs and finish with End Edit. The tree itself is maintained under building categories.

  4. Images section: picture it. Drag a file into the Upload field, or fetch an existing image through Add from the media overview. The Is Cover checkbox determines the image lists and overviews use; more under managing images.

  5. Prices section: price it. Choose the Tax Rate at the top, then one row per price group through New. You enter net or gross, TRADElube calculates the other side and shows it in gray. Groups you do not use stay empty, and that is as it should be; details under maintaining prices.

  6. Stocks and Shipping section: make it available. One row per store carries the Stock figure. Enter the number for the right store. Below, choose Shipping Method and Delivery Time. Which stores exist is set up under stores, shipping methods and delivery times under order and shipping lists.

  7. Measures and Packing section: enable the base price. Base Unit and Base Unit Size are the two entries a shop calculates the base price per litre or kilogram from, and for consumers that price is required by law in several countries. For a 0.75-litre tin that means: base unit litre, base unit size 0.75. The units themselves are created under units.

  8. Properties section: the attributes. Fill in what belongs to the article. A property without a value stays empty and disturbs nothing. If the whole section is missing, no properties are set up for products, see configuring properties.

  9. Save, and check the Active field. It sits above all sections and marks whether the article is carried. With an online shop it usually becomes the publication status. The new product reaches the shop with the next execution of the responsible task, see planning and starting tasks.

Checking the result

The product appears in the list and can be found under its number through the Filter field. After the next execution of the upload task its Channels section carries a row with Created, and the shop shows the article. If it stays missing there, the steps are under product does not appear in the shop.

Frequent pitfalls

  • An article with versions is not a single product. Colors, sizes and pack sizes are not modeled through copies of step 1 but through a variant family. The steps are under creating variants.
  • The base price is missing in the shop. Then the product lacks its Base Unit or Base Unit Size from step 8. The shop can only calculate it once both are there.
  • Deleting an image is two different things. Delete in the Images section from step 5 releases the link to the product, deleting in the Media area removes the file itself, from every other product it hangs on too.
  • On leaving, the Save Changes prompt appears. It stands in for the save from step 10: if you only came to look, choose Discard Changes. Cancel stays on the page.

Further reading