Ecomm Professional - Add Items/Products to the Database

Overview:

You add your product's details to the database. It's quick and easy. Adding an Item is comparable to filling out a guestbook on a web site. You simply type in the product's information, such as price, description, details, stock quantity, image file names and so on into form fields and click Continue.

Setup Products:

*Note - The following fields are required to have numbers only and MUST contain a number:

Price - Sale Price - Stock - Handling Price - Shipping Price - Weight

If you don't want to enter anything in that field you can use a zero 0.

e.g. 1. If you don't want to put an item on sale you must still enter a number in the sale price field. Use a 0.

e.g. 2. If you're using Flat Rate shipping you must still enter a number in the Weight field. Use a 0.

1. The first thing you should do is get your product's images ready and upload them to your web server.

   • Large Image should be less than 350 pixels Wide and less than 450 pixels high.

   • Small Image should be 125 pixels wide X 125 pixels high however, you can get away with up to about 200 pixels in Height.

   • Use the Item Number as the Image File's name. This will greatly ease the pain of keeping track of images in your web site. e.g. TShirt-1001M.jpg or 1001M.jpg

   • Use the Item Number followed by an underscore ( _ )  and  ( sm ) on the small image.

     e.g. TShirt-1001M_sm.jpg or 1001M_sm.jpg

   • When the images are sized and ready copy them to your \scart\images folder, in your web, on your computer, then upload them (publish) to your web site.

    

2. Login to your Database Control Panel - http://www,yourdomain.com/scart/cartcp/login.asp.

3. Click the Add Products button.

4. Category

   • See the Categories help for instructions on creating Categories.

   • You must put the item in a Category unless you're going to use the optional method 1 to display this product.

   • If this is the first item that you enter in this SESSION click Category: (Change)

   • Otherwise, you will see the Category that you put the last item into.

     e.g. Category: Computer Cases > Full Tower > 300 Watt > Clear Side Panel (Change)

   • This is so that if you're adding many items to the same category, you wont have to choose a Category each time. That first step will be done. You should see the category in Red. Something like Category: Computer Cases > Full Tower > 300 Watt > Clear Side Panel (Change)

     (with your category Names, of course)

   • In other words: Until you CLOSE your browser (SESSION ENDS), each time you return to the Add Products page the last category used will be in place. If this is the correct category for this Item you can go to the next step - Option Sets. Otherwise, click (Change) to select a different category.

5. Option Sets

   • See the Option Sets help for instructions on creating Option Sets.

   • After your Option Sets are created you simply apply (up to 3 of them) to the product.

   • To apply an Option Set click Choose/Change Option Set 

   • You will see a list of all sets that you have created.

   • Each Set has a Select box with the numbers 1, 2 and 3 in it.

   • The numbers 1, 2 and 3 represent the position that you will apply the set to.

     e.g. If you are going to use 3 option set on this item, one set must be in the 1st position, one set must be in the 2nd position and one set must be in the 3rd position.

   • Click the first Choose/Change Option Set and select a set.

      

     Choose 1 and click   Add this Set in Position >>  

      

     Click the second Choose/Change Option Set and select a set.

      

     Choose 2 and click   Add this Set in Position >>   

      

     Click the third Choose/Change Option Set and select a set.

      

     Choose 3 and click   Add this Set in Position >>  

      

   • To Remove an Option Set Click [Remove]

6. Item Number

   • Give each item a unique Item Number. Do not use the same item number for two items.

   • Use only alphanumeric (0 thru 9 or A thru Z) characters and/or a hyphen ( - ). 

   • e.g. TShirt-1001M or 1001-M (in this example the M stands for Men's)

   • You should devise your Item Number's naming convention before beginning to add items.

7. Description

   • The Description should be a detailed description of the item/product.

   • Try to keep your description to less than 50 characters as it is used in the cart and the emails. A long description throws off the alignment however, the Description field CAN BE UP TO 150 characters.

   • NO DOUBLE QUOTES ( " ). If you must quote something use a single quotes ( ' ). Do NOT use 2 singles on each side either.

8. Show Notes and Notes Description

   • Choose Yes if you want a Notes input box to show for that item. So that customers can enter a note.

   • Enter a Title for the Notes box. e.g. Enter special notes here

9. Price

   • Enter a price for the Item. DO NOT USE A DOLLAR SIGN Use decimal format e.g. 10.00

10. Discount Pricing

    • Choose a discount price set from the drop down menu if you'd like to apply discount pricing. (See Instructions)

11. Sale Price

    • Enter a sale price for the Item. DO NOT USE A DOLLAR SIGN Use decimal format e.g. 8.00

12. On Sale

    • Choose Yes or No. If Yes is selected Ecomm Pro will use the Sale Price.

13. Taxable

    • Choose Yes or No. If the item is a service, i.e. your selling support or some other "Service" as apposed to a tangible "Item" then choose no. Otherwise choose Yes.

    • The Tax Items settings under Company Information will override these. i.e. If you choose Yes to tax this item but under you Company Info page settings you are not charging tax on items then no tax will be charged.

14. Hidden

    • Choose Yes or No. If an item is out-of-stock but you are going eventually re-stock it choose Yes.

    • Another reason to use Hidden is that you might want to use eCommPro for invoicing certain clients.

    • You could create an invoice as an item then email the invoice to a customer simply by sending a link to the product details page with the Item Number in the url i.e.:

      http://www.ecommerce-carts.com/scart/product_details.asp?ItemNum=Case1002

      Replacing Case1002 with an item number that you've prepared as an invoice. In this case you wouldn't want the item to come up in searches and under the All Products page and so forth. Choose Yes to Hide.

    • You must also remove a hidden item from any categories and the Featured Items page.

15. Featured Item

    • Choose Yes or No. If Yes is Selected the item will appear on the Featured Items Page.

    • You may want to use the Featured Items page for On Sale and New Items.

16. Display On Shopping Cart home pages

    • Choose Yes to have this item displayed on your home page (default.asp) and the main shopping page (scart/shop.asp).

    • Otherwise choose No.

    • You should choose only 4 to 6 items to be displayed here. Although you can display as many as you want.

17. Downloadable Item

    • Choose Yes if this is a downloadable file.

    • Enter the file name exactly (match case)

    • Put your downloadable file in the scart/pd folder. pd = Product Download

18. Image Name

    • Enter the name you gave to the large image for this item in step 1.

    • e.g. TShirt-1001M.jpg or 1001M.jpg

19. Small Image Name

    • Enter the name you gave to the small image for this item in step 1.

    • e.g. TShirt-1001M_sm.jpg or 1001M_sm.jpg

20. Stock

    • Enter how many of this item you have in stock. Each time an order is placed the number purchased is deducted/subtracted from this number. At any time you can login to Control Panel and check your stock by clicking the Manage Products & Stock button.

21. Shipping and Handling - UPS® Shipping Weight (More Info)

    • Enter a Handling and Shipping Price

    • Enter the Item's Weight

    • See more instructions for shipping here.

22. Details

    • The details area only shows up on the Featured Items and product_details.asp pages. However, this is where you can cut loose and put all of this Items details. HTML CAN be used and IS recommended. By using HTML in this box you can format text, add bulleted lists, tables, text color and size and anything else that HTML is good for.

    • One thing to note here. The details area on the Featured Items and product_details.asp pages is not full width of the page, as is the Features area (below). Keep this in mind when using HTML here.

    • The details area is about 50% of the width of the entire page.

    • Bulleted Lists work well here.

    • You DO NOT HAVE TO USE HTML. You can just type in whatever you want in regular text.

23. Features

    • Unlike the details area, the Features area is 100% width of the page and can be made as long as needed to display all the Features that have not yet been listed/displayed.

    • HTML CAN be used and IS recommended. By using HTML in this box you can format text, add bulleted lists, tables, text color, size, HR lines and anything else that HTML is good for.

    • YOU CAN ALSO ADD MORE IMAGES HERE

    • To add another image first get the image ready, put in the scart\images folder and publish.

    • Then use the following image source code in the html: <img src ="images/image_name.jpg">

    • You can put as many images as you need in this area. You are NOT limited to the two held in the db.

    • Two images per item, one thumbnail and one larger, is normally enough.

    • You DO NOT HAVE TO USE HTML. You can just type in whatever you want in regular text.

     

24. Continue

    • Click Continue when ready. This takes you to a preview page. At this point however, the Item is in the database. DO NOT USE YOUR BROWSERS BACK BUTTON.

    *Note - If you need to edit what you've just done, and many times you will, click the edit button at the bottom of the preview page. If you use your Back button and make changes, when you click continue you will NOT save changes and go to the preview page. This is because the Item exists in the database and you can not add the same one again. You must edit the entry. Click Edit. The edit page is just like the Add Item page. It will have all your data inserted into the form fields. Just edit and save.

1. If you use html in the details and/or features area make sure you end whatever you start.

   e.g. <table></table> or <center></center>

   (if you're using html you should know what to do. html is beyond the scope of these instructions)

2. An easy method to getting your html right is to create yourself two template pages with your html editor.
   • First put your extra images in the scart\images folder on your computer then publish your web.
   • Create One Template Page for the Details area e.g. details_template.htm
   • Create One Template Page for the Features area e.g. features_template.htm
   • Save the two pages in your web's scart folder (so that image src tags mentioned below work)
   • Try creating a bulleted list that lists your item's details. Save the page as details_template.htm
   • Now View html and copy between the <body> and </body> tags then paste into the details area on the Add Products or Edit Products pages. :) Nice!
   • Now open the features_template.htm that you saved.
   • Create some tables, format your text, add pictures (if the page is in scart and images in scart\images) and so on. ( hard drive paths use a back slash \ URLs use forward slashes / :)
   • Save the page as features_template.htm in the scart folder.
   • Now View html and copy between the <body> and </body> tags then paste into the details area on the Add Products or Edit Products pages. :) Nice! Again!
   • Work on getting your template right. Then use them each time you add or edit an item. (create multiple pages even)
   • This is just an easy way to make your product details and featured items pages fancy or display extra images.
   • It is not required to use html. It is recommended.

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