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Add/Adding a Product

Add/Adding a Product

Learning Objective

After reading this guide you should have a better understanding of:

  • How to add a product to the Visualsoft platform

  • Understand the main tabs used when adding a product

Contents

Written Guide

Overview

You can add products manually using this area of the admin. The following steps will guide you through how to do this and will show you how to associate your product options with your products, as well as creating your product information, prices, stocks, images and more.

To access this menu, you will need to go to the Catalogue menu, followed by Manage Products and then Add a Product

 

Adding the Product

Selecting the Product Type

The first thing the system needs to know is what Product Type you are using. 

This relates to Product Types and Options which should all be set up and pre-determined before you add your products.

A product type is the variation/variable to item comes in. This could be size or colour, or even both

From the drop-down menu, choose your product type. If your product does not have any options associated with it you should select Universal, No Options or alternatively, choose a product type that you have previously created with this product in mind.

Once you have picked the relevant product type, click on the Select Product Type button at the bottom of the screen 

If you selected Universal, No Options you will go straight into the product and will be able to complete the product information. 

If you selected your own product type, you will now see a screen that allows you to place a tick in the box of each option that is relevant to the product you are creating. Using the example below, if the product you are adding comes in only small and medium, you would select these options only. If it came in all of the sizes you have created options for, you can click the red Select All.

Once you have selected a product type, this is locked to the product and cannot be changed. If you select the wrong product type, then you will need to delete the product and add it again. The options you have selected, however, can be edited. 

Once you have placed a tick in each of the product options, click on Create Product at the bottom of the screen and you will be taken to the overview section. 

 

Overview Tab

There are several different menu headings on the left-hand side of the screen and each one has its own set of information that you can enter with some being mandatory and some being optional.

In the overview section, you will enter all of your product information:

Product Name: Enter the name of your product and try to ensure that it is as detailed as possible as this will help internet users find your product. The more detailed and specific it can be, the better the chances are of the product being found.

You don't need to enter the brand name into the product title as this is automatically applied when you allocate your brand to the product.

Product Subtitle: The product subtitle allows you to add additional information to the product such as material or colour. 

If you intend to use the site with eBay, be aware that eBay charges for product subtitles.

Product Reference Code: Enter the reference code for your product here. If you have numerous sizes or colours you will need to enter the main reference code for them and later (in the stocks & weights section) you will have the opportunity to add specific reference codes for each size/colour variation.

Product Brand: Choose the brand for the product from the drop-down list. The list will be populated with the brands that you added in the brand section. The brand name will appear at the beginning of the product title on your website and will also feed into your ‘Brands’ section and search filters. If you do not want to use brands, you must select No Brand from the drop-down list. 

Product Sashes: Select if you want to add a product sash to the product. They must be created before you add your product.

Product Summary: The product summary box allows you to list the features, benefits and unique selling points of the product. This box is designed for your customers to get a quick understanding of the product and will be the first information they see next to the product image. You can use bullet points so the information is easily digestible.

Product Description: The product description box allows you to give in-depth information about the product in sentences and paragraphs, whilst also being a reference point for search engines. Search engines will use this content to determine how relevant your product is for their site visitors' search, which in turn can help with your rankings.

Product Status: This allows you to control the visibility of your products to your customers. Choose from either Visible – Shown on Website or Invisible – Not Shown on Website. This could be used when you may want to create new products without publishing them to the site until they are ready. 

 

Departments

It is mandatory that you allocate your product to a department. Click on the drop-down box underneath Product Location and select the department you want the product to go into. Click on the Add button highlighted in red. You may add the product to more than one department by repeating these steps.

If you add the product to more than one department then you will have to place the blue Product URL radio button on the left-hand side to the most relevant department. This will mean that the product will show in any of the departments you have selected, but the department you have selected with the radio button will be the URL for this product. For example, if I was to add a t-shirt to the Mens > T-Shirts department along with the Mens > Polo Shirts department, I would select the T-Shirts department as the product URL as this matches the product more than polo shirts. 

 

Images Section

In this section, you can upload your product images. You will notice that there are minimum dimensions to meet in order to benefit from the product zoom which enlarges the image when clicked on. To add an image, click on the Browse button and choose your image from your computer and then click on the red Add button.

If you have chosen colour options when selecting your product type, you will also see another drop-down box to the right entitled Colour.  Select the colour from the drop-down menu for which the image(s) you want to add relates to.  

You can then repeat this process until you have added all of your product images. Once images have been uploaded you can click and drag them to re-organise to the view or order you prefer. The first image will be the main image for the product and will be seen in the category view. This is determined by the radio button next to the first image, but you can change this by selecting another field. 

If you have product-based videos, you will add the videos using the same method and add the URL for the video to the required field. Please note, if you do not have the ability to add videos, please reach out to Visualsoft.

 

RRP & Cost

In this section, you can set your prices and VAT status. 

If your product has colour or size options, you will see several rows allowing you to set individual prices for each colour and/or size variation. 

Each box has a square symbol attached to it allowing you to copy the data entered to other surrounding boxes in order to be more efficient.

Price: It is mandatory that you include the price you want customers to pay for the product. This price includes the VAT so if you enter 20.00 in this box, then the customer will pay £20.00 in total for the product. The invoice will show the breakdown of what is VAT from the purchase price. You don't need to add a £ symbol here, you only need numerical information

Sale Price: Enter a sale price for the product. This field is also mandatory and so needs to be completed. The Sale Price should match the normal Price if it is not in a sale. This is the king of the prices on your site and whatever is written in that box will be the price customers will pay regardless of what is written in the Price box.  In most cases the Price & Sale Price will be identical unless a sale is added.

RRP Price: This field is optional and if completed will visibly show RRP next to the price. If your RRP price is higher than your normal price, it will show the saving made. It essentially provides customers with a breakdown of what the RRP was, followed by your normal price and then how much your selling it for based on your sale price.  It will show the saving in pounds and the percentage of savings made, for example, RRP £100, now £50. You save £50.00 (50%). You can also select from the check box if you want to exclude this product from the sale page here.

Cost Price: Here you can enter how much you pay for your products/stock.  This information does not show on the website and will be used within the reports section of your admin to display information relating to prices and profit margins. 

VAT Rate: Using the drop down box, choose the VAT rate that needs to apply to your products.  0% and 20% VAT rates already exist for you to choose.  If you need to create a different rate of VAT, you can do so in the Tax Rates menu within the Manage Products area of the Catalogue menu.

Status: The status column allows you to make that specific pricing row visible or invisible on the website. In nearly all cases this should be set to visible. The one time you may want to make a row invisible would be if you had for example, a red, green and blue product in small, medium and large sizes. However you may not actually have the green product in a small but you have the red and blue one in small so you still needed to choose the small size, even though its not relevant to the green product. Therefore you would make the small green product invisible.

 

Stocks & Weights

In this section, you can set specific product titles and reference numbers for all product variations. You can also set your stock values, product weights and stock messages.

Each box has a square symbol attached to it allowing you to copy the data entered to other surrounding boxes in order to be more efficient.

Title: The title field allows you to enter a specific product title for this variation of the product and that will only be visible when the customer chooses that variation from the drop down box next to the product. If you only have one row available in this section due to your product having no options (size or colour) then the title will not need to be entered as it will be no different to the product title you entered in the overview section.

Model: The model field allows you to enter the model number of your product. Not all products have a model number.

Reference: The reference field allows you to enter individual reference codes for your product variations that will only be visible when the customer chooses that variation. If you only have one row available in this section due to your product having no options then the reference code will not need to be entered as it will be no different to the reference code you entered in the overview section. 

Stock: The stock field allows you to enter the stock level for the product and all variations. Each time a purchase is made on the website the stock will reduce until the product runs out of stock. You may enter a stock value of -1 which acts as unlimited stock and will always be advertised for sale on the website. 

Weight: The weight field directly links into the shipping set up and if you calculate your delivery charges on the weight of your products you will need to enter their weights here in kg.

Google Feed will reject any items over 1500kg

Export Weight: The export weight field also directly links into the shipping set up and this field should include the final weight including packaging if this is greatly different to the weight of the product. You should enter the weights in kg.

If you are going to use the export weight field for shipping calculations, you will need to place a tick in the Use Products Export Weight box in your courier settings within the Shipping Management menu. 

Stock Message: The default stock message will advise your customers that the delivery is Usually Dispatched within 24 Hours. This is displayed under the product title on a product page. You can create new stock messages within the catalogue menu to overwrite the default stock message. Once they are created, they will appear in the drop-down list for you to choose from and also give the option to allocate them by bulk in the Bulk Product Management area.

Couriers: This section allows you to choose a specific Product Based Courier for the product, meaning you’re specifying which courier will deliver that item and taking the choice away from the customer. This can be useful when you have a product that does not fit directly into the same pricing criteria as your other products for shipping. Customers will be charged this product-based courier fee on top of the normal courier fee, even if they only choose one product.

This feature works alongside the shipping management section and would be created within the shipping section under the catalogue menu. Please refer to the Shipping Management guide for details on how to set this up.

 

Barcodes

This section allows you to enter the barcodes for your products.  We would encourage you to do so if you have them available to you as more and more people are searching for barcodes, especially using scanning applications on smartphones.

EAN - This stands for the European Article Number and is the code you would see on most items. This number is used primarily outside of North America and typically has 13 numerical digits (It can occasionally have 8 or 14 digits).

MPN - This stands for the Manufacturers Part Number and is the number which uniquely identifies the product with who manufactured it and is used Globally.

ISBN - This stands for International Standard Book Number and is a unique identifier of books published from 1970 onwards.  This number normally consists of either 10 or 13 digits and is used globally.

UPC - This stands for the Universal Product Code and is a unique numerical identifier for commercial products that will consist of 12 numerical digits and they are primarily used in North America.

 

Tagging Section

In this section, you can associate your tags with your products. Each tag group will appear in this section as a black bar in a row. At the end of the black bar on the right-hand side, you can click to Show / Hide so that the bar will collapse or open out to reveal the tags within that group. Each tag will have a tick box on the left-hand side of the tag name. To tag products, place a tick in the box of each tag you want to associate with the product.

 

Upselling Section

Upselling Recommendations aims to encourage shoppers to buy coordinating items and accessories in addition to the products that they are purchasing from your website. When a visitor adds an item to their basket from the product page, the Upselling Recommendations functionality displays a screen confirming that the initial item has been added to their basket, but additionally shows an additional list of selected products that the customer may also be interested in purchasing. Shoppers can directly add any of the items to their basket from within the Upselling Recommendations screen or click on the links to view the relevant product pages if they would like further information. You can declare which products you would like to upsell on a per-item basis via your Visualsoft Admin.

You will be presented with the names of all of the upselling groups configured on your store. Locate the upselling group named ‘Our Recommendations’ and click the ‘Add Products’ button within this row. This will then present you with a popup allowing you to define which products you would like to add to the upselling recommendations upselling group for this specific product.

Upselling Group Name - We set the name of the upselling group associated with the Upselling Recommendations feature to ‘Our Recommendations' by default. If you would like this to be changed to an alternative name, please raise a ticket via our support system to request for this to be altered in accordance with your requirements.

 

Saving the product

Once you have added the relevant product information, you can click the blue Save Product button located at the bottom of the page.

Summary

After this guide, you should have a basic understanding of how to add a product to your Visualsoft Admin, but if you need further assistance, please raise a ticket.

Further Reading

 

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