In this Guide: Product Creation - Admin Panel Entry

Entering Products Overview

When creating a new Product you must first have a Manufacturer and a Category to associate the product with. So the steps to creating a new Product through the Admin Panel are:

1. Add Manufacturer
2. Add Category
3. Add Product

Add Manufacturer

To add a new Manufacturer within the Administration Panel go to Inventory >> Manufacturer Manager, under the Sales Manager section. Within the Add a Manufacturer section fill in the information explained in the sections to follow.

Manufacturer Name

Fill in the Manufacturer Name field with the name of the Manufacturer.

Manufacturer Logo

Use this field to add a manufacturer's logo. This logo will be displayed on the detailed product description page above the product image. Use the browse button to select/upload the images.

Sort Order

Controls the order in which manufacturers are displayed in Manufacturer dropdown box.

Hide

Use this checkbox to hide or unhide a Manufacturer. This will hide all products associated with this Manufacturer.

Manufacturer Email

If you wish to alert a manufacturer when a product has sold, for reorder, inventory or drop shipping purposes, enter their email address here.

Options

Use this link to expand the additonal Manufacturer fields such as the Email and HTML options.

Series

Use this option to create a Series for this Manufacturer which you can add products. A Series is a line of products tied to a specific Manufactruer, such as Baseball Cards.

Actions

Once finished entering any new or changed info, click the appropriate button to add, save or delete a manufacturer.

Add Category

The Category Manager menu creates and manages categories, subcategories and category wide markups. Categories appear, by default, in the left hand navigation bar.

To add a category, scroll to the bottom of the Category Manager, and locate the Add Category box.

Name

Type your Main Category name in this area. This text will appear in your "Browse by Category" navigation in your storefront.

Sort Order

Controls the order in which main categories are displayed in the left hand navigation bar.

Hide

This checkbox will hide this main category. This will affect all products within this category as well.

Description

This area displays the description for this category.

Keywords

Insert keywords relevant to your categories for search and search engine optimization purposes, separated by commas.

Category HTML (not shown)

Insert Custom HTML to appear at the top of your category landing page.

Actions

“Save” will update any changes that you make to corresponding fields within this menu.

“Delete” will delete corresponding category.

Category Markup (not shown)

Fill in percentage markup to apply to all products that fall within this category (for example 25% should be entered as 0.25). If you do not use the cost x markup feature, leave this field set to 0.

Cost X Markup Editor (not shown)

The cost x markup editor is a powerful feature of your MonsterCommerce software. It allows you to control the prices of all products within a category by entering a cost into a product's cost field, and the markup into the subcategory's markup field. If you have entered a value in each of these fields, the feature will work automatically. If you change the markup field's value, all prices for all products within that subcategory will be updated.

Additional Information (not shown)

The top line displays how many subcategories are within that individual category.

The bottom line is a link to view your category landing page within your storefront.

Adding and Editing Products

The Product Editor allows you to add new products or edit existing products. To add a new product, enter the required basic information. Once you have clicked the add button, further advanced options will become available. If you are editing an existing product, you can make changes to any of the fields, and then click the Update button for your changes to take effect.

Manufacturer Name (REQUIRED)

Select the name of the manufacturer from the dropdown list. If the name of the manufacturer is not there, go to the Manufacturer Editor menu and add it.

Manufacturer Part Number

Enter the manufacturer's part number. This field may contain letters and/or numbers.

Product Part Number

Enter your internal part number. This field may contain letters and/or numbers.

Available Categories (REQUIRED)

From the dropdown list, choose the category in which this product belongs. If the category list is empty, or you do not see the category you need, go to the category editor and add it.

Add or Remove

After selecting a category from the “Available Categories”, hit “Add” to add that category as one that will display your product. Select a category from the “Selected Categories” and hit “Remove” to remove it from that product.

Selected Categories

Once a cateogory is selected for a product, it will appear in this list.

Large Image

Click on the browse button to search files uploaded to the file manager for an image to display on the Detailed View page for this product.

Large Image Alt Tag

This text will be displayed for this product when a customer scrolls their mouse over the Large Product Image.

Thumbnail Image

Click on the browse button to search files uploaded to the file manager for an smaller image to display for this product within the category listing pages and for Homepage and Category specials.

Thumbnail Image Alt Tag

This text will be displayed for this product when a customer scrolls their mouse over the Thumbnail Product Image.

Product Name (REQUIRED)

Enter the product's name. The products name should be short but descriptive. Give each product a unique name. Please do not use the " symbol. If your product name contains inches, please use the in. abbreviation for inches.

Short Description

Enter a short description. This field appears beneath the product description on the detailed product view page.

Weight

Enter the weight of the item. Please use pounds if you are using real time shipping. Enter fractions of a pound using decimals. For example, 2 ½ pounds should be entered as 2.5. The number you enter here will be used in conjunction with the shipping manager to calculate shipping cost.

Store's Cost

The cost field can be used in one of two ways:

Markup

This is a non-editable field. The value displayed here is pulled from the Category Manager. In the Category Manager, any category can be assigned a markup value. This value is used in conjunction with the cost field.

Cost * Markup

If the product has been assigned to a category that has been assigned a markup in the Category Manager, you can check the Cost x Markup checkbox to the right of this field to enable the cost x markup system. This will automatically calculate the price of the item based on the cost of the item multiplied by the category's markup. This feature is useful if you wish to adjust the prices of items in mass.

Note: You can have a mix of automatic Cost x Markup items mixed with manually set items within the same category, by turning on and off the Cost x Markup checkbox.

List Price

Use this field to display the product's list price. This allows you to display a “MSRP” along with your lower price. Remember that you can change the List Price label in the site wide settings menu.

Customer Price

Enter the item's price. If you are using the Cost x Markup system, the price will be automatically calculated.

Minimum Order Quantity

This sets the minimum quantity of this item that may be ordered.

Homepage Special

Use this checkbox to indicate that this is a homepage special. Homepage specials appear on the homepage of your store (index.asp).

Category Special

Use this checkbox to highlight an item as a category special. Category specials appear at the top of their category.

Hide

Use this option to hide an item. This is useful for temporarily removing an item from your storefront.

Qty In Stock

You can specify the stock quantity of this item. This number will automatically decrease as this product is purchased. If you wish, you can hide products automatically when stock reaches zero by enabling the Hide Products If Not In Stock option in the Site Wide Settings menu. You can also edit the Qty in Stock for many items at one time by using the Inventory Manager.

Inventory Status Display Options

There are three inventory display options.

• Don't Display: Hides stock information within storefront.
• In Stock Y/N: Shows only an “In Stock Y” or “In Stock N” message.
• Item Count: Shows the real time stock quantity. If you select this setting and allow your store to display items if their stock count reaches zero, the system will display a “Out of Stock” message when QTY reaches 0.

Keywords

Keywords allow you to “seed” your integrated search engine so that it can find products it may otherwise miss. Put keywords in this box that are applicable to the product. The search feature will look in Product Name, Short Description and Long Description. Do not put duplicate information in the keywords field. Separate keywords with a comma.

Sort Code

You can use Sort Codes to control the order in which items are displayed to the customer, both in category drill downs, as well as search results. The lower the number in this box, the higher the item will appear in the list. You can specify a default product sorting scheme in the site wide settings menu under the Primary Sort Order for Product Lists and Secondary Sort Order for Product Lists items.

Gift Certificate

If an item is set as a gift certificate it will inherit several special features. If a customer purchases an item that is set as a gift certificate, it will issue the buyer a PIN. The person to whom the gift certificate is issued will receive credit valued at the face value of the gift certificate. The gift certificate can be redeemed in one purchase or used in small increments. To view all open gift certificates, and to receive more information on this feature, see the Admin menu Inventory >> Gift Certificates.

Note: Gift certificates automatically have free shipping.

Taxable

If an item is non-taxable (i.e. food items or service), click this checkbox to make only this item exempt from taxes the system would otherwise normally apply.

Free Shipping

Check this box if the free shipping should be applied to the product.

Call

Check this box if the customer should call for shipping information for that product. If "Call" is checked, the price will not appear and customer will not be able to purchase the product within the storefront.

Message

Enter the message that should appear to the customer when the Call box is checked.

HTML Checkbox

The long description field supports HTML. There are two ways of using HTML in this area. One method is through the WYSIWYG HTML Editor. To use this feature, click the “HTML Checkbox.”

WYSIWYG HTML Editor

Hit the WYSIWYG button if you would like to insert custom HTML through the WYSIWYG tool.

Long Description

Enter the long description of the item here. This is the place to put complete information about the item.

Additional Information URL

If you wish to provide more information to your customer, this field allows you to link to additional information. Fill in the applicable URL such as http://www.nameofsite.com. This field should be used in conjunction with the Additional Information Link field.

Additional Information Link

This field works in conjunction with the Additional Information URL field. This field should contain a friendly name for the information link. For example, “Click here for more information”.

Save (REQUIRED)

When you are finished entering all of the information referenced above, click the “Add” button or “Save” button (button name will change depending upon whether you are adding a new product or editing an existing product) to save changes.