ShopSite Quickstart Guide: Products

ShopSite Quickstart Guide

Products
After finishing with her pages, Tina clicks on the "products" button in the menu bar at the top of the page. It takes her to a screen that looks just like the pages screen she just left, but this one is for her store's products. Though Tina could add multiple products just like she added four pages at once, she decides to add one product just to see how it works. She chooses the pizza play set, which will be listed under "quiet toys". She hits the "add product" button, fills in name and price, but decides to wait to decide on shipping prices until later, so she leaves the shipping fields blank. She does not track her products by SKU, so she leaves that field blank as well. She skips the "graphic" section too, since she will be adding graphics later. She fills in the description, and then comes to the "ordering options" section.
Ordering options allows the customer to make choices regarding color, size, or customization of a particular product. The customer will be given these choices while in the shopping cart section, which means that they will not see these options until after they hit the order button. (Note: Ordering options only works if the options do not change the price of the item. If different sizes are different prices, for example, each price point will have to be entered in the database separately.) Tina writes the following in the "options text" window: "please choose your type of pizza and in the box below, type in your choice of two of the following accessories for your pizza play set: cutter, knife, cheese shaker, pepper shaker." Checking the "create options box" checkbox creates a text field where the customer can type in requested information.

Under "Pull-down Menus" Tina enters "supreme" and "pepperoni", skips a space and enters "thin crust" and "deep dish". This will create pull-down menus that allow the purchaser to choose between the different options for the item in the shopping cart page. Skipping the space starts a new pull-down menu. There can be an almost unlimited number of choices in each menu, and an almost unlimited number of menus.

At the "Assign to Page:" section, Tina checks the "Quiet Toys" box. Now, the pizza play set will appear on the Quiet Toys page, along with any other products assigned to that page. Tina can also assign other pages to the Quiet Toys page. Remember that, according to her diagram, she assigned a Books and a Blocks page to the Quiet Toys page too.

Some products will fit into many categories. Her wonderful Rubber Ducky, for instance, fits in both the "Tub Toys" and "Traditional Toys" aisle. The Teddy Bear, too, fits in multiple aisles. Tina puts Ted in "Quiet Toys" and "Traditional Toys." Not all toys have such a wide application, Scuba Man fits only in "Tub Toys" and Siren Machine is clearly a "Loud Toys" candidate.
Clicking on the "create more information page" checkbox will generate an entire page dedicated to that particular product. The name and graphic for the product becomes a hotlink, so when the customer clicks on it, a new page comes up with additional information about the product and another graphic. Tina has so much to say about the pizza play set that if she said it all in the standard product description it would take up the whole Quiet Toys page, so in addition to the small product description she already entered at the top of the page, she writes several paragraphs on the more info page. She also uses a small graphic to go with the small description, and a larger graphic on the more info page, which shows more detail. This technique is known as a thumbnail image. She names the more info page "pizza.html."

Click here to learn about the database upload feature. If you want to transfer the product data from an existing business without having to key in every product, or if you have so many products that you would be more comfortable working with a spreadsheet or other consumer database software, you can upload the database to your ShopSite store in tab-delimited format. In fact, you can upload text and formatting information for your pages in this manner also. Both the "products" and "pages" screens have a "database upload" button, which walks you through the process.

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	Products After finishing with her pages, Tina clicks on the "products" button in the menu bar at the top of the page. It takes her to a screen that looks just like the pages screen she just left, but this one is for her store's products. Though Tina could add multiple products just like she added four pages at once, she decides to add one product just to see how it works. She chooses the pizza play set, which will be listed under "quiet toys". She hits the "add product" button, fills in name and price, but decides to wait to decide on shipping prices until later, so she leaves the shipping fields blank. She does not track her products by SKU, so she leaves that field blank as well. She skips the "graphic" section too, since she will be adding graphics later. She fills in the description, and then comes to the "ordering options" section. Ordering options allows the customer to make choices regarding color, size, or customization of a particular product. The customer will be given these choices while in the shopping cart section, which means that they will not see these options until after they hit the order button. (Note: Ordering options only works if the options do not change the price of the item. If different sizes are different prices, for example, each price point will have to be entered in the database separately.) Tina writes the following in the "options text" window: "please choose your type of pizza and in the box below, type in your choice of two of the following accessories for your pizza play set: cutter, knife, cheese shaker, pepper shaker." Checking the "create options box" checkbox creates a text field where the customer can type in requested information. Under "Pull-down Menus" Tina enters "supreme" and "pepperoni", skips a space and enters "thin crust" and "deep dish". This will create pull-down menus that allow the purchaser to choose between the different options for the item in the shopping cart page. Skipping the space starts a new pull-down menu. There can be an almost unlimited number of choices in each menu, and an almost unlimited number of menus.

	At the "Assign to Page:" section, Tina checks the "Quiet Toys" box. Now, the pizza play set will appear on the Quiet Toys page, along with any other products assigned to that page. Tina can also assign other pages to the Quiet Toys page. Remember that, according to her diagram, she assigned a Books and a Blocks page to the Quiet Toys page too. Some products will fit into many categories. Her wonderful Rubber Ducky, for instance, fits in both the "Tub Toys" and "Traditional Toys" aisle. The Teddy Bear, too, fits in multiple aisles. Tina puts Ted in "Quiet Toys" and "Traditional Toys." Not all toys have such a wide application, Scuba Man fits only in "Tub Toys" and Siren Machine is clearly a "Loud Toys" candidate. Clicking on the "create more information page" checkbox will generate an entire page dedicated to that particular product. The name and graphic for the product becomes a hotlink, so when the customer clicks on it, a new page comes up with additional information about the product and another graphic. Tina has so much to say about the pizza play set that if she said it all in the standard product description it would take up the whole Quiet Toys page, so in addition to the small product description she already entered at the top of the page, she writes several paragraphs on the more info page. She also uses a small graphic to go with the small description, and a larger graphic on the more info page, which shows more detail. This technique is known as a thumbnail image. She names the more info page "pizza.html."
Click here to learn about the database upload feature.	If you want to transfer the product data from an existing business without having to key in every product, or if you have so many products that you would be more comfortable working with a spreadsheet or other consumer database software, you can upload the database to your ShopSite store in tab-delimited format. In fact, you can upload text and formatting information for your pages in this manner also. Both the "products" and "pages" screens have a "database upload" button, which walks you through the process.