Your product pages are arguably the most important pages on your website, and the quality of the content within these pages is critical to your store’s success.

Your Product Titles

Every product should feature descriptive and emotive titles. Unless your product identification codes (SKU, catalogue number, etc.) are a key feature in a product's marketing, do not include them within your titles.

Your Product Descriptions

Your product description text should be original and never copied from supplier or manufacturer websites at any time . Write informative descriptions that highlight your product's key features and benefits, and remember, it's not "War and Peace"! Consider using bullet points for important features, and bold type key pieces of information for the benefit of customers that skim through text.

Your Product Images

Your products should include more than one image/photo and be varied enough that little is left to a customer's imagination. Consider engaging a professional photographer with experience in product photography. The investment is worthwhile.

Add a Product to your Shop

To add a single product:

1. Go to My Shop.
2. Click the New Product button.
3. Product information is spread across 9 navigation tabs. As you complete each tab’s product information, always remember to click the Save Changes button. Information in this section is broken down into each navigation tab as follows.

• General
• Pricing
• Media
• Shipping and Taxes
• Options
• SEO
• Cross-Sell
• Categories
• Attribute

1. Click theSave New Product or Save Changes button once information across each tab has been entered or edited.

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General Product Information

The following section is a detailed focus on entering product information via the General navigation tab.

1. Go to My Shop
2. For a new product: Select a category from the Categories pane and click the New Product button.
3. To edit an existing product: Click on a category from the Categories column to list products within that category, then select any product to edit. Select a product by clicking on its title or the Cog button to the product’s right, and select Edit from the menu list.
4. The General product Information tab is opened by default. Enter details as follows:

General Product Information

• Product Name:  Enter a descriptive keyword-rich name for the product. The name entered here is exactly what will appear in your shop.
• Product Link:  By default what you type into the Product Name field will appear automatically as your Product Link (URL). You can override the default by entering a URL that better describes your product. The URL must be unique and not used for any other product in your shop. Use a hyphen '-' to separate words; you must not use spaces when creating a URL.
• Product ID:  This is your company reference/product/catalogue number for the product.
• Status:  The default status is Available.  You may change the status at any time in the future by selecting Out of Stock,  Back-order,  Pre-order or Inactive.  Depending on your website preferences, each of these options may or may not appear in your shop. To choose whether these status are displayed in your shop or not, go to Preferences > Product Inventory

Product Description

• Short Description:  Enter a succinct, emotive phrase about the product to entice visitors to click on the product from the product category page. The description will appear near the thumbnail (small image) of the product when customers search for the item.
• Long Description:  Enter a long description to this field to appear on the product page for this item. Refer to Chapter 2, Section 3 for detailed information about theContent Editor ).
• Extra Fields:  If you added your own custom fields in Preferences > Product Inventory they will appear here. Enter in the relevant information for the extra fields.
• Product Flags:   You can visually flag products with an icon stating that a product is either 'New', 'On Sale' or 'Featured'. Flags are visible to customers when viewing the shop category in which the product is presented. An end-date determines each flag’s promotion period. At the end of your promotion's expiry period, theProduct Flag will disappear. See Your Shopfront for more about Product Flags and how they control what appears in your Shopfront page.

Product Flags

You can visually flag products with an icon stating that a product is either 'New', 'On Sale' or 'Featured'. Flags are visible to customers when viewing the shop category in which the product is presented. An end-date determines each flag’s promotion period. 

At the end of your promotion's expiry period, the Product Flag will disappear. See Your Shopfront for more about Product Flags and how they control what appears in your Shopfront page.

1. Click Save Changes when finished.

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Using Promotional Product Flags

Product Flags are designed to promote products in your shop by placing a visual flag over a product's thumbnail image in your shop’s category and Shopfront display. This allows flagged products to stand out from other products displayed on a page. There are three Product Flags available: “On Sale”, “Featured” and “New”.

To assign a product flag to a product:

1. Go to My Shop to view which products are already flagged within your Product Inventory list. There are no limits to the number of products able to display a Product Flag although only one flag can be assigned to each product at a time. To assign a promotion Product Flag to any product, open a product:
2. From the Product Flags section on the product’s General page, click into the text input field relevant to the promotion you want to apply and enter the end-date for the promotion. Alternatively, click the red calendar icon and select the promotion end-date that way.
3. Click the Save Changes button to activate the promotion flag for the product in your shop’s category display and Shopfront display 

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Pricing

Prices can be set for each product, including price breaks (volume discounts) if required. A recommended retail price can also be displayed for a product in-store if you wish to highlight savings to shoppers.

1. Go to My Shop and select a product or Add new product.
2. From the Pricing navigation tab complete the following fields:

• Recommended Retail Price: Used for display purposes only to demonstrate savings. Optional.
• Price ($): The selling price of a product, and the price used for invoice calculations. Any discounts, price varying options and tax rates will be applied to this amount.
• Minimum Quantity: A whole number value (i.e. no decimals or fractions) as the minimum quantity to be purchased in order to obtain the price break value.
• Discount Price: The dollar value charged when the minimum quantity for the price break is purchased.
• If Multiple Prices is activated for your shop, you can assign a custom label to be displayed for Price, e.g. “You Pay:” or “ABC Widget’s Best Price:”, etc. (including any other price level such as ‘wholesale’, ‘VIP Members’, etc.) by going to Preferences > Product Inventory.
• When multiple price breaks are set up, they appear to customers as illustrated here: 

1. Click the Save New Product or Save Changes button.

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Media

Each product page can features both images and sales brochures or other information for shoppers to download.

Create an automatically-styled Image Gallery for a Product

Images

Each product can have any number of images associated with it. The first image can appear as a thumbnail on the category page as well as a large image on the product page. All subsequent images will appear within the product’s gallery, also displayed on the product’s page. 

All My Shop images are automatically resized according to the dimensions entered into the Design > Categories / Shop View preferences. Those settings can be changed at any time. Images must be .jpg, .gif or .png format only.

1. Go to My Shop.
2. For a new product: Click the New Product button after selecting a shop category.
3. To edit an existing product: Select a category to display its products on the right side of the screen.
4. With the product editor now open, click the Media navigation tab. 
5. Existing gallery images will be displayed. To upload or select a new image for the product’s gallery, click the Images button. The Product Images pop-up window will appear.
6. AVAILABLE IMAGES will be displayed. If the image has already been uploaded, select it from the available list now. Otherwise, click the Choose Files button and browse your computer to select a new image. Once found, click the Open button. The new image’s filename will now appear next to the Choose Files button.
7. Click the Upload button. The name of the image will now appear in the AVAILABLE IMAGES list and a preview of the image will be displayed.
8. Click the Use Image button. The name of the image will now appear in the Add Image text field.

• Title: Write a title to assist search engines in finding your images. When visitors hover over the image in your shop, the title will appear in a pop-up text bubble.
• Description: Enter a specific description of the image.  This will exist as Meta data on the web page. It will only be visible if visitor's browsers are set to ‘not display images'. It allows vision impaired visitors to hear a description of the image and it also assists search engines to find your products.
• Sort Order: If you elect to display more than one image per product (recommended), you can set the order in which images appear on the product page by placing a number in this field. Lowest numbers appear first (i.e. an image with a sort order number 1 will appear first).

1. Click the Save Product button.
2. Publish your website to send the new images live to the Internet.

Files

For each product in your shop, you can add files for visitors to download. You may want to provide additional, more detailed information for customers to download such as brochures, technical manuals and so on.

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Shipping & Tax product information

For each product in your shop you can set the shipping rate of the item, enter important postal details or exempt the item from tax or shipping altogether. 

1. Go to My Shop

• For a new product:  Click the New Product button after selecting a shop category.
• To edit an existing product: Click on a category to display its products on the right side of the screen.

1. Click the Shipping & Taxes navigation tab. Complete each field as it applies to the product: 

• Free Shipping?: Place a tick in this box to exempt this item from global shipping charges.
• Packaging: Select from the drop-down list, a package type used for the product’s shipping. 
• Physical Dimensions: Each field must be completed to calculate the cost of shipping if your global shipping options are set to Australia Post or Rate by weight. If set up, Fulfillment Services also refer to this data.
• Handling cost per item: Enter a dollar value to set the handling charge for this product. This charge will be applied for each multiple of the particular item that is item purchased.

 Taxes

• Apply GST: Place a tick in the box to calculate GST on the shipping charge. Remove the tick if the product should be exempt from GST.

1. Click the Save Product or Save Changes button.

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Product Options

Many types of product feature variations such as size, colour, shape, style, and so on. Rather than creating a separate product for each and every variance, Product Options can be placed on any product page so that customers can select the option that suits them.

Refer to Product Options for a detailed explanation of applying options.

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SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Meta information helps search engines to find and index your product pages. Meta information should be entered for each and every product in your shop if you want the product to be successfully indexed. Omitting Meta information could contribute to your product pages not appearing favourably within SERPs (search engine results pages).

Before entering Meta information you should apply the following rules to every product’s Meta data without exception:

• Do not copy Meta information from one product page to the next. Each product must have its own, unique Meta data.
• Each Meta field must be relevant to the information on the product page, not the website or product category as a whole. Do not add keywords or phrases to Meta data that do not exist within a product’s description.

To apply Meta information for a product:

1. Go to My Shop.
2. Navigate to the product that you want to add SEO Meta information to.
3. Complete each Meta field as follows:

• Meta Title: The Meta title appears as the main link displayed by search engines within their SERPs (search engine results pages). 
• Enter a title that best describes the product, including important keywords or phrases. Place such keywords or phrases towards the beginning of the Meta title where possible; this is referred to as “weighting”, e.g. “Mens leather belt for formal occasions”, where the important search term of “Mens leather belt” is positioned at the front of the title.
• Keep the Meta title short and succinct, at around the 66 character mark including spaces. This is done to minimise truncating by search engines.

• Meta Keywords: Although most search engines refer to Meta keywords less nowadays, we still recommend that keywords are included so that all search engines are accommodated for.
• Use only keywords that are relevant to the content on the product page, not the website or shop category as a whole.
• Meta Description: this important Meta information appears beneath the Meta title, displayed by search engines within their SERPs.
• Place the most important keywords or phrases towards the beginning of the description where possible.
• Keep the Meta description close to 165 characters including spaces. As with the Meta title, this is done to minimise truncating by search engines.

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Cross-Sell Links

When viewing a product page, cross-sell links are a great way to alert customers to other products in your shop that might interest them.

For example, if a visitor is looking at a product such as a business shirt, it could be beneficial to cross-sell that product with a neck tie or similar accessory. Up to 5 cross-sell links can be assigned to each product, or alternatively you can instruct the system to display cross-sell links at random.

Cross-sell links typically appear at the bottom of a product page if you have enabled them to display within Dashboard > Design > Product View.

To set cross-sell links to a product:

1. Go to My Shop.
1. For a new product: Click on a category to display its products on the right side of the screen. Click the New Product button.
2. To edit an existing product: Select a product by clicking its title link, or click the Cog button displayed next to a product and thenselect Edit from the drop-down list.
2. Select the Cross-Sell navigation tab.
3. Use random cross-sell link: Place a tick in this box if you would like the CMS to randomly generate links to up to five other products in your shop from any category. The benefit of these types of cross-sell links is that it gives returning visitors exposure to lots of different products in your inventory.
4. Cross-sell this product with: Use the drop-down menu lists to first select the shop category, and then the specific product to which you would like to link. The benefit of these types of cross-sell links is that it allows you to assign related products to the main product being displayed.
5. Click the Save Product or Save Changes button to save changes.

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Assign Products Across Multiple Categories

Each product is assigned to a Primary Category and can also be assigned to display within other categories if necessary.

For detailed information regarding categories, refer to My Shop, Section 1: Shop Categories.

1. Go to My Shop.
1. For a new product: Click on a category to display its products on the right side of the screen. Click the New Product button.
2. To edit an existing product: Select a product by clicking its title link, or click the Cog button displayed next to a product and thenselect Edit from the drop-down list.
2. Select the Categories navigation tab.
3. If you are editing an existing product, the product’s Primary Category will already be selected. If you want to move the product to a different Primary Category, select a different category from the drop-down list.
4. Select each checkbox to display the product across the selected categories (or leave all checkboxes unselected if you only want to assign the product to a Primary Category. 
5. Click the Save Product or Save Changes button to save changes.

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Product Attributes

The Product Attributes feature allows you to label your shop products with additional characteristics such as brand, size or colour, by attaching tags or ‘keywords’ to products.

Creating and assigning attributes is a straightforward 3-step process. Refer to the Product Attributes page for instructions.

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Cloning a Product

If you have a new product to add to your inventory, and the product shares similar attributes to an existing product, you can clone an existing product rather than creating a new product from scratch.

1. Go to My Shop.
2. Select the category that contains the product you wish to clone. The right hand column will now display all products contained within that category.
3. Click on the Cog button located next to the product you wish to clone.
4. Select + Clone from the drop-down menu 
5. A pop up window will appear, prompting you to edit the clone’s unique values 

• Product Name: create a unique title for the cloned product.
• Product Link: edit or create a unique URL for the cloned product.
• Product ID: edit or create a unique product ID for the cloned product.
• Show (make product live): check the box to make the product immediately available in your shop; leave the box un-checked if you plan to make additional changes to the product.

1. Click the Save Cloned Product button when finished. You will now be taken to the cloned product’s editing page to make any necessary changes.
2. When done, click the Save Changes button.

• If you clicked the Save Cloned Product button without editing the cloned product’s unique values within the pop-up window, the cloned product will automatically insert text (copy) at the end of the cloned product’s Product Name. Also note that the word copy is placed at the end of the cloned product’s Product Link. Be sure to change these “copy” attributes before sending your cloned product live to your shop.
• A cloned product brings across the original product’s SEO, Cross-Sell Links, Options, Images and Files, and Shipping and Taxes information so be sure to review the cloned product’s attributes within these tabs.

• SEO meta information is unique for each product. Ensure that your cloned product’s Meta Description and Meta Title are re-written to suit the cloned product.

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Can I upload multiple products to My Shop at once? (eCommerce packages only)

You can upload multiple products to your shop at once. It requires that you export and upload a .csv file with all of your product details. See the this  related article for more information.

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My Shopfront products have disappeared. What happened?

It is likely that your products were using the  Product Flags promotion feature and the promotion end-date has expired. To automatically have your Shopfront "call up" those products again, move each product's promotion end-date ahead. To prevent this happening in future, closely monitor a product's promotion end-date or record end-dates in a suitable spreadsheet such as MS Excel®, etc.

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