How to Create New Products

How to Create New Products

The following steps are the same for all product types. Subsequent sections describe the difference between each of the product types.

Creating a Simple Product

1. In the Admin Panel, choose Catalog > Manage Products.
2. Click Add Product on the top right to create a new product.
3. In the following page, select an attribute set from the drop-down menu. To learn more about attributes and attribute sets, see “Managing Attributes and Attribute Sets”.
   
   TIP: You should first define attributes of a product, as described in the Managing Product Attributes section, before you define products that have that attribute.
4. Click Continue to view the New Product Editor page, displayed below:
   

   General Product Configuration Settings

   Fill in all the required fields, which are indicated by a red asterisk (*). The General Info fields include the following:
   Name: The Product name as you would like it to appear in your store.
   Description: This appears at the center of your product page for default templates, and should provide your customers with an accurate product report.
   Short Description: This appears to the right of your product page. You should provide a more brief description of your product, ideally broken down with bullet points.
   SKU (Stock Keeping Unit): This is a unique identifier for each individual product and service that can be provided. SKUs are often used to refer to different versions of the same product. For example, a retail store carrying Guitar Hero 3 might have six SKUs, two for each of the three platforms.
   Weight: The actual mass of the product. Typically this is used for shipping calculations.
   Status: Specifies that the product is available in the store. If it ever becomes temporarily unavailable, you can remove it from store views by changing this field to Disabled.
   Visibility: Specifies where you would like your product to be viewed. The available options are: Not Visible Individually (recommended for Configurable Product Type); Catalog (products are displayed only in catalog pages); Search (products are displayed in search result pages only); Catalog,Search (products are displayed in both catalog and search result pages).
5. Click [ Save ] to save your changes.

Adding Product Images

1. Click the Images tab in the Product Information panel on the left.
2. Click Browse Files and select the desired product images from your file system.
   
   TIP: You can repeat this step to insert additional images before uploading files.
3. When you have selected all your images, click Upload Files to upload all selected images to your store.
4. For each image you have uploaded, provide the following information:
   Label: Alternate text for the image tag. This feature is useful for SEO management.
   Sort Order: The order in which the images are displayed in the Slideshow and MORE VIEWS option.
   Thumbnail: Used in the shopping cart and related items.
   Small Image: Used in the Category listing, wish list, and so on.
   Base Image: Large product images for zooming.
   Exclude: Select an image if you do not want it to appear in the gallery of MORE VIEWS on the product page.
   Remove: Select an image to remove from the collection. All selected images will be removed upon saving.
   TIP: Magento Go automatically resizes your main product image for each of these sizes so you only need to upload your base image once. Alternatively, for better image management, resize your product’s images in an image editor and upload them to each image type.
5. Click [ Save ] to save changes.

Assigning Your Product to a Category

To assign your product to a category:

1. Select the Categories tab in the Product Information panel on the left.
2. Click the checkbox next to each category you want that product to appear in. Clicking the [+] icon will expand that category and reveal its subcategories.
   
3. Click [ Save ] to save your changes.

Configuring Price Information

1. Click the Prices tab in the Product Information panel on the left.
2. The Prices fields include the following:
   Cost: Represents what an item actually costs you (the store owner). It is used only in the back-end, and can be used for generating revenue reports.
   Tax Class: Taxation of different products may vary from product to product, as well as in the shipping of different products. Magento Go provides the options None, Taxable Goods, and Shipping. Select the appropriate option for the products you are selling.
   Special Price: If you will be offering discounts or promotions for particular product, simply add a special price in the allocated field. You can define the promotion period by entering the start and end dates for the promotion in the To and From field dates, using the calendar icon or by manual entry. An example of how special pricing will appear in your store appears below:
3. Click [ Save ] to save your changes.

Configuring Inventory Information

1. Click the Inventory tab in the Product Information panel on the left.
2. The Inventory fields include the following:
   
   strong>Qty: Specifies the quantity, or how many units you currently possess in your inventory.
   Stock Availability: You can specify whether or not an item is In Stock or Out of Stock
3. Click [ Save ] to save your changes.

What if Your Product Does Not Appear?

If your product does not appear in your store, check the following settings in your product data:

Status is Enabled in the General tab.

Visibility is set to include catalog in the General tab.

Inventory value is non-zero in the Inventory tab.

Stock Availability is set to In Stock in the Inventory tab.

Product is assigned to a website in the Categories tab.

Product is assigned to a category in the Categories tab.

Optional Recommended Features

Depending on your store’s needs, Magento Go provides a high level of optional customization features.

Configuring Meta Information

Meta information helps search engines find your product. The Meta Information fields appear below: 

The Meta Information tab is for specifying metadata for a product. Metadata is descriptive information about a page that search engines can use to index your store’s product pages. This content is not visible directly on your website.

Meta Title: Specify a title for your product’s page. This title can be seen at the top bar of a web browser.

Meta Keywords: Specify keywords that are relevant to the product. It is helpful to consider keywords that potential customers may search if they were searching for your products with a search engine.

Meta Description: Write a few sentences describing the content on the page. Though it is not visible on your page itself, some search engines will list this page’s search result using the meta description text.

NOTE: Read our Expand your Store Knowledge Base articles for more information about Search Engine Optimization.

Configuring Optional Inventory Settings

To configure optional inventory settings:

Manage Stock: Select Yes if the inventory options are available for this single product to manage your inventory. Select No to specify that you do not want to manage product inventory (in which case, the product will be made permanently available to your customers in your store).

Stock Availability: Select the In Stock Option if you want customers to be able to purchase this product.

Qty Uses Decimals: This field is used for products such as those sold in units of length, weight, or some other measure. If your products require customers to enter decimal quantities, as opposed to integers, select Yes.

Backorders: If your store’s inventory is promptly refreshed, and there is no reason for your store to prevent customers from ordering beyond the specified inventory limits, then you can change this option to Allow Qty Below 0. If you want the customer to be notified about the backorder upon purchase, you can select Allow Qty Below 0 and Notify Customer.

Maximum/Minimum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart: This allows you to limit the availability of a product. For example, if a company sold bottles of wine, they could offer a low price on bottles if customers buy the case, in which case they would set the minimum amount to six and over. Alternatively, you can set the maximum limit in order to limit the quantity of each product sold per customer.

Qty for Item’s Status to become Out of Stock: This field specifies a level at which a product will become out of stock.

Configuring Product Relationships

In addition to providing a wide range of product types, Magento Go also enables you to create relationships between products to support accessorizing, up-sells, and cross-sells. The key types of product relationships that are provided by Magento Go are:

Related Products: This option is designed to aid your customers’ shopping experience as well as coax them into adding products to their carts. It can be as vague or as specific as you choose. A product related to an iPod Shuffle could be an iPod Nano, or it could be an iMac, or a set of stereo speakers. It is up to you just how related you want to make it.

Up-sells: This option enables you to recommend an upgraded version of the products that your customers select. The promotion appears when products are viewed. For example, if a customer selects a standard mobile phone from your products, you could attempt to up-sell them to a smart phone. It does not need to be more expensive necessarily; it could be a product that yields a greater profit margin, or one of better quality.

Cross-sell: This option enables you a last chance to offer your customers an impulse buy. They are products promoted in the shopping cart page right before checkout. This would be similar to items such as candy or magazines that are available around the register at the grocery store. They might not be related products, but they are products you would like to entice your customers into buying upon check out.

Adding Related Products to a Product

1. Click the Related Products tab in the Product Information panel on the left.
2. In the product grid, click Reset Filter in the upper right to show all the products you have created, or use the fields in the first row of the product grid to find specific products.
3. From the resulting list, select the check box in the first column for any products you want to add to the related products list for this product.
4. Click [ Save ] to save your changes.

Adding Up-Sell Products to a Product

1. Click the Up-Sells tab in the Product Information panel on the left.
2. In the product grid, click Reset Filter in the upper right to show all the products you have created, or use the fields in the first row of the product grid to find specific products.
3. From the resulting list, select the check box in the first column for any products you want to add to the up-sell products list for this product.
4. Click [ Save ] to save your changes.

Adding Cross-Sell Products to a Product

1. Select the Cross-Sells tab in the Product Information panel on the left.
2. In the product grid, click Reset Filter in the upper right to show all the products you have created, or use the fields in the first row of the product grid to find specific products.
3. From the resulting list, select the check box in the first column for any products you want to add to the cross-sell products list for this product. If you define more cross-sell products than there are spaces available, Magento Go will display different products from the cross-sell list each time the cart page is reloaded.
4. Click [ Save ] to save your changes.