You can access the "Add new product" page by clicking the left side "Add new product" link under "Products".

Or you can click the "Add new product" icon on the main page of your personal administration area.

First, let's begin by adding a product thumbnail image. The thumbnail image of your product is displayed within the categories that you choose to be listed under in CraftMall.com and is also displayed as your product image on your "product detail" page that is created when you add the product. An important fact to note is that the maximum width of your product thumbnail image cannot exceed 200 pixels in width. Attempting to upload an image that is larger then 200 pixels in width will display an error asking you to resize your image and try again. Adjusting the size of your image can be accomplished in any image editing program, just make sure that you save the newly sized image in either GIF or JPG format.

To upload your product thumbnail image, press the "Change image" button.

A new window (Image selection) is opened with a total of three options. The first option allows you to select an image that is already on our server if you had previously uploaded an image to your "File" area. The second option allows you to choose an image on your computer and the third option allows you to specify a URL of an image on another server.

In most cases, you will be choosing an image that resides on your computer so click the "Browse" button under "File on your local computer". Once clicked, your Operating Systems' native file browser opens. In this example, we are using Windows XP so use the proper method according to your particular OS. Browse to the location of your image, click to highlight the image and press the "open" button.

Note: The image must be in either GIF or JPG format. Make sure that there are no illegal characters such as an apostrophe in your image file names When preparing your files (on your local computer) for upload, always save them with file names that contain no spaces.

The image location has now been added to the "File on your local computer" field. Now, to upload the image, press the "Apply" button.

After the "Apply" button has been pressed, the "Image selection" window closes and your product thumbnail is displayed.

Next, proceed by choosing the categories that you wish for your product to be listed under. The category selection dropdown boxes are located under "Classification" and you can choose up to a total of 4 categories for your product to be listed under.

First, choose your main category that you wish for your product to be listed under. If there are additional categories that suit your product, you may choose them under "Additional category #1", #2 and #3. If you wish to only select one category to list your product under, simply leave the additional category dropdown boxes as "Undefined".

The "Availability" option allows you to either make the product immediately available for sale or "Disabled". If you wish to further customize your product prior to offering it for sale, select "Disabled" from the dropdown box.

The next step is to provide details of the product. This is accomplished in the "Details" section.

The first 4 fields are SKU, Product name, Description and Detailed description. If you have already designated an SKU number for your product via a centralized cataloging system, you may enter it's existing SKU into the SKU field. If you have never designated an SKU for your product, additional information regarding the matter is as follows:

SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit and is a number associated with a product for inventory purposes. CraftMall.com uses this number to identify an individual product. Because of this, each product must have a SKU, and each SKU needs to be unique.

If your product does not have an SKU, ISBN, or part number, you can invent your own arbitrary numbering system. The important thing is, you give CraftMall.com unique numbers that it can use to reference each of your products.

While SKU's are traditionally numeric, for our system, you may add text such as the product name. This makes the process of designating an SKU for each of your products a much more intuitive process.

The next field is "Product name". Enter the name of the product but make sure that the name that you enter is not too long or it may be displayed poorly on the "product detail" page.

As you can see from the example above, a long product name displays poorly on the "product detail" page. The product number (assigned automatically) is also displayed after your product name so this as well must be taken into consideration when choosing the length of your product name. A maximum of 27 characters (including spaces) is a good general rule of thumb when entering product names. You don't have to go into detail for your product name, additional details will be added into the following fields.

The next field is the "Description". You will notice that there are actually two description fields, the second being "Detailed description". The differences between the two is the first "description" is meant to be a brief summary that is displayed to the customer in the categories and Featured Products view. The second, "Detailed description" is the description that is displayed on the "product detail" page and contains the complete description including all of your details. However, don't be too concerned about entering too much information into the "description" field as the display that the customer sees will automatically truncate the amount of text displayed if you exceed the maximum amount of text. It's just something to consider before you write a book in the "description field".

The next field "Detailed description" is the field that you want to enter all of the details for your product and is displayed on your "product detail" page.

The next fields are "Retail price", "Quantity in stock", "Low limit in stock", "Min order amount", "Weight", "Tax exempt (dropdown)", "Free shipping (dropdown)", "Shipping freight", and "Apply global discounts (checkbox)".

Retail price:
In the "Retail price" field, enter the price at which you wish to sell your product.

Quantity in stock (items):
For the "Quantity in stock" field, enter the quantity of the product that you have in stock. The CraftMall.com system has built in a stock items tracking system that you can use to track the number of products in your stock. Every time you sell a certain number of the product, the number will be lowered automatically.

Low limit in stock:
This field allows you to define the minimal number of items in the stock, if the number of items is equal or lower then the amount specified in the "Low limit in stock" field, the product will no longer be available for sale.

Min order amount:
This field allows you to define the minimal number of items that you will accept in orders by your customers.

Weight (lbs):
This field allows you to display the weight of the product which is useful for large or heavy products. If you do not know the weight of your product, you can simply leave it at "0.00". However, be advised that customers may wish to know the weight of your product so be prepared to give them a general idea if they email you about it.

Tax exempt:
If you are selling your product as a fund raiser or other tax exempt scenario, you can specify the product to be exempt of any tax calculations during the customer checkout process by selecting "Yes" from the dropdown. Otherwise, leave as "No".

Free shipping:
If you wish to offer free shipping on this product, select "Yes" from the dropdown, otherwise leave as "No".

Shipping freight ($):
If you have special expenses for product packaging, you can define the Shipping freight (as a dollar amount) to cover these expenses.

It is important to note that the "Shipping freight" field is not the shipping price for shipping the product. The "Shipping freight" field allows you to add an additional charge to the final "Shipping charges" calculation for a particular product. Let's say for example that you have 1 product that is a heavy item and costs more to ship then your other products. You can use the "Shipping freight" field for the heavy product to add an additional fee to the final shipping calculation in order to compensate for the added expense of shipping the product due to the product's heavy weight.

Apply global discounts (checkbox):
tick the Apply global discounts check box if you want global discount rates to be applied to the product.

Sale:
The "Sale" section is used for putting a product on sale. This is discussed under "Product sale".

PayPal Processing:
The PayPal Processing feature is for those who use PayPal exclusively for accepting credit cards. If you use PayPal for accepting credit cards, tick the checkbox next to "Use PayPal for purchasing of this product" and paste your PayPal "Buy Now" button code into the "Buy Now button code" text box. By doing so, the customer will see your PayPal Buy Now button instead of the standard CraftMall.com "Add to cart" button. Once clicked, the customer will purchase your product through PayPal instead of purchasing your product through the CraftMall.com checkout process.

To complete the process and add your product, press the "Submit changes" button.

If your product requires options for the customer to choose from or you would like to add additional information such as "detailed images" which are larger images for customers to view, you can do so by first adding your product with it's current information by pressing the "Submit changes" button (as noted above) and then modifying the product. The product modification page not only allows you to change or edit the information that you originally entered but it also provides additional (more advanced) options for you to customize your product page. Additional information can be found in "Modify product".

 

Related Content: Modify product Product sale