The Add Product adds a new product to the product catalog.

The following is a brief description of the form fields contained on the first page.

o SKU - Enter the product SKU or Part Number, which typically is a combination of letters and numbers. Note that the database will also automatically add to each product a unique Item Number, which is not displayed on this form. The Item Number uniquely identifies the product in your store’s database. The SKU, instead, is your own product identifier.

o Product Name - Enter the product name (Max 255 characters).

o Description - Enter a description for the product. This is the description that will be displayed to your store visitors when they opt to receive more details on a certain product. For example, if they run a product search, the shopping cart will return N items on the search results page. If they click on "More Details" next to any of the items, they will be shown a page that displays the product description that you are entering here (together with the general image and other product information).

Note: You can use any HTML tag to format the text in this field. For example, you can use the <b></b> tag to make a word bold. This also allows you to link to other pages on your Web site, display additional product images, etc.

o Retail price - Enter the price you will be charging your retail customers. You can automatically charge wholesale customers a different price (see BB prices below).

o List price - Enter the list price for the product. This is an optional, but very useful field. If you enter a price here, then you can use the Show Savings feature described below.

Note: make sure the list price is higher than the on-line price.

o B2B (Wholesale) Price: This is also an optional field. The field defines the price that is displayed to B2B wholesale customers and used to calculate their order totals. You can define which store visitors are wholesale customers under Customers Menu. See the section of this user guide dedicated to that topic for more details. B2B wholesale customers are automatically shown the wholesale price.

o Special Prices: In your store you can also define special prices for each customer. List the customer from Sales and Customers menu and select Assign Special Prices.

o Thumbnail image - Enter the thumbnail image file name and extension. Do not enter any directory path, just the file name (e.g. "myimage.gif"). Your store assumes that images for the product that you are adding have already been uploaded (or will be uploaded) to your server. All images must be uploaded to the following directory: www.yourstore.com /store/catalog/

If you haven’t already uploaded images to your server, you can do so by using your store’s automatic upload component, accessible by selecting Upload Images from the Products menu. To upload images using this component, Browse your computer until you locate the file(s).

When you are done locating the file(s), click on Upload to automatically move them to the right directory on your Web server. You will receive a confirmation message indicating that the upload was successful. To upload images to your server you can also use any FTP program. Many are available in the market, often free of charge. In addition, your Web hosting service provider may have some for you to download as well. For a list of good FTP programs available for download, run a search for "ftp" on http://www.download.com

o Image - Enter the file name for the product’s general image. Make sure that the image has been uploaded to your server, as described above.

o Category 1, 2 and 3 - To give you maximum flexibility, your store allows you to assign a product to multiple categories. For example, a gift shop could have the same poster appear under "Posters" (first category) and under "Home Décor" (second category). To manage categories and subcategories, see Create and Modify Product Categories. You can assign the same product to unlimited categories just by making some modifications to the BackOffice. By default it comes with 3 categories since is unusual to assign one product to more than 3 categories.

o Active - All products are active by default. If you uncheck this option, the product becomes inactive, and will not be shown in your store. The product will stop showing up in any search and/ or catalog page. Make sure that you have not placed hard-coded links to this particular product on any other page of your Web site.

o Show In Home and Hot Deals - You can set any item in your product catalog as a Show In Home or Hot Deals. This gives you the ability to promote certain products in your on-line store. All Hot Deals are displayed in a special page that you can link to from any other page on your Web site. For example, many Web stores link to the Specials page right from their home page.

o Weight - Enter the product's weight, in pounds. The weight can be used for dynamically calculating shipping charges. For information about configuring shipping options see Shipping Options. If you set the weight to zero, then customers will not be prompted to select a shipping option during the check out process. This can help you both with items that you do not ship and with those for which you want to offer free shipping.

o Stock - Enter the current stock level for this product. This is an optional field, which can help you manage your inventory. If a product is out of stock and you have selected the Show Out of Stock then the product details page on your store will display an “Out of stock” message. However, this will not affect your customers' ability to buy the product.

In other words, products can be purchased even if their stock level is 0. If you don’t want a product to be available for purchase, then uncheck the Active option.

o Form Quantity You can define the quantity to be allowed in the drop down quantity selection of view item page

o Availability Time in the view item page you can show the usual Delivering Time for this product

o Digital Goods You can define a download link, a serial code or any other digital goods text to be distributed automatically with Silent Response from payment gateways.

Remember that you can also use an optional Unique Serial Codes that will distribute unlimited serial codes defines previously for each product to be sold. There is also an optional package to distribute digital goods from Customer Menu (Show Order screen) with the advantage that the customer will not find out the real location and name of the file downloaded.

Click on the Add button to add the product to your catalog. A confirmation page will be displayed. Then you can opt to add Options to your product (the subject of the next section), modify it, add another product, or return to the product management window.

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