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To download the full Version 5 Manual, please go to http://manual.volusion.com The following is an excerpt from the Inventory chapter within the V5 Manual.
This is it! Commerce is our goal here and in order to achieve that, we need products to sell. Volusion V5 offers a multitude of options for merchants to configure products and product settings in order to sell online. From basic goods, to monthly subscriptions, downloadable products and more, Volusion V5 offers one of the most comprehensive ways online merchants can configure the products their online store sells. This chapter of the Volusion V5 Manual will cover all of the different settings that can apply to the online store's products. There are quite a few settings and variables merchants can use here so dig-in and get ready! Getting Started:Accessing the Volusion V5 Products page is easy. Simply click on the Inventory tab in the Volusion Admin Page and click the Products link in the green menu bar. This redirects to the Products table view page. From here, add, modify, delete products, view lists of products that have low inventory or need to be re-ordered and configure store variables that govern product settings. Part I - Easy Mode:This is the easiest method of creating new products in the Volusion store. To access the Products table's Easy Mode, once having arrived at the main Products table view, click on the "Switch to Easy Mode" tab near the top right of the page. Within Easy Mode, merchants will have access to only basic product settings but from here, can rapidly set up basic products within their stores. On this page, configure the following settings for each product:
* These fields are required for each and every product. Once product settings are configured as needed, clicking the blue Add Product button will enter the product into the Volusion database. Merchants can create as many products as they wish from here (provided they are within any product total limit based on their Volusion store plan). Read on for more advanced product settings that can be configured. Part II - Creating a New Product:Within the main, Products table page, there is already a selection of "demo" products that have been pre-generated within Volusion based on some of the choices that were made during the demo or store registration process. These demo products are not meant to be sold but are provided as an example of what a fully-configured product might look like in the Volusion Admin Page. These products can be edited by clicking on their Product Code. Create new products by clicking the blue Add button near the top of the table. Again, setting up new products in the here can be either very simple, may require a great deal of configuration or could be somewhere in between - depending on what kind of product and its relative behavior that merchants want it to have within their stores. Just as with creating new products in the Easy Mode, each product must have a Product Code, Product Name and Product Price defined for it. All other settings for each product are optional though merchants will find different fields necessary to create the exact products they are going to sell online. Simply click Save Changes to finish creating a new product. Once a product is created, despite the product behavior that the merchant may require of it, there are generally recommended settings to configure for every product in addition to the required fields mentioned above. This section will describe each of these settings in detail: Product Weight:Within the "Basic Product Info" heading, merchants will want to assign a weight to their product. This can be in either pounds or kilograms - depending on what weight standard was selected during the initial store setup - and will be the primary field Volusion will use to determine shipping costs for products. A weight should be provided for each and every product except if the product is to be a downloadable product, configured to use the Fixed Shipping option or is a gift certificate product. In these cases, leave the product weight field empty. Product Description:Again in the "Basic Product Info" header, the Product Description field will provide the actual description of a product to viewers when it is browsed from the storefront. Merchants can enter either text, HTML or a combination of both to describe products. Each product should have a description to inform customers as to what it is they will be purchasing. Categories:Below Product Description, is the ApplyToCategoryID(s) field. Here, products can be assigned to one or more categories. Each product should be assigned to at least one category to make it easier for store visitors to find products as well as to allow options such as Filter Categories function properly. SEO:Below the "Basic Product Info" header is "Search Engine Optimization". This heading contains 5 text fields that are optional but should be configured for all products. "Search Engine Optimization" is the act of inserting specific "meta data" into web pages in order to increase the likelihood that the page will be successfully browsed, indexed and categorized by various search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN). Search engine optimization is essentially a marketing practice - the more search engines browse and index a site, the easier it should be for visitors to find that page. SEO can be a complicated affair but Volusion makes this easy! Simply fill out all 5 fields here for each product to optimize each product's page for SEO. These settings are as follows:
Note that all 5 fields must be set in order for product SEO to function properly. Warehouses:As discussed in the Volusion V5 Manual chapter on Warehouses, within the Shipping Options heading, the Warehouse(ID)s file can be edited to add one or more warehouses to the product. This option is not necessary for every product however must be configured if merchants are shipping their products from a location outside of their primary business address (as defined in the Volusion Admin Page under the Company settings). Simply click the "Click To Edit" link and add warehouses to the product. Prefer to the V5 Manual chapter on Warehouses for more information. Stock:Unless a product is being configured as a downloadable product or merchants simply will not track inventory, each product must have its stock value initialized. Under the Vendor Information heading, the Stock Status field can be edited to define the current inventory of a product. Simply enter a number into this filed and click Save Changes. Stock can be set to 0 or greater (or even a negative number if the store will be allowing items to be back-ordered). Note that this value must be initialized before Volusion will actually track stock for a product. By default, Stock Status is null and if left at that value, will never be incremented or decremented based on orders, RMAs or purchase orders processed in Volusion. Summary:Parts I and II within this chapter have covered the basics of creating a product within Volusion. Though some of these settings are not necessary for the system function, they are highly recommended to be configured to follow some of the best practices for creating products to sell online. There is one additional, vital setting that all merchants should attend to as well - images: Part III - Product Images:Probably the most important step in setting up products in the Volusion store is adding product images. Customers of course want to see what they are going to buy and Volusion provides several display options to merchants in Version 5. Within each product's settings page, a Helpful Links heading will be listed. Below that heading, click on the "Upload New Photos" link to being adding images to a product.
Please note that product photos uploaded to the Volusion store must be in either .jpg or .gif format. If product photos are edited in image editors such as Adobe Photoshop, please make sure that the image is in RGB color format before saving the image. Upon the upload of the basic product image, the system will actually create 4 versions of that image:
Custom Sizes:Define custom sizes for their products' photos by clicking on the Advanced Options link in the "Upload New Photos" section of the product settings. Using the input fields and drop-down menus provided, define the size in pixels for either the maximum width or maximum height (or both) for the medium and large photos that will be generated within the store. Clicking the "Make These My Default Sizes" option will set any custom size setting here as the default for all future product image uploads. Alternate Photos:A picture is worth 1,000 words so 2 or 3 pictures are worth several thousand words. Each product can have multiple images assigned to it. Using the steps above can assign a main image to a product. They can also add alternate product photos to a product. Merchants can have as many alternate product photos as they wish. Here's how:
Once this is complete, viewing the product page in the Volusion storefront will reveal one or more thumbnail images below the main product image. Clicking on the thumbnail will load the alternative view photos into the product's details page, replacing the primary image. This allows visitors the ability to select additional views of products. Merchants may want to include multiple views of products (such as consumer electronics) so that they can display front, back and profile details of the products to their customers. Removing Product Photos: In order to replace a photo already attached to a product, merchants will first have to delete the original photo. This can be done in 1 of 2 ways.
Part IV - Product Settings:For each product, several series of settings can be configured. There are many different settings that can be applied to each product. Each set of settings is divided into sub headings within the product settings page, based on the functions of the product each set of settings governs. These product setting sub headings are as follows:
Volusion provides numerous options to configure product settings and affect how they are sold online. Some merchants may need to utilize many of these settings, others very few - depending on the merchant's needs. The explanation for each setting and how merchants can use them will be provided in the Volusion V5 Manual Appendix - Product Settings. Please refer to that portion of the manual for details on these settings. Part V - Advanced Product Settings:There are a series of advanced options that can be applied to products that act independently of the product settings. These settings are listed at the bottom of each product's settings page - below the Save Changes option on the page. Each of these settings apply special behavior to a product and will be discussed in detail below: The Inventory Control Grid:As mentioned in the Product Options chapter of the manual, Volusion V5 can manage product inventory for not just products but different versions of a product with options to choose from (e.g. a small, red, t-shirt vs. a large, blue, t-shirt). In order to do this, a product must have options assigned to it and then have the "Inventory Control Grid" function activated for the product. Please refer to the Product Options category for more information on how to setup Smartmatch options and the "Inventory Control Grid". For a product has had the "Inventory Control Grid" activated, all child products for the parent product will be created within the Volusion store and links to those child products will be stored within this section of the parent product's settings page. Clicking on the "Inventory Control Grid for X" heading in the product settings page will expand this section of the page and reveal a table containing all child products that have been created for the product using the "Inventory Control Grid". In this expanded section of product settings, merchants will find some quick links to both the options that have been applied to the product (which child products are generated from) and to a table view page that will list all child products belonging to the parent product. Also in this section is a table that will list all child products and settings for those child products that can be modified from this page. This table will act as a shortcut that allows merchants to quickly update settings such as stock values for child products. The settings for each child product displayed in this table are as follows:
Once any changes to a child product in the grid are made, simply click the "Save Changes to Inventory Control Grid" button to save those changes. Notes:When reading a list of child products in the "Inventory Control Grid", keep in mind that each individual child product will have a list of each option applied to it - listed line-by-line. Merchants may see Option ID, Option Description and other information repeated often within the grid. This information will be listed for every child product. The best way of telling which child product is which is of course to examine their individual product codes. When activating the "Inventory Control Grid", be sure that the SmartMatch_AutoCreateChildInventory setting is enabled. This setting can be found in the main Products table by clicking on the purple Products Settings link. If the "Inventory Control Grid" is activated for a product but child products in the grid do not allow their prices to be edited nor have a unique Product Code assigned to them, it is likely that the auto-create variable is not active. Merchants will need to remove all product options from the parent product, save changes to the product, enable the auto-create variable, add product options back to the parent product and click Save Changes again to recreate the grid properly. Also, note that when using the control grid that Volusion recommends against enabling the Hide_When_OutOfStock option for the store's child products. The Hide_When_OutOfStock option will hide any child product after any order has reduced its stock status set to less than 1. Additionally, these child products will be automatically unhidden if their stock status is set to a number greater than zero. This feature can cause logistic issues for merchants when managing their store's child products. Using the Multi-Child Add to Cart Feature:One of the unique features Volusion provides for use with its powerful Smartmatch and Inventory Control Grid functions is the ability to display your products with their configured options using Volusion's Multi-Child Add to Cart feature.
This feature essentially displays all child products, created form a parent product using the Inventory Control Grid, on a single page in a table that will allow customers to select which product/option combination they wish to purchase and what quantities they wish to purchase for each child product. Example:A merchant has configured a pair of running shoes for sale in their Volusion store. The shoes come in 3 different colors and 3 different sizes. The merchant has already created their parent product for the running shoe, created 2 product options categories (one for size, another for color), created each size and color option, assigned these to the product option categories, assigned these categories to the parent product and activated the Inventory Control Grid option. Typically, customers would visit the running shoe's product page and order their shoe of choice (say, a mens' size 10 in red). However, what if the merchant is a wholesaler or sells large quantities of running shoes and athletic equipment to schools or sports organizations? It would be a bit of a hassle for customers to have to continually refresh the product page within their store to order multiple versions of the same running shoe. This is where the "Multi-Child Add to Cart" feature comes into play. With this option enabled, the product page will display within a table every single child product associated with the parent product in its "Inventory Control Grid". Each child product will be displayed within its own table row, along with a quantity field and checkbox. Customers can then simply check which product variant(s) they wish to purchase, enter the quantity of each product to purchase and click "Add to Cart" to place all product variants and quantities into their shopping cart in one go. Enabling the Multi-Child Add to Cart Option:Implementing this function can save time for your customers and hopefully increase sales. The "Multi-Child Add to Cart" feature can be particularly useful for merchant who operate as wholesalers or tend to sell particular products in large volumes. You can activate the "Multi-Child Add to Cart" feature by doing the following:
Once this process is complete, your parent product will be configured to display the "Multi-Child Add to Cart" grid just below the product's main image. Customers can then order any of the associated child products from this page by checking the child products they want, setting the quantity values for each accordingly and clicking Add to Cart. Note:As mentioned in the steps listed above you will need to remove the product options and disable the "Inventory Control Grid" option for your parent product whenever implementing the "Multi-Child Add to Cart" function for a product. This is necessary as allowing both the standard product options on the same product page as the "Multi-Child Add to Cart" table will create a conflict when attempting to add products to the Volusion shopping cart. Since the product options associated with each child product will be fully represented within the "Multi-Child Add to Cart" table, the traditional product options are unnecessary. Also note that once child products have been created using the "Inventory Control Grid", this option can be deactivated without removing the child products from the system. The child products will be removed from the "Inventory Control Grid" table within the parent product's settings however, the child products will still remain linked to their parent and will display in the "Multi-Child Add to Cart" table. Vendor Rules:Described in detail in the Vendors chapter of the Volusion V5 Manual, each product can be configured with one or more vendors. The purpose of vendors in Volusion V5 is to allow merchants an easy way of generating orders to their suppliers to reorder product stock. Alternately, if using drop-shipping options, vendors can be configured to automatically send notices to 3rd party fulfillment centers for merchants when customers order their products. Vendor settings and setup is described in the Vendors chapter of the manual however, the Vendor Rules heading of each product will contain the necessary settings that will connect each product to one or more vendors. Click the "Vendor Rules for X" heading below the Save Changes options to expand the list of vendors applied to a product. Note that in order to apply a vendor to a product, merchants must have their vendors programmed in Volusion. See the Vendors chapter for more information. Each Vendor Rule contains the following settings:
* These fields are required to be entered for every Vendor Rule. Once a rule is configured, click the "Save Changes to Vendor Rules" to apply the rule to the product. Note that to create a Vendor Rule, merchants will need to know the ID to enter into the rules table. Within this portion of the product's settings page, click on the "View All Vendors" link to view the Vendors table. Additionally, click the "View All VendorRules" link to view a list of all rules within the system. Option Color Swatch Images:This portion of the Volusion e-commerce system is a power display option that can be activated within products to allow customers visiting a Volusion store more options to view products. The Color Swatch Images function allows merchants to configure their products to display not only a single product image but images for each color variant of the product that the customer can purchase with just a click of the mouse. A prime example is a t-shirt being offered in choices of red, blue or green. With the "Color Swatch Images" function enabled, when visitors choose one of the 3 color options from the product's drop-down menu, the product image will change to an image relative to the color option chosen by the customers. Merchants can add color swatches as well as color variant product images to their product by clicking on the "Option Color Swatch Images for X" heading within a product's options page, below the Save Changes option. First however, there are some requirements for products which must be met in order to use the "Color Swatch Images" function:
Once these requirements are met, color swatch images can be applied to the parent product. Clicking on the "Option Color Swatch Images for X" will display a series of image size options as well as a list of every option type that is applied to the parent product. Adding images for product variants, based on these options is easy.
Note to specify a single product image for "Medium and Large Images". The system will automatically create 2 images (a small and larger image) for the storefront display. Above the Color Swatch table, merchants also have the ability to set the pixel size of the color swatch image as well as the medium and large product photos. Simply enter a value in one of the 3 fields, select Height, Width or Both from the dropdown to define the dimensions for the image and the system will format swatches and images to the sizes defined. Merchants can also click the "Make These My Default Sizes" option to set any custom size settings as the system's default. Once the color swatches and photos have been uploaded, each color swatch will be displayed above the drop-down menu for each of the product's options. Clicking on the swatch itself or choosing the option from the drop-down will now automatically change the product photo to the appropriate color variant that the merchant uploaded. Using this option, Volusion merchants can further customize their storefront to make visitors' shopping experience more intuitive and increase sales. Summary:This portion of the Products chapter has covered the three advanced settings that can be configured for each product within Volusion Version 5. These settings can involve some time in setting up and may not be applicable or desirable for every merchant but the added bonus of offering color swatch images in conjunction with the Smartmatch control grid offer that last but of polish to make an online store more professional to visitors. In turn, these options along with rules for vendors have the added benefit of allowing merchants greater control over their products and inventory. Part VI - Product Config Variables:Aside from the different variables and settings for each individual product, there are a series of Config Variables that govern the behavior of products globally throughout the Volusion store. These variables can be enabled or disabled for various effects. Essentially, product-related settings that will affect all product behavior within the Volusion store are located here. To access this portion of the Products table, simply click on the purple Products Settings link in the main, Products table view. As with other settings and variables for Products, these additional product settings will be described in the Volusion V5 Manual Appendix - Products Settings. Once merchants have enabled or disabled any of the additional Products Settings within this portion of the Admin Page, they can click the Save Changes button within the purple settings table to make these changes active. Clicking on the Products Settings link will close the table. Part VII - Low Inventory:The Low Inventory table is a simple table within the Products page that lists any and all products that have reached or exceeded their "Stock Low Qty Alarm" setting (if applicable). This table can be accessed from the Products table at any time by clicking on the blue Low Inventory tab near the top of the Products table view page. This page will list any product, with its product code, price and other settings that is will soon be out of stock. This table acts as a quick report to merchants on which products they may need to reorder from vendors for their store. Example:Product ABC-123 has a stock value of 3. The "Stock Low Qty Alarm" setting for this product is set to 2. Soon, an order for a quantity of 1 is placed for ABC-123. Once the order is placed within Volusion, the stock value for the product will be automatically deducted. Since the stock value is now equal to the product's low quantity threshold, it will now appear in the Low Inventory table until the stock status is set to a value greater than 2. Note:The Search and Add links within this table are functional, however they simply redirect to search or add products in the main Products table. Part VIII - Queued for PO:Within the main Products table, click on the blue "Queued for PO" tab near the top of the page to view a list of all items that are ready to be ordered from vendors to replenish store stock. This tab is the second part of the Products page's inventory management function (the first being the Low Inventory tab). Products that appear in this tab have the following qualities:
If these requirements are met, the product will display automatically in the "Queued for PO" tab. From here, click on the "Generate All Purchase Orders" button near the top of the page. This will redirect to the Purchase Orders page, where a PO will have been created for all of their products within the "Queued for PO" table. Users can then click on a PO to process it. Optionally, If the "and send them now" option is checked within the "Queued for PO" tab, clicking the button to generate POs will not only create them but automatically send them to their related vendors. Once a PO is generated for any product in the "Queued for PO" table, the product will be removed from that table. Please see the Volusion V5 Manual chapter on Purchase Orders for further information. Tips and Special Settings:Shortcut to creating new products:Some merchants may think that with all the possible product configuration options available in Volusion V5, it will take them forever to program their store inventory. There are a couple of shortcuts merchants can use however to speed up this process. First, by default, Volusion stores will contain a series of demo products programmed into the Products table. These products are intended to give merchants examples of how products programmed into the system may look. Merchants however can reprogram these products to suit their needs rather than create a product in the Inventory section from scratch. This will save merchants some time in setting up their store products. Second, if a merchant intends on selling many similar products, they can reduce their setup time by programming a single product and then using the import and export processes detailed in the Import / Export portion of the V5 manual to quickly replicate those product settings in an export file of their choice (CSV, MDB, etc.). Finally, merchants can simply make the minute changes to each product as needed and import the file into their store to create many similar products in a very short amount of time. Please see the Volusion V5 Manual chapter on the system's Import / Export features for more information. Notes on Downloadable Products:Downloadable products are just that - products that customers download. These products can be anything from audio files, PDF documents, images or more. Downloadable products are sold through Volusion just like regular products however there are a few special settings that merchants will have to make in order to have their product setup as downloadable.
There is additional information merchants should be aware of when using downloadable products:
Tips on Using Recurring Billing:Configuring a product for recurring billing is an option merchants may use if they are selling subscriptions or periodic services (e.g. magazine subscriptions or annual service contracts). These types of products will be sold just as regular products would be within the Volusion store however there are a few special settings merchants must attend to: Once the a product that will offer recurring billing options is created, within the product's settings page, click the Recurring Pricing heading to expand that field's settings. Here, six settings will be displayed. How merchants should configure these settings depends on type of recurring billing they wish to have for the product. These settings are as follows:
In addition to these settings, merchants can define an additional Setup Cost for recurring billing by simply entering the Product Price. The Product Price field, when using recurring billing will be renamed to Setup Cost on the storefront automatically. Note on Configuring Recurring Payments:Please note that when configuring a product to use recurring billing that the Volusion recurring billing system will by default, bill customers for period specified plus the initial period of billing. For example, when configuring a product to bill customers once a month for the course of a year, entering a value of "11" into the Recurring Duration field and a value of "1" into the Recurring How Often field. In this case the product will charge customers its recurring price once a month for 11 months plus the additional, initial recurring charge. Example:A merchant selling satellite TV systems and services offers a satellite system with a $100 setup fee for installation, an initial $150 fee for the first month (to cover the cost of the hardware plus the first month of service) and $30 recurring fee that will continue every month after the initial month of service. To create a product that offers these pricing options, the merchant should configure the following:
Once this is set, the customer will be charged a $100 setup fee plus an initial $150 for hardware ($250) initial cost. Upon the 2nd month, customers will be charged $30 every month thereafter. Please note that the Recurring Pricing system will perform with any, standard credit gateway service however, the system is not designed for use with services such as PayPal. This is due to the initial "order-now-pay-later" behavior of electronic payment services such as PayPal. Details on processing orders with Recurring Payments in Volusion V5 will be covered in the manual chapter on Orders. Note on Recurring Payments and Credit Card Policies:Merchants offering products configured for recurring payments (e.g. magazine subscriptions) will want to set their credit card storage policy option to "Never" (as in never remove data from the system) and redefine the default value of days to keep credit card data to a value that will cover the length of time they will need to bill their customers on a recurring basis (e.g. 9,999 days). This setting can be found in the Volusion Admin Page under the Settings tab by clicking on the Payment link and then disabling the "Use Most Secure Settings" option. Merchants will need to do this as the Volusion store’s default credit storage policies will purge credit card data, preventing them from being able to collect recurring payments from customers. Configuring Products to Auto-Drop-Ship:Some merchants may sell and ship products through a 3rd party supplier as opposed to selling them directly to their customers. In these cases, customers purchase products from the merchant's Volusion store and that purchase goes directly to a vendor, manufacturer or 3rd party to process the order. In doing this, merchants will need to configure their store to automatically create a purchase order to be sent to the 3rd party whenever one of these products is purchased. This is actually quite easy to do in Volusion V5. Step 1 - Create a Vendor:As described in the Volusion V5 Manual chapter on Vendors, merchants will need to create a vendor to link to a product. This vendor will represent the 3rd party manufacturer or service that will actually "sell" and ship the product to customers. Step 2 - Create a Vendor Rule:As described in Part V of this chapter, merchants must create a vendor rule in their product(s) to link the vendor created in step 1 to their product. Step 3 - Set the Product to Auto-Drop-Ship:This is the easy part. Within the Vendor Information heading of the product's settings page, enable the AutoDropShip setting and click Save Changes. Once this is complete, the system will automatically create and send a purchase order when the product is ordered by the customer. Using the vendor rules, the system will automatically fax or send emails to the vendor for the product to be ordered/shipped to the customer once the payment has been processed for the order or the order has been marked as Shipped. Tips on Product Photos:Aside from the methods described above, there is an additional way for merchants to add product photos to their store by using the Volusion store's FTP account. FTP stands for "File Transfer Protocol" and is a standard way for computer systems to transfer files back and forth over the Internet. Merchants can set up an FTP account within their account at my.volusion.com. Merchants can then log into their FTP account using a standard FTP program from their local computer workstation. Once logged into the store's FTP account, navigate to the directory vspfiles/photos. This is the main directory where Volusion stores all product images. Product photos can be uploaded en-masse here. Product photos will however have to be named properly for the system to recognize them. Name product photos as follows: Each product photo name must begin with the product's Product Code. Following the product code should be a "-" and then the image type. These are the following image types stored within Volusion:
For example, a collection of images to be uploaded for a product with a Product Code of ABC-123 would be named the following:
Note these are the minimum required images for a product. Merchants can continue to upload additional photo sets (3, 3S, 3T, 4, 4S, 4T, etc.) depending on the number of alternate view images they wish to add. Finally, once these images are uploaded, rebuild the store's product's table index. To do this, click on the Settings tab in the Volusion Admin Page, click on the Maintenance link and finally click the "Rebuild Product Index" link in the Maintenance ToolBox. Summary:This chapter details some of the required or most frequently used features of the Volusion V5 Products table. There are many more settings that can be accessed within this portion of Volusion V5. Please refer to the Volusion V5 Manual Appendix - Product Settings for full details on what each individual product setting can do. Tags:
images, product photos, products, product settings, product setup, product images, related products, alternate images, child product, child products, color swatch, recurring products, downloadable products, auto-drop ship, auto drop ship
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