One of the things that makes
Merchant easy to use is the ability to add products and categories in no particular order.
If you already have a clear idea of exactly which products will go in which
categories you may want to create your categories first.
Having categories available will allow you to assign each product directly to the correct
category as you create your products. However, you can only add a product to one
category directly as you are creating it. If you know a product will be in more than
one category, it will save little or no time to create the categories first and you can
easily add the categories after you have created your products.
 Step 1
| Login to your store through
admin and expand the "Products" section. Click "Add Product" and
the first add product screen will come up in the right hand frame. Like almost all
other areas of Miva Merchant admin, you can insert HTML code. The "Product
Code" will accept numbers and letters up to 50 characters. While it can accept HTML
code it is not advisable because all characters entered into this field will be
your product code!? |
|
 Before
you begin adding products we suggest that you come up with a system of assigning product
codes to items. As your store grows it can become confusing if unrelated products
have codes that are too similar.
The "Product Name" is also
alphanumeric and can hold up to 100 characters including HTML. This means you can
modify the text for the product name (e.g. make it bold, italic,
or a different color) or you can even use an image. For
example, you have exclusive items and would like to alert customers that those products
are only available through your store. (To learn more about HTML in admin click here.)
The next item we should look at is the "Category
Code" box. This is where you can assign a product directly to a given category
as you are creating it. If you know the category code already then just type it in,
if not you can use the "Lookup" button to locate it.
The "Price" box is the retail price of your item
(this is what the customer will pay), and the "Cost" box is where you input your
cost for the item. The cost will not show up on any screen and can be used for
calculating the discount on items using price groups.
These fields will accept numbers ONLY.
The weight is used to calculate shipping
based on weight. People who do not ship based on weight often wish to remove the
display of weight, but unfortunately it is not possible using standard Merchant. The
best you can do in this case, without using modules or editing the Miva Merchant Code (click here to find out how), is de-select its display in the
"Product Layout" tab of your categories (see editing
categories). This will eliminate it from showing on the category screen
(which is good) but it will still be visible on the product pages. So, you will need
to either leave the weight at zero (which can look funny) or put in the actual weight of
the item despite the fact that it has no relevance.
The product description box where you enter your info about
the product. It accepts HTML and JavaScript and virtually does not have a character
limit. Please note: although JavaScript is compatible with Merchant, some
JavaScripts will not work due to the fact that they may need certain components inserted
into the <head> of the document.
Be careful when
inserting HTML code into your Merchant admin. Stray <body> tags, unclosed
tables or <font> tags can cause the rest of your page to display incorrectly.
To find out more click here.
Merchant defaults all products as "taxable".
You must remember to uncheck this box if you are selling non-taxable items.
The last box on this screen is the "Active"
checkbox which allows you to hide a product if you do not want it to be accessible at this
time. If you leave the box selected the product will be immediately available, if
you de-select it the product will be hidden until you make it active again.
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