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Products & Inventory

Product Management

Navigate to Inventory —> Products. This will list all /vspxisting products in your database. From this page you may add new products and/or edit your existing products.

Adding New Products:

1. The easiest way to add new products is to click to edit an existing product, THEN, click the ADD tab at the top of the page. This will pre-fill all of the fields with the same data as the existing product to often save you time from having to retype common information. If you'd rather not have all fields pre-filled you may simply click the ADD tab from the View All Products page.
2. Fill in all the fields appropriate for this product. Please note that almost all of the fields are optional and are rarely used. The field names listed in Bold are mandatory and must be filled in before you click on the Save Changes or Add New Record buttons. Here is a list of the most commonly used fields:

   Field	Description
   ProductCode	A unique part number/code for this product. Please see a detailed tutorial below for more information on choosing your product codes
   ProductName	The complete name of your product
   Product Name Short	The complete name of your product, but shorter. Try to omit any unnecessary words. This value is used in only two places: This field, which has to be less than 50 characters long, should contain the product name, however a shorter version than your ProductName field. This field is displayed on the home page of your website on the right hand side for the Super Deal, Top Sellers, New Products sections. Most importantly, it is displayed in the URL address of your product pages if you have the SEO Friendly feature enabled. This is a critical component for SEO optimization. Make sure to use a keyword or keyword phrase that you think customers will type to find your product. Leave out numbers and words that customers wouldn't type while looking for this product.
   Product Description	A long, detailed description of your product
   Product Description Short	A one or two paragraph maximum description, which is shown in search results and therefore should not have too much text
   Product Price	The price at which the product is being sold
   Product Weight	The weight of the product in pounds. This weight is used by the shipping calculation systems. If your product weighs less than a pound, such as a 1/2 pound, enter 0.5 into this field.
   Product Category(s)	Type in the CategoryID(s) of the categories in which you want this product to show up. You may type multiple categoryIDs separated by commas.

3. Upload the product's photos (see below for instructions).

Choosing Good Product Codes:

1. Be sure NOT to use any of the following reserved product codes: SETUP, GFT, FEE. Also be sure that your Product Codes do not begin with either DSC- or MEMBERSHIP-
2. Try to avoid any characters other than regular letters and numbers. For example, avoid the following characters: (") or (') or (&) or (/) or () or (+) or (#)
3. Do NOT include spaces within the Product Code

Examples of GOOD Product Codes...
ABC123 (Highly Recommended)
ABC-123 (HighlyRecommended)
ABC_123

Examples of BAD Product Codes...
ABC/123
ABC&123
ABC:123
ABC+123
ABC=123
ABC--123
ABC123.

Uploading Photos

There are multiple photo uploading options from automatic thumbnail creation to pre-thumbnailed batch uploading.

Upload Method	Description
Product Image Uploader (Recommended!)	PROS: Upload one large photo, and it will automatically create the four required thumbnails
	CONS: You can only upload one photo at a time.
FTP Upload	PROS: Will work on any computer or browser
	CONS: You must resize and correctly name each of your photos before you upload them.

When creating photos for your products to upload via FTP, follow these standard guidelines:

1. Each of your main product photos must be resized to three smaller sizes (we call them thumbnails)
2. Each photo must be named according to the naming syntax described on this page

Note: Most people use the Product Image Uploader method described above, which can be accessed by going to EDIT an existing product and clicking on Upload New Photos. This is by far the easiest way to upload photos. If you use this method you can disregard all further notes below about photos because the Product Image Uploader method takes care of everything automatically.

Easy Upload Instructions:

• Click on a product code to EDIT, then click on Upload New Photos on the upper left-hand corner.
• Click on the Browse button and locate the file on your computer(Note: We recommend that you use a JPG file format), select the image file, click OK
• Click on the Upload my Images button. The photo will be renamed and resized in accordance with the naming syntax automatically. Once the file has been successfully uploaded, you will be able to preview the resized photos.

If you want to specify specific sizes for the four thumbnails, this can be done by clicking the Advanced Options link below the Uploader's progress bar.

When resizing your photos, you can choose to resize the photo based on Width, Height or Both. The four different sizes next to each field and where the photo is used is described in the chart below.

If you have a large number of existing photos, you can use the FTP Upload which requires uploading your photos via FTP. You can also use the Thumbnail Generator program that will automatically resize(create thumbnails) and rename all of your photos with a single click. Click here to download this program: Thumbnail Generator

Additional information on the Thumbnail Generator can be found HERE.

Naming Syntax: (product code)-(photosize).(filetype).

Photo Size	Easy Upload Name	Recommended Dimension	Usage
0	Tiny	50x50	Image on Shopping Cart page	REQUIRED
1	Small	100x100	Thumbnail on Search Results & Home Page Featured Products	REQUIRED
2S	Alternate View Size	25x25	Alternate View Thumbnail	OPTIONAL
2T	Medium	150x150	Normal Image on Product Page & PhotoGallery.asp	REQUIRED
2	Large	500x500	Larger Image	REQUIRED
............................................................................................................................................................................................
3T	Medium	150x150	Additional Image	OPTIONAL
3	Large	500x500	Additional Image Thumbnail	OPTIONAL
4T	Medium	150x150	Additional Image	OPTIONAL
4	Large	500x500	Additional Image Thumbnail	OPTIONAL
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
etc.	etc. (unlimited photos supported)			etc.

EXAMPLE: This is how you would name the photos for a product with product code CD445.
CD445-0.jpg
CD445-1.jpg
CD445-2.jpg
CD445-2T.jpg
CD445-3.jpg
CD445-3T.jpg
CD445-4.jpg
CD445-4T.jpg

All product photos are placed into the folder /vspfiles/photos/

Note that any explicit references in your own HTML code (used internally or from outside the site) to these files would need to refer to them as "/v/vspfiles/photos/filename" because of the virtual directory in which your site is located.  If referenced external (from another site) would also include the protocol (http://) and the domain name, using something like this:  http://www.yourdomainamehere.com/v/vspfiles/images/filename-2T.jpg

Manufacturer Logos

Manufacturer Logos are also supported! Simply upload the manufacturer's logo as a .jpg file into the /v/photos/manufactures/ directory and the name of the files should be the same as the manufacturer's name.

For example, if a manufacturer's name is Sony, then you should name the file sony.jpg. Recommended maximum image dimensions are 100 x 40 (width x height).

You can also use the manufacturer logo uploader by editing any individual product under Inventory —> Products.

Generate Alternate View Photo

This feature allows you to have different images displayed for one product that appear below the main product image. When the alternate view is clicked on, the main product image will change to that specific alternate view. The screen shot below shows the results of using Alternate Views:

To see a working example of Alternate Views, please see our demo store: Alternate Views

To setup Alternate Views, follow the below steps:

1. Go to Inventory —> Products —> and select the product.
2. Select Upload new Photos and select Advanced Options to expand it out
   
3. Place a check next to Generate Alternate View Photo.
4. This will display a text box to set the size of the Alternate View
   
5. Browse for the image file on your computer, and then click upload.

Inventory Management

To begin using the live inventory management feature, start by defining your current product's StockStatus value in the Products table.

Understanding InStock vs. Out of Stock:

A product is InStock if the StockStatus field for the product is greater than zero OR if the StockStatus field is left blank(NULL). A product is Out of Stock if the StockStatus is zero or less.

As long as the StockStatus field has a stock value OR, is NOT left blank(NULL), each time this item is purchased, your store will automatically deduct the quantity ordered from the product's StockStatus value. If this field is left blank(NULL), the system considers the product to have UNLIMITED stock and therefore is treated as always in stock.

Each time you receive a new product into inventory, you can add the quantity to the product's StockStatus value.

Displaying StockStatus to the Customer:

If the Config_EnableLiveStockStatus variable is enabled, the customer is able to view the actual StockStatus quantity on the product details page. Or, if instead, the configuration variable Config_EnableDisplayStockStatus is enabled, the customer is able to view the text In Stock on the product details page if your product's current stock status is greater than 0, or Out of Stock if the StockStatus is less than 0. If you do not wish to display any indication of StockStatus to the customer, you may set the configuration variable Config_EnableDisplayStockStatus to N.

You may also use the Availability field of the Products table to indicate availability. This field is a static field, not affected by your actual StockStatus in any way.

Handling Back Orders:

Enabling the configuration variable Config_EnableAllowBackOrders will allow customers to order products which currently have a StockStatus of less than 1. If you want to allow back orders only on certain products, you'll need to enable this variable, and then use the DoNotAllowBackOrders field of the Products table to disable back orders for a specific product.

In-Stock Requests

Customers can choice to be emailed when a particular product is back in stock. This is tracked in the Back_In_Stock_Requests table under Marketing —> In-Stock Requests. This feature only works under the following criteria:

1. Config variable Enable_Back_In_Stock_Requests is active under Marketing —> In-Stock Requests —> Back_In_Stock_Requests Settings
2. The product has DoNotAllowBackOrders enabled
3. The Stock Status of the product is 0

Once this criteria is met, if a customer goes to the product details page, they will see a link that says Email me when Back-In-Stock and when clicked on, will then take them to a page that will ask them for their email address.

To view your current in-stock requests, go to Marketing —> In-Stock Requests in your administration area. Here you will see each request for your products, the email addresses, date requested and how many times the product has been requested. Below is a list of the fields in the Back_In_Stock_Requests table and what each field is.

Field Name	Usage
ID_Back_In_Stock_Requests	System generated ID number
ProductCode	The product the customer is requesting to know when it is back in stock
EmailAddress	Customer's email address they want to be notified at
Date Requested	Date customer made back in-stock request
Active In-Stock Requests	Total in-stock requests for this particular product

In order for the Emails to be sent out to the customers to notify them the product is back in stock, the Stock Status of that product can only be changed by either manually adding the value using the Edit Mode for that product, or you use the PO system to mark that you have received the product.

The Back in stock email that will not get sent out if the stock status is updated using the Bulk Update feature or if you import from a spreadsheet. Since Importing and Bulk Update write directly to the database, they will NOT trigger the back in stock email to get sent out.

Multi-Child Add To Cart

This feature lists multiple products under a single product and allows your customers to purchase multiple products and quantities at once. For a hands-on example of how to implement this feature, watch our Training Video. Below is an alternate method of setting up Multi-Child Add to Cart.

To create the parent product for Multi-Child Add to Cart, follow the below steps:

1. Go to Inventory —> Products
2. Click Add
3. Enter the Product Code and Product Name
4. Set the Product Price to 0.00 (which is ignored)
   
5. Scroll down to the Advanced Options section
6. Check the EnableMultiChildAddToCart field
   
7. Click Add New at the bottom

This will create the parent product which is the product the customer will browse for on your site. To create the child products.

1. Click Add
2. Enter the Product Code and Product Name
3. Enter the price of the product the customer is purchasing
4. Scroll down to the Advanced Options section
5. In the field IsChildOfProductCode enter the Product Code of the parent product created
6. Click Add New at the bottom
7. Repeat the six steps above to create additional child products -- remembering to give each child product a unique Product Code and Product Name
   

When you are finished adding all the products, view the Live Product Page for the parent product. Refer to the screen shot below as an example of creating Multi-Child Add to Cart:

The Item # is the product code of the child products. With this feature a customer could order all of the products at the same time and multiple quanties without having to add each product individually.

Recurring Payments

Recurring payments allow you to sell products which have a recurring fee, such as a periodic monthly fee. Enabling the config variable Config_EnableRecurringPayments allows six extra form fields to be displayed on the Product Configuration page, to set up products to incur recurring fees. You'll be able to create any schedule of fees, including monthly fees, yearly fees, any number of months in between and even promotional start pricing.

To configure the recurring product navigate to Inventory --> Products and click the Add tab. Scroll down to the Recurring Pricing section and you will see the following:

• Recurring_Pricing_Text: This text is displayed as the product name, and product price of a recurring priced product. For example, if your product has a setup cost of $20, and the price will be $15 a month thereafter, you should put something like this: "Price: $20 initial fee and $15/mo"
• Recurring Price: This is the recurring price that you would like to charge the customer each time the recurring bill is due.
• Recurring How Often (months): This field sets how often this transaction will automatically recur. For example a 1 sets it to monthly, a 3 sets it to every 3 months, a 12 sets it to yearly, etc.
• Recurring Duration: This sets the duration of the recurring transaction. For example if you set it to 12, your system will continue billing the customer for 12 months only. If you set it to 60, your system will continue billing the customer for the next 5 years. Setting this field to 0 or leaving it blank will allow for UNLIMITED duration, which is commonly used for subscriptions.
NOTE: This duration is IN ADDITION TO the RecurringStartDuration. For example if your RecurringStartDuration is set to 6 and this RecurringDuration is set to 12, the total duration will be 18 months.
• Recurring Start Price: If this item invokes a recurring transaction, this is the promotional price that will be charged for the first "x" months. For example if you want to start the pricing at $20/month for the first 6 months, you would set this field to $20.
• Recurring Start Duration (months): This is the duration for which the promotional pricing will last. For example if you want to charge $20/month for the first 6 months, and $35/month every month thereafter, you would set this field to 6.

Setting up a product that costs $19.95 per month:

1. Set the Product Price to $0.00
2. Set the Recurring Price to $19.95
3. Set the Recurring How Often (months) to 1

Setting up a product that costs $99.00 per year + $20 setup fee:

1. Set the Product Price to $20.00
2. Set the Recurring Price to $99.00
3. Set the Recurring How Often (months) to 12

Setting up a product that costs $19.95/mo for the first Three months, then $49.95/mo thereafter:

1. Set the ProductPrice to $0.00
2. Set the Recurring Price to $49.95
3. Set the Recurring How Often (months) to 1
4. Set the Recurring Start Price to 19.95
5. Set the Recurring Start Duration to 3

Downloadable Products

To set up a downloadable product, go to edit the existing product and then follow these steps:

1. Set the Product Weight to 0
   
2. Enter the name of the file for upload in the Download File field. For example, if the filename is eBook.zip, then type eBook.zip into this field.
3. Click on the [Upload File] link located next to the Download FileName field which will allow you to upload the ebook.zip file to the server. Make sure the name of the file for upload and the name of the file in the Download FileName field are the same.

When the customer purchases the product, the link to download it is sent in the OrderHasShipped.asp email. This is the email sent when an order has been marked as shipped by clicking the Complete Order / Send Emails link in the order details. You can also manually send the email by selecting Shipped in the drop down menu at the bottom of the Quick Order Processing section of the order details. You must also collect payment on the order before you send the Shipped email, otherwise the link will not work.

The system can accept any file type, however some file types may need to be enabled on the server. If you test your product and the file does not download, please contact support at 800-646-3517 to see if the file type needs to be enabled.

Sometimes Microsoft Windows will hide the extensions of your files, which may cause confusion when working with your store, where the extensions of files are important. To adjust your Windows setting's please follow these steps:

1. Double-click on your My Computer icon
2. In the window that pops up, go to Tools —> Folder Options
3. In the dialog box that pops up, click on the View tab, UN-CHECK the option Hide extensions for known file types, and click OK to close the window

Product Key Distribution

The Product Key Distribution system is used for the following scenarios:

• If you sell software that requires you to provide a unique activation code to each customer purchase
• If you would like to send an e-mail to a customer to provide more information about a specific product purchased.

This system basically sends out an e-mail to the customer when payment is received for an order (payment captured).

Setting up UNIQUE Product Keys for Distribution for an individual product:

For example, let's say the first piece of software you want to set up is called BlueSkySoftware

1. Navigate to Inventory —> Product Key Distribution, click the ADD tab
2. Set PKey_KeyType to BlueSkySoftware
3. Set PKey_Email_Template to generic.asp. You can create a new customized template for each key type if you'd like.
4. Set Pkey_Email_Subject  to Your BlueSkySoftware key
5. Set PKey_DateAdded to today's date. Keys will be distributed OLDEST first
6. Leave PKey_AllowReuse as blank because you don't want to reuse any keys
7. Leave PKey_Used blank because this key is obviously not used yet
8. Fill in the PKey_Email_Body with the key itself, such as ABCD-1234-WXYZ-9876. You may type more text into the body as well, before or after the key, but obviously the point of this is to give the customer their activation key code. It is often easiest to add any additional text into the Email Template itself by creating a custom e-mail template, rather than entering lots of text here.
9. Click the Add New button to add this new key. You can repeat this process for as many keys as you have. If you have 100 keys for this BlueSkySoftware product ready to go, you'll need to have 100 records in this Product Keys table. Once you have added a few records and tested it, it's often easiest to import them from a .CSV file (see the Import/Export section of this manual for more information).

Setting up a RE-USABLE Product Key for Distribution for an individual product using the PKey_Allow Reuse Field:

Navigate to Inventory —> Product Key Distribution, click the ADD tab

PKey_AllowReuse field is used if you are NOT distributing UNIQUE keys for a product. If this field is enabled, you only have to set up one record, as opposed to setting up 100 records(one for each time the product is ordered). The PKey_AllowReuse field allows a single key to be reused unlimited times. This transforms the ability of the Product Key Distribution system to be beneficial for many uses. You do not have to include a key in the e-mail that is sent to the customer, you can instead just send an e-mail with content / information about the product they just purchased.

For example, if you set up the Product Key Distribution system for a digital camera, you could send the customer an e-mail on photography tips & advice.

Another useful example, if you sell information, and if a customer purchases a product called Secrets of Online Marketing for example, your store could automatically send out an email to the customer with all information OR send an e-mail with a link to download / view the information online.

To send a product key automatically to a customer as soon as the payment for the order was received:

• Navigate to Inventory —> Products
• Click to edit the product that is associated with the BlueSkySoftware set of keys, enter BlueSkySoftware in the Uses_ProductKeyType(s) field.
• If a customer orders this product, it will send the customer a unique key for the BlueSkySoftware automatically as soon as payment is received for the order.