Adding Products

1. Product Title

Pretty self explanatory, but don't be tempted to add the brand in here (this is handled automatically elsewhere). Also, try to write a title that you think your audience will search for.

• Correct product title example: Triple TriTech Motorcycle Jacket
• Incorrect product title example: Triumph Triple TriTech Motorcycle Jacket (includes brand)
• Incorrect product title example: TriTech Jacket (not descriptive enough)

2. Product Description

Write a good description of your product, think of how you'd describe this to a customer on the phone or face to face. Be clear on the benefits and try to include some search terms, but make sure they're in context to prevent a keyword spamming penalty in the search engines. Here's a great resource for SEO optimised product descriptions

3. Product Media

"A picture is worth a thousand words". Research has shown that products with no images rarely sell - particularly higher value items. Here are the golden rules for adding images to your products:

• Upload up to 3-5 images for each product
• Always show products in scale
• Show your product from multiple angles
• At least 1 lifestyle / in situ image (sell the dream)
• Include related accessory images where appropriate (upselling)
• Include video's wherever possible - you can upload videos directly and / or add a YouTube link.
• Quality, quality, quality (poor quality, dark & blurry photos don't reflect well on your products or brand!)

4. Product Pricing

Here you're given 2 fields - 'Price' and 'Compare at price'. In the price box, add the actual price you want to sell the product for. In the 'Compare at price' you can add a higher price (was price) if you want to show a price reduction. (If a price is added in the 'Compare at price' box, your product will show a was / now price in your online store and will automatically appear in your 'Sale' collection.)

If you need to charge tax on this product, be sure to tick the 'Charge tax on this product' box.

There's also a 'Cost per item' field, that is optional for you to keep track of your margins. This is not visible in your online shop.

5. Product Inventory

You need to add a SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) and can add an optional barcode. If you want to track quantity in your inventory, be sure to tick the box. This means that when a product sells, it will reduce the quantity in your inventory accordingly.

IMPORTANT: SKUs should be unique and no two product variants should include the same SKU in their details

If you have items that are made to order, or you know you can quickly source them, you have the option to 'Continue selling when out of stock', which means your online store will always allow a purchase to complete, rather than showing an 'out of stock' message.

At the end of this section, there's an 'Available' field where you add the value for available stock items. That is, if you have 15 in stock, add '15' in this box. If you have multiple locations set up for your business, you can add the stock quantity values for each location.

6. Product Shipping

Here you select whether it's a 'physical product'. If it is a physical product (i.e not an e-Book or digital download for example) tick this box and add a product weight. This can be used to calculate shipping rates at checkout and label prices during fulfillment. Here's a great resource on the subject of packages and shipment rates

There's also a section here for customs information. Unless you're shipping internationally, you can ignore this.

7. Product Options

It's likely your products will have different options, such as size and colour. There are cases when a product will have no options, like a pack of cleaning cloths for example, but it's more common that your products will have at least one option.

In the 'Option name' field, enter your product option, such as 'size'. There are 4 default options here (Size, Colour, Material and Style) but you can enter your own value in the box, such as 'Individual item' or 'Set of 4', for example. Once you've added all the values for this option, click 'Done'.

You can now add another options, if required, such as 'Colour', 'Material', or 'Fuel type' etc.

8. Product Variants

If you added options for your product, you will now see table of 'Product Variants' that has been automatically generated - there is a separate entry for each possible combination.

Here you add the price for each variant, and also add the available quantity (if applicable) which will link in with your inventory tracking.

It is important that you check the SKU's that are generated from the parent SKU (that you added in section 5) to make sure they are correct. You can view the SKU's by using the horizontal slider at the bottom of the Variants box.

IMPORTANT: Shopify seems to automatically increment the SKU you added, which may cause you problems.

Example, if you added SKU 'ABC123' in the Inventory section, and you had 4 product variants, Shopify would generate the following SKU's: ABC123, ABC124, ABC125 and ABC126. Better practice might be to change these values to ABC123-S, ABC123-M, ABC123-L and ABC123-XL, which means that you won't run into problems if you had different product with the base SKU of ABC125.

9. Product Search Engine Listing

Here you will see a preview of how your product will appear in the search engines. It's always a good idea to check this is as good as it can be. Think about the points made above (in sections 1 and 2) regarding your title and description. If you feel you need to improve this, you can click on 'Edit' and add different values.

10. Metafields

This is not a standard Shopify product feature, but we have developed these Metafields to help you with how your product displays and to increase your chances of making that all important sale. Simply put, Metafields allow you to add additional information on each of your products that will clearly display in targeted areas of your live product page.

• Stock Message: If your product is made to order, or is subject to varying lead times - you can add some text here to explain this. This is very useful to educate your customers as to why this product may have a longer lead time.
  • Example: "These tables are made to order, to your exact specification. Once you place your order we will contact you to finalise your requirements and arrange a delivery time."
• Product Spec Table: Adding tables in the main product description (section 2) is an arduous task, and does not display very well on the main product description. We've developed a solution that takes away the pain for you.
  • NOTE: You can only input JSON data here (a type of code) but don't panic! Before you add any data into this field, head over to this handy Shopify Table Generator where you can easily add data into rows and columns, add rows, add columns etc without the need for any coding whatsoever. Once you've built up your table, simply hit the 'Export JSON' button and then copy the result code into the 'Product Spec Table' box. You can also import HTML directly from another source, so if you're adding a product where the correct data already exists in a table elsewhere, you can copy the code from that table and then past it into the 'Import HTML' box, and then export the result to JSON for adding into your 'Product Spec Table' field.
• FAQ: Add your FAQs and your responses here. For example:
  • Q. Does this filter ever need cleaning?
    A. We recommend removing and soaking the filter every 2 months for optimum performance.
    Q. How long do the batteries last?
    A. That's a tough one to answer as it depends on how often you use it, but with an average daily use of 10 mins per day the battery will last approx 3 months until you need to charge it again.
• Finance: Add a message or finance example that's specific to this product.
• Delivery: Add the details of how long delivery will take from receipt of order.
• Product Intro Text: Add a brief 'teaser' description that will appear right at the top of the product detail page. This is a really good thing to do - a powerful intro text can improve your chances of getting the sale - and it's great for SEO (search engine optimisation).

11. Product Status

This is simply as the name of this field suggests - if you want the product to be active and available for sale, select 'Active' and if you don't, select 'Draft'.

12. Product Organisation

This is a very important field as it relates to how your product will appear in your online shop.

Product category:

In the first field, this is where you select what the product type is - this is a broad category in the which the product should reside. Example, if the product is a T-Shirt, then this could reside in the 'Clothing' top level category.

Select the best category from the prepopulated list of options. You can't add a new option here as they are the universal standard that is used by multiple platforms and search engines. Once you have selected the most relevant category, be sure to use the same category for similar items that you add.

Product type:

Think of this as what specific type of product this is. That is, if it's a T-Shirt, then add the product type 'T-Shirt'. Every time you add an additional product type, all the product types you've added on other products will appear in dropdown list. Be careful not to have too many product types, keep them relatively broad and try to add new similar products to the same 'Product Type' group. That is, a red T-Shirt would go into the 'T-Shirts' product type, don't create a new one for 'Red T-Shirts'.

Tags:

Using tags is a very good way to build up your 'Collections', which is what the online store uses to group products. There are no tags by default, as you create them yourself. You can apply multiple tags to a product.

When adding a product tag, think about what 'Collection' (Group of products) you'd like this product to appear in. For example, if you want this product to appear in a collection called "Summer Clothing", then add the tag "Summer clothing". This means you'll be able to automatically generate a "Summer Clothing" collection by automatically adding all products with the the "Summer Clothing" tag. As with Product Type, be sure to use the same tag for all products that you want to appear in the same Collection.

Adding multiple tags is a great way to have your products appear in multiple Collections. That is, you might want your T-Shirt to not only appear in the "Summer Clothing" collection, but also to appear in a "Sale" collection. In this case, you'd also add the tag "Sale", which means that this product would appear on both the "Summer Clothing" and "Sale" Collections.

Much like "Product Types", every time you add an additional Tag, all the tags you've added on other products will appear in a list that can be seen by clicking on the "Manage" link in the 'Tags' panel. Be careful not to have too many tags, and make sure you add the same tag to similar products.