[caution]This Guide is intended for use with legacy Themes or EKM online shops in Custom Mode. If you are using the Aerial Theme, please click here for the correct Guide. [/caution]

[intro] When you have completed this Guide, you will have learned how to manually add Products to your EKM online shop. You will also understand all of the different functions within the Edit Product window, how to add Variants and Product Codes to Products. [/intro]

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The Add/Edit Product window is something you’ll become very familiar with on the EKM platform as you’re building your shop. It’s within this window you can manually add products, and edit their variants, images, product codes, metadata and lots of other useful stuff too.

Adding a new Product to your EKM online shop

1. To open the Add/Edit Product window, log into your shop and click the Shop tab towards the top right of the screen:

2. This will take you to the homepage of your shop. You then need to click Add Product on the blue bar towards the top right-hand side:

3. This will open the basic version Add/Edit Product window. I say ‘basic’ because as you install more features on the Features page, this will provide more options within the Add/Edit Product window. Presuming you have no features installed, your Add/Edit Product window should look like this:

Down the left-hand side, the options will be ‘greyed out’ until you have completed the fields for the most basic details for your product, which are the Price, the Product Description and Name. As an example, I’m going to add a Product to my EKM online shop.

Adding your Product Name

The name of your Product is obviously essential as it helps your customers quickly find it on your EKM online shop. However, the format of your Product Name should be taken into consideration, especially if you plan to submit your Products to Google Shopping when your EKM online shop is completed. You can find more information out about the formatting of Product Names in this Guide. 

Adding your Product Description

In the field provided, paste in the Description for each product. If you are copying the Product Descriptions directly from your supplier’s spreadsheet, you should be able to do this without issue, however, if you are copying them from elsewhere, such as a Microsoft Word document or a website, ensure that you paste it into the NotePad application first (if you’re using a PC, run a search for Notepad, however, if you are on a Mac, use TextEditor). 

Using this method ensures that any code used to format the text elsewhere or third party coding is not carried onto your EKM online shop, so you will not encounter any issues such as bullet points that don’t line up properly and text in different sizes and colours throughout the paragraphs. If you have not written Product Descriptions before, this Guide will be able to help you learn how to write impactful copy for each of your Products.

Adding Prices

Price - The Price of your Product is the amount that your customer pays when they get to the Checkout. 

Cost Price - The Cost Price is the amount you purchased the Product for from your supplier, or alternatively the amount is cost to create the Product if you create your own items. By adding in a Cost Price to your Products, you can utilise the Most Profitable Products and Least Profitable Products on the Analytics tab of your EKM online shop. 

Tax Rate - This is the percentage of tax which is charged on that particular Product. This corresponds with the settings on the Tax page. 

Adding Product Images

4. When these have been completed, you’ll then be able to click on Images & Photos, where you can upload your Product Images:

[remember]These Product Images should be square in shape; the minimal size for product images is 500x500 pixels and the maximum size is 2000x2000 pixels, therefore we recommend 1024x1024 pixels square as an ideal size for your product images. Click here to read more about Producing your own Product Images. [/remember]

5. To upload your images from your computer, click the Add Images button:

6. Now you need to click the pencil symbol on the bottom right of the first image: 

7. This will provide three options: Upload New, Choose Existing and Add Video. Choose Existing will allow you to select a product image from the File Manager and assign it to your product, whilst Add Video is recommended as the last Image assigned to your Product. You can read more about Product Videos in this Guide. However, as this is a completely new product, select Upload New and use the Open window to locate and select the images from your computer:

8. The first Product Image - the most left-hand version- is your main product image, so you need to ensure that this is the best image to depict your product. When you have uploaded the main Product Image, you need to upload the additional Product Images to ensure customers can get a good look at your product. It’s a general rule of thumb that more images of a product encourage more sales, as customers can get a really good idea of the product before committing to buy. 

You can add a second Product Image by clicking the pencil icon on the second Product Image space:

Obviously, try and make each Product Image different - if the item in these steps was a real Product, we would need a main image, with the additional images being of the item within its packaging and being used in craft projects as examples. This would further encourage sales.

Adding Product Variants

9. When the Product Images have been uploaded, click the Variants tab. As my Product is available in different colours and sizes, I need to tell my EKM online shop what variations of this Product are available. Before you build the Variants onto your Product, it's a good idea to check how many Product Variants you have, using this Guide.  As an example, this Product is available in 3 pack sizes and 6 colours - 6x3=18 - which means that they are 18 Variants of this Product. 

The first Variant I will add is Size. Click the Variants tab:

10. Click the grey Add Variant button:

11. You'll then be able to select what kind of Variant you would like to add to your Product from a choice of Size, Colour or Other. You can read more about the different kinds of Variants in this Guide. Click the Create Variant button next to Size:

12. In the window, you can tick the box to display the Variant Choices on Category Pages. This means that when your customers see the Product on the Category Page, a list of available sizes will be listed beneath the Product Image.

Give the Variant a Name in the field provided and then add the name of your first Variant Choice in the field below. In my example, I'm basing Size on packet sizes, however, you could have clothing sizes (10, 12, 14, etc) or shoe sizes (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.) for example. 

When you have added your first Choice, click the green cross symbol on the far right-hand side to add this Choice to your Product: 

13. Continue this process with each of your Choices until they have all been added. When you have added the last Choice, click the green Save button on the bottom right-hand side of the window:

This will return you to the Add/Edit Product window. You can see my Variant is called Size with the three different sizes listed beneath Variant Combinations. There’s a tick box to the far left-hand side in the Default column. This means that it is this variation of the Product is displayed as standard on the Product Page.

14. As my Product is also available in the six different colours, I need to add a second Variant called Colour. To do this, I click the green Add button in the Variants box:

15. And again, I'll need to choose what kind of Variant I want to add to this particular Product. Click Create Variant for Colour:

16. Then as before, you need to tick the box if you would like the Colour Variant Choices to display beneath the Product on the Category Page. Give the Variant a Name (in this case, 'Colour') and below, add your Colour Choices. 

[remember]You can add Colour Choices in two ways - either as a solid colour, or as an image - which is ideal if your Product is available in different patterns of very specific colour choices. Solid Colour Choices are called Colour Swatches and Variants that correspond with a specific image are called Patterns. [/remember]

In my example, I'm adding Patterns and I do this by giving the Choice a Name and then clicking the circle symbol on the right-hand side:

17. This reveals a smaller window where I can select a solid colour or hex code by clicking on the square Colour Picker symbol, or instead, uploading an image to represent my colour:

[remember]The images that you upload to Colour Variants must be at least 500 pixels square, up to 2000 pixels square. Therefore, we recommend 1024 pixels square as the optimum image size. [/remember]

18. When I have added the first Choice, I click the green cross symbol on the right-hand side to add that Choice to my Product:

19. I then repeat this process with the rest of my Choices, as I did before. When I have finished adding the last Colour Choice, I can tick the box at the bottom of the window to display the name of each Choice on the Product Page, before clicking the green Save button to add these Colour Variants to my Product: 

[tips]Please bear in mind that if you have a product with a lot of variants, this will change the way you have to display this product, as lots of variant choices can negatively affect the page loading time and therefore, the user experience for any potential customers visiting your site. If you’re not sure how to display your products with variants correctly, click here for our Guide to Product Variants. [/tips]

20. This will return me to the Add/Edit Product window. You can see that I have got two Variants - Size and Colour - listed at the top of the window:

Edit Variants with Product Images and Product Codes

The next stage is to add Product Images and Product Codes for the other variations of the Product. This ensures that when my customers visit the Product Page and they select a specific colour that it is displayed, and when the Product is purchased, I can easily see the version that’s been bought to reorder it easily from my supplier.

21. To do this, I need to edit each of the Variant Choices in turn by clicking their Edit button:

22. You will then see a dark blue line appear across the top of the Add/Edit Product window, detailing exactly which Variant Choice you are editing. Click the Images & Videos tab:

23. As you did before, click the pencil symbol and replace the main Product Image with one that represents the colour of this particular Variant:

24. When you have amended the Product Image for this particular Variant, click the Return To Master Product Tab on the top right-hand side of the window:

25. Repeat this process with the rest of the Variants you have added onto the Product:

[remember]The method described in this particular Guide is manual, as you create and edit the Products one by one using the Add/Edit Product window. If you have a lot of Products and Variants to add all at once to your EKM online shop, you would be best installing the Import/Export System feature to use spreadsheets to add your Products and referring to this Guide. [/remember]

26. When you have amended the Product Images on each of your Variants and been returned to the main page of the Add/Edit Product window, you can then give each Variant a Product Code, a Stock Quantity, a Weight value (which is essential for using a weight-based Delivery Method), a Cost Price and a standard Price, by simply adding the values to the relevant fields:

27. When each of your Variants has been populated with the correct details, codes and prices, your next step is to click the Save & Close button on the bottom right-hand side of the Add/Edit Product window:

When this Product is viewed on the Category Page, it looks like this, and customers can tell at a glance that this item is available in a range of different colours:

When customers view the Product Page for this item, they can easily select which colour and size of this Product they would like to purchase: 

The Advanced Add/Edit Product window

As mentioned at the beginning of this Support Guide, the tabs that you can see within the Add/Edit Product window vary according to any features installed on the Features tab within the back end of your site, as some of those features are specific to products and their settings. To install any of these features, click the Features tab, and then simply click and then install any you feel will be useful to you and your shop:

Recommended features:

Product Attributes

Product Attributes allow you to add more than a Product Code to a product; you can add a weight (essential for setting up a weight-based Delivery Method) and Custom Attributes, which allow you to offer product filters within your categories where customers tick boxes for required sizes and colours, and all of the products that are available are listed for them. Highly recommended as this improves the user experience for your customers and makes finding specific products a lot easier for them. You can read more about the Product Attributes feature here.

Classifications

The Classifications tab allows you to set a specific classification for that Product, which makes it easier for search engines to identify and decide where that product should be displayed in search engine results. Whilst this is not necessary for shops that retail the same kind of product - such as greetings cards for example (as the feature will allow you to classify the shop as a whole) this tab is especially useful on websites that sell different kinds of products, such as clothing, shoes and accessories.

Custom Meta Data

Custom Meta Data, like Classifications, allows you to set the metadata for the shop as a whole, but within the Add/Edit Product window, you can click this tab to add metadata for specific products. This, in turn, helps search engines quickly identify what the product is to decide where it should be visible within search results. Whilst you can set the metadata on each product, if you do not do this manually this feature will automatically select the Product Name and the first 140 characters from the Product Description to use instead.

Optional features:

Product Summary

Product Summary - often referred to as Short Descriptions - provides an extra Short Description field next to the existing Description field within the Edit Product window. You can add a Short Description to encourage visitors to click into a Product Page from a Category page. Bear in mind that not all design Themes support Short Descriptions, but don’t worry, it’s usually something our Tweaks Team can edit onto the shop for you - simply get in contact with our Customer Support Team to arrange this.

Promo Stickers

When installed, Promo Stickers allow you to add a small image - either a custom png file of your own or one from the vast collection created by our Design Team - to the corner of your main product images, which is visually very useful for highlighting a sale item or a current offer, especially when further supported by design images throughout your website. Promo stickers can be added manually via the Edit Product window or via a spreadsheet and the Import/Export System feature.

Related Products

The Related Products tab allows you to set what additional products are displayed when viewing a specific Product Page. For example, you may be selling a coat, and the main product image is of a model wearing the coat, but also wearing jeans, a jumper and boots that you sell too - you could then set the Related Products to the coat to be the jeans, the jumper and the boots. You’ll see this example on larger clothing websites where it’s often under the header ‘Shop The Look’ or similar. 

When this has been completed, you have officially added your first Product with Variants to your EKM online shop. If you want to upload products in bulk and have a spreadsheet from your supplier and or drop shipping company, you have just created a template product; you’ll need this to use as an example to add the rest of the products to your site. To complete that task, click here for the steps required to add the rest of your Products to your EKM online shop.

Where to open the Add/Edit Product window

You can, of course, open the Add/Edit Product window by clicking Add Product on the navigation bar on the Shop tab as we did at the beginning of this Guide. To open the Add/Edit Product window for an existing Product on your Shop, click the Edit Content button on the navigation bar, and then click the Edit Content button that appears next to the Product:

You can also open the Edit Product window within the Advanced Inventory Manager, by clicking the blue pencil symbol to the far right of each existing Product, or alternatively by clicking Add Product:

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[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Account Manager or Customer Support, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm on the weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions board. If you have a non-account specific question ask the EKM Team, join us in EKM Community.  [/contact]