Understanding product administration in WebShop
Purpose and scope
Your product catalogue contains products that you wish to sell, either in a B2B or B2C capacity. Its quality, in terms of completeness1, consistency2, conformity3, accuracy4, timeliness5 and integrity6 is vital for you to run a successful business. The Product Administration section within Management Interface aids in maintaining product catalogue quality by providing you with a set of features that allow you to create, update and maintain your product data.
Specifically, the product administration section of the Management Interface provides functionality that allows you to:
Create product(s) information, attributes, options and so on
Prepare and upload product images
View different parts of the product catalogue, such as product information, codes, attributes, pricing, category structure and so on
Edit and update different parts of the product catalogue, such as product information, codes, attributes, pricing, category structure and so on
Maintain the data quality of your product catalogue
Data quality dimensions with respect to your product catalogue
| 1 | Completeness | All products you wish to include in your product catalogue have been included. |
| 2 | Consistency | The product information is the same across all systems. |
| 3 | Conformity | The product information use the same format and rules for identical data elements. For example, the date format is DD-MM-YYYY where dates are required. |
| 4 | Accuracy | The product information describes the physical product precisely |
| 5 | Timeliness | The product information is kept up to date, and reflects current reality. For example, stock amounts are kept up to date. |
| 6 | Integrity | The product information is stored in such as way that it and the relationship it has with other data elements are logically valid. For example, a product that has a description but no product code is not a valid product. |
Benefits
Key benefits include:
Manage your products in bulk using our product import / export spreadsheet feature
Manage your products individually using our product administration tool
Introducing terms and concepts used in this article
Term | Definition |
|---|---|
Enterprise resource platform (ERP) | (ERP), a collection of your critical business operating systems, such as product, stock levels, financial, customers, suppliers and so on that run on the same platform. |
Product | an item for sale in the product catalogue. |
Product code (SKU) | (SKU), the unique code for the product. |
Product option | a variation of a particular product, which the customer can select when they purchase the product; for example, a pair of shoes could have 5 size options and 4 colour options. |
Product type | defines how a particular product has been configure. It can be
|
Product specification | contains product technical information, such as colour, size, weight, dimensions and so on, of a product. A typical product specification includes data that would appear on a product data sheet. Typically, it is displayed either as a tab or section on the product details page or screen. |
How it fits together
Use either the product administration tool to create or update an individual product, or the product import / export spreadsheet feature to create or update multiple product.
The product administration tool
Key points
Typically, your product catalogue is fully integrated with your ERP. If this is the case, we recommend that you create, update or remove products from your product catalogue in your ERP. Changes made in your ERP are uploaded as part of the scheduled and regular import of your product data.
Use the product administration tool (found under Products in Management Interface) to create, edit, delete and/or make other changes to individual products. The product administration tool contains configuration options in a number of tabbed screens, as follows:
Synced Product Details
Lists product and pricing data, including any mapped user-defined fields, that have been mapped and synced with your ERP.
Contains data from the most recent import of product and pricing data; only data fields that are mapped are imported and displayed.
Useful when troubleshooting queries regarding stock, pricing, pack sizes and more.
Content
Key data elements, such as the product name and its product code, are found under the Content tab. Data fields are:
Product name: specify the product name
SKU: specify the product code for the product.
URL: specify the website address where the product is found in your WebShop
Content: include a description of your product.
Enter data and click Save. Any changes made are applied immediately to your WebShop.
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a method of attracting more organic traffic to your website (in this case, WebShop) by making it appear higher on search engine results pages.
Meta page title: specify the name of the web page tab for this product.
Meta keywords: include keywords, such as model number, part name and so on, to describe the product.
Meta description: describe your product in 156 characters. This description is displayed on the results page following a search engine search.
Enter metadata, such as page titles, keywords and descriptions to improve your SEO.
Media
Each product can have four images associated with it.
Extended
You can extend how you manage your products, with a number of product features which are contained on this page.
Energy rating
This feature is only available as part of one of our SmartPacks. Contact our sales team for more information.
Each electrical product has an energy rating associated with it, which details how energy efficient it is. Retailers selling certain electrical products are required, by EU directive1 , to provide the energy efficiency of these products and to label them according to an agreed standard. Our energy rating labels feature allows you to comply with EU legislation, and to drive your customer's awareness about the energy efficiency of the energy-related products you sell. These fields are populated with data once the EPREL import has been completed.
Read our feature guide on Viewing energy rating labels in WebShopfor more information.
Superseded
This feature is only available as part of one of our SmartPacks. Contact our sales team for more information.
Spare parts eventually become replaced by another product, and it can sometimes be tricky to find that product in large spare parts catalogues. Additionally, you manage your product catalogue in your ERP with WebShop being automatically and regularly updated with any changes that you make. One such change is deprecating a product, and replacing it with an updated equivalent. This feature supports this product change by placing a message on the deprecated product that it has been superseded by another, linking to the newer product page and not allowing your customer purchase the deprecated product.
Sale Offer
Add a configurable label (for example, “On Sale Now!“) to the top left of the main product image.
Coupon Settings
If enabled, this product can not be discounted by a coupon for either all customer, B2B customers only or B2C customers only.
Extra Tabs
Include extra information for specific products which are displayed as tabs underneath product images on the product information page.
Product settings
Key features that allow you to control how and where your products are listed on your WebShop
Priority Index: specify the order products are displayed on the product listing page in WebShop, where higher numbers are displayed first. Where multiple products have the same priority, they are ordered alphabetically.
Status: specify whether the product can be viewed or not.
Featured: specify if the product is listed in the Featured section.
Special: whether the product is set to be on special offer or not and displays a badge accordingly.
Trade Only: limit the visibility of the product to only your trade customers.
Show in Listing: whether the product is shown or not on product listing page results after a customer navigates through the category selections/departments on your WebShop
Product Type: specify the product type, which can be one of product with options, simple, shipping, paired or voucher. Read What product types do you support? for more information.
Related Products: specify how you wish to relate this product to other products. Read Understanding related productsfor more information.
Categories: add products to different categories/departments using the Product in Category Editor or the bulk import/export feature.
Specifications: download the product specifications template, which you can populate offline and upload using the product import/export spreadsheet feature.
Site sync
Ignore this tab if you do not have a multi-site setup.
Site sync is used where you have a multi-site setup.
Otherwise, it displays a list of linked sites, with a toggle allowing you sync the new or updated product information to them.
Toggle as required, and click Save to save changes.
Icecat sync
This feature is only available as part of one of our SmartPacks. Contact our sales team for more information.
Icecat is a product information management (PIM) system. It creates and manages product data-sheets from multiple manufacturers which are then distributed through various sales and marketing channels.
Read our feature guide on Using IceCat in WebShop to update as required. Click Save to save changes.
EPREL Import
This feature is only available as part of one of our SmartPacks. Contact our sales team for more information.
Each electrical product has an energy rating associated with it, which details how energy efficient it is. Retailers selling certain electrical products are required, by EU directive1 , to provide the energy efficiency of these products and to label them according to an agreed standard. Our energy rating labels feature allows you to comply with EU legislation, and to drive your customer's awareness about the energy efficiency of the energy-related products you sell.
Read our feature guide on Viewing energy rating labels in WebShop and update this setting as required. Click Save to save changes.
The product import / export spreadsheet feature
Use the product import / export spreadsheet feature to quickly import changes to your product catalogue. This feature exports existing product data and downloads it as an XLS spreadsheet, you make desired changes to the downloaded spreadsheet, and then import it to our platform. Once the spreadsheet has been uploaded, changes are made to the product catalogue as necessary.
Alternatively, if you know the format of the spreadsheet you wish to import, create and populate the spreadsheet manually, then upload or import it to make changes to your product catalogue.
Key points
The spreadsheet has a specific format which must be used. Product information may not import correctly if the specific format is not used.
Tasks
How do I add and/or import a single product to my product catalogue?
How do I add an extra tab containing product information to a single product?
How do I add an extra tab containing product information to all products?
How do I use the Products in Category editor?
How do I attach files to a product so that the files are included on the detailed product page?
Related content
References
1 Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2017 setting a framework for energy labelling and repealing Directive 2010/30/EU