Product Catalogue

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Understanding Products

The products component of Oncord consists of four elements: 

1. Products

2. Product Categories

3. Product Brands

4. Inventory Items

What is a Product?

Products are the individual items or services that your customers will be purchasing. An example of a product might be a bouquet of flowers, a guitar starter pack (consisting of a number of inventory items), an e-book, a ticket to an event, or a donation.

When you create a new product you will be asked to provide details such as:

Title
Price
Image
Does the product will need to be shipped
A detailed overview of the product

What is a Product Category?

Product categories are used to display and organize similar products on your website. An example of a product category might be "laptops", "event tickets", or "guitars" 

A product must be assigned to at least one product category. You can assign a product to more than one category.

What is a Product Brand?

Product brands are another method of organizing and displaying products on your website. Products are sorted into product categories, and then into individual brands depending on their manufacturer. Using the laptop store example, you might have the brands Sony, Toshiba, or Apple. 

Each product must be associated with exactly one brand.

If brands aren't really appropriate to your business or online store, a standard practice is to create a brand using the title of your business. Using an example of a Florist, you may only have one brand

What are Inventory Items?

Inventory is useful for managing and monitoring your stock levels. If you don't need to monitor inventory levels, there is no need to use the inventory functionality of Oncord. 

A good example of using the inventory component efficiently would be:

A guitar package that contains a guitar, speaker and cables. The "guitar package" is setup as a product. The guitar package product is then linked to each inventory item (guitar, speaker and cable) so that each time the complete package is sold, the stock levels of each of the inventory items will be decremented.

Where to next?

To get started populating your product catalog, first you'll need to create product categories and brands for keeping your products sorted. 

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Understanding Product Categories

Product Categories are used to keep products sorted. Each Oncord product needs to be assigned to at least one Product Category, so it's a good idea to set up your Product Category structure before populating your store with Products. 

To get started, log in to the website dashboard and navigate to the Dashboard > Commerce > Products page.

Select the Categories button on the top of the page to view all product categories on the website. Click the "New Category" button located towards the top of the page to configure a new product category.

Configure the Product Category

You have the following configuration options when creating a Product Category:

Category Title - Enter the title of the Product Category. By default Oncord will also use the title to generate the website page address.

Description - Enter a description of the product category. This description is displayed publicly to assist users navigating through your online store. 

Parent Category - If the new category will sit underneath another category in your online store structure, it is called the "Parent Category". Use this dropdown list to select the Parent Category. 

Product Category Icon - Upload an image for this Product Category (not required). 

Text When Category is Viewed - When a Product Category is viewed in your online store, you may define text here to be displayed towards the top of the page. 

Additional Attributes

Visibility - Tick the "Invisible" option if you would like to hide the product category from your online store. Administrator users will still be able to see Invisible Product Categories. 

Group Visibility - To restrict the contacts who can view this product category you may use Groups. 

SEO Options

"SEO" is an acronym for "Search Engine Optimisation", these items may assist in improving your position in search engines such as Google.

Page URI - This is the address users will visit on the website to view this product category. By default Oncord will set this URI using the Product Category Title, however you may override the URI. 

Description - This is used to define the SEO Description Metadata tag. Taking the time to write an SEO description of your product categories will assist your position in search engines. 

Keywords - This field is used to define keywords associated with this product category. Separate your keyword phrases with a comma. 

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Creating Brands

Product brands are another method used to keep products sorted. A product must be assigned to exactly one brand. Before populating your catalog with products, it is a good idea to setup your brands.

If brands aren't applicable to your online store or product catalog setup (eg. Professional Services, Tradies, Membership Associations etc), you should still setup at least one brand. Common practice is to use the business name as a product brand. 

Create a New Product Brand

To get started, log in to the website dashboard and navigate to the Dashboard > Commerce > Products page.

Select the Brands button located towards the top of the page to view all product brands. 

Click the "New Brand" button located towards the top of the page to configure a new product brand.

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Creating Products

After creating Product Categories and Brands, you're ready to create your first product.

To get started, login to the website dashboard and select the Products page, which appears under the Commerce heading in the left sidebar.

Click the "New Product" button towards the top of the page to configure a new product. On the product configuration page you will have the following options:

Enter a product title and base price;
Select one or more product categories;
Choose a product brand;
Upload an image to catch your customers eye;
Specify whether the product will need to be shipped or not;
Enter the information that will be displayed when a user clicks on the product.

When you have finished configuring your product, click the "Save Product" button towards the top of the page.

Additional Attributes

Oncord allows for a large amount of customisation of products. The "Must Know" items below are the "Status" field to hide the product, and the "Ordering Options" field for configuring a product to have different prices depending on configuration (eg. User can select a color, where Red costs $10 more than black). 

Introduction Date - When the product was introduced. Automatically set to the date you created the product. 

Status - Ticking the option "Invisible" will hide this product to public users, however signed in administrators will still be able to view the product throughout the online store. The "Can't be ordered online" option will display a notice that the product cannot be ordered online, and the user should contact your business instead. 

Orderable for someone else - Select this option and contacts will be able to order the product for someone in their relationships. You can edit a contact's relationships through their profile. 

Disables Guest Checkout - If this option is selected the guest checkout will be disabled, requiring the contact to create an account with a password. 

Ordering Options - This field is used to allow configuration of the product. As an example; let's say that we are selling a T-Shirt. The T-shirt is available in a few different colors, sizes and patterns. The price changes depending on the color or pattern. The following Configuration could be used: 

The above configuration would present the user with the following when viewing the product online: 

If you would like to track inventory separately on each of the ordering options, you can specify inventory items in the drop-down list. 

Restrict Visibility to Groups - Ticking groups will make this product only visible to contacts who belong to at least one of those group(s).

Barcode - This field can be used to search the product catalog by a barcode number when creating a manual sale.

Product SEO

"SEO" is an acronym for "Search Engine Optimisation", these items may assist in improving your position in search engines such as Google.

Page URI - This is the address users will visit on the website to view this product. By default Oncord will construct the URI address using the Product Brand, followed by the Product Title. The Product URI must be unique, so if another product has the same Product URI a number will be added to the address. Description - This is used to define the SEO Description Metadata tag. Taking the time to write an SEO description of your product will assist your position in search engines. Keywords - This field is used to define keywords associated with this product. Separate your keyword phrases with a comma. 

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If you still have questions, please message us at www.oncord.com/company/contact-us/ and we will get back to you as soon as we can.