Let us start with and explanation: this may seem like a theory lesson , but unless you get the overall picture (mental model) formed correctly in your mind, you could end up creating some interesting decorated products that do not work as you want.
On your website you will have the option to offer decorated products or undecorated (blank) products or any combination of the two for customers to buy.
Blank products (undecorated products) are defined within the Fulfilment Center.
A blank product is not just a picture; it has a lot of information the system needs to be able to understand and manage, so you can offer that item for sale.
Take a t-shirt for example.
The Fulfilment center defines the blank t-shirt, what colours and sizes are available, what pictures are to be used to display it, who the preferred supplier is, what type of product it is, where it can be decorated, what decoration processes can be used on it, how much it costs blank and how much decorating the t-shirt would cost. That takes some learning for the Fulfilment Centre, but is very important and after defining a number of products, it becomes much easier to do.
So the Fulfilment Centre has defined the blank product.
Now your store(s), or affiliate stores, can add their own decorations (designs and text), add a specific mark-up, categorise and name the decorated products and sell them as something unique: decorated products.
I know some of you would have already understood this, and some of you may be thinking, “I have no idea what he is talking about”. That is ok, I will walk you through the process of creating a decorated product.
Let us start → In your manage store area, go to “products” → “manage decorated products”
The page will display showing two distinct areas
The left column displays your decorated categories.
the right column displays the actual decorated products you have created.
We are going to create a new decorated product. Click the “Create Decorated Product” button next to the drop-down.
The drop-down displays all your available product types. When creating a decorated product you can only create it of one type.
As you have clicked the “Create Decorated Product” button, we are at the designer, do your designing!!! For this example I am adding several designs and some text.. Picasso!
Ok, when have finished creating your masterpiece click “Save”, this takes you to the configuration screen.
The configuration screen has two sections: the top section called “Decorate product batch settings” (what a great name); and the bottom section called “Blank product to use”.
The top “Decorate product batch settings” section enables you to configure the details of your product.
The bottom “Blank product to use” section tells the system which products and in what colours to add the design you just created to.
First, lets look at the top “Decorate product batch settings” section and I will try to explain all the fields.
- Name – This is the name of your decorated product. My example is “Picasso”. I would type in Picasso.
- Append blank product name – this adds the name of the blank product itself to your product name.
- Description – You type in a description detailing the design on the product. Here your marketing flair can entice the buyer to purchase. This is also great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and searching.
- Category – Select a category for the product to appear within. Categories for decorated products are managed back on the “Manage decorated page”.
- Position – Nice and straight forward, do you want the new product(s) to appear before or after all the existing products
- Customise – If you allow users to customise, they can load this decorated product into the designer to further customise.
Now the second section “Blank products to use”.
This is a really handy feature, it allows you to have your design applied to not only the product you designed it on, but any of the products (of same type) within the list. You can tick the product(s) you want the design on, and select which colors it is available on as well, plus choose the default color (color that is loaded first).
If you don’t add any new products to your selection, it will default to the product you used in the designer when designing your decorated product.
Are you happy with everything so far?
Click “save” and now you see a screen that explains that your new decorated products are being created and added to your site.
Finished yet? Not quite, still have a few more things to configure.
Let us think about pricing.
Pricing. How was that product just priced?
The new decorated products have used your default store mark-up (as defined in “store settings” → “price settings”).
You have the option to override the default store mark-up for every product you add. You may be happy with all your defaults, or you could decide to sell it at a higher price and make more from this decorated product
To edit the price click “configure” on the decorated product you want to change the price of.
A popup now loads showing quite a bit of information. Here you can change the name category, description and the “Price”.
As said above, the price will, by default, use the store mark-up. To change this, un-tick “use store mark-up”.
You will now be able to change the price of the product to anything you like (above the wholesale rate of course, stores are not allowed to sell at a loss).
When you change the decorated product price, you will see the difference in the mark up, and also the commission rate, and the amount you will receive. If you press save, that product will have a unique price and will not be affected when you change your store mark-up.
Now, why might you want to keep all decorated products using store mark-up?
It is all about managing lots of products as simply and with the least effort possible.If you leave the decorated product linked to the store mark-up, it means you can change the price of lots of products all at once, by just changing the store mark-up. Make sense? Hope so.
There are some other options like “clone”, “edit decoration” and “make private” –we will deal with them another time.
So, there we are, we have walked through creating a decorated product. You can now have a look at the product on the website, or jump into website pages to configure how it appears within your site.
Any questions? Ask away. I know a few more of the advanced users may have some questions that I haven’t answered yet.
Happy Decoing
Greg
It has been requested to have a walk through of decorated products, what they are and how they work.
Let us start with and explanation: this may seem like a theory lesson , but unless you get the overall picture (mental model) formed correctly in your mind, you could end up creating some interesting decorated products that do not work as you want.
On your website you will have the option to offer decorated products or undecorated (blank) products or any combination of the two for customers to buy.
Blank products (undecorated products) are defined within the Fulfilment Center.
A blank product is not just a picture; it has a lot of information the system needs to be able to understand and manage, so you can offer that item for sale.
Take a t-shirt for example.
The Fulfilment center defines the blank t-shirt, what colours and sizes are available, what pictures are to be used to display it, who the preferred supplier is, what type of product it is, where it can be decorated, what decoration processes can be used on it, how much it costs blank and how much decorating the t-shirt would cost. That takes some learning for the Fulfilment Centre, but is very important and after defining a number of products, it becomes much easier to do.
So the Fulfilment Centre has defined the blank product.
Now your store(s), or affiliate stores, can add their own decorations (designs and text), add a specific mark-up, categorise and name the decorated products and sell them as something unique: decorated products.
I know some of you would have already understood this, and some of you may be thinking, “I have no idea what he is talking about”. That is ok, I will walk you through the process of creating a decorated product.
Let us start → In your manage store area, go to “products” → “manage decorated products”
The page will display showing two distinct areas
The left column displays your decorated categories.
the right column displays the actual decorated products you have created.
We are going to create a new decorated product. Click the “Create Decorated Product” button next to the drop-down.
The drop-down displays all your available product types. When creating a decorated product you can only create it of one type.
As you have clicked the “Create Decorated Product” button, we are at the designer, do your designing!!! For this example I am adding several designs and some text.. Picasso!
Ok, when have finished creating your masterpiece click “Save”, this takes you to the configuration screen.
The configuration screen has two sections: the top section called “Decorate product batch settings” (what a great name); and the bottom section called “Blank product to use”.
The top “Decorate product batch settings” section enables you to configure the details of your product.
The bottom “Blank product to use” section tells the system which products and in what colours to add the design you just created to.
First, lets look at the top “Decorate product batch settings” section and I will try to explain all the fields.
- Name – This is the name of your decorated product. My example is “Picasso”. I would type in Picasso.
- Append blank product name – this adds the name of the blank product itself to your product name.
- Description – You type in a description detailing the design on the product. Here your marketing flair can entice the buyer to purchase. This is also great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and searching.
- Category – Select a category for the product to appear within. Categories for decorated products are managed back on the “Manage decorated page”.
- Position – Nice and straight forward, do you want the new product(s) to appear before or after all the existing products
- Customise – If you allow users to customise, they can load this decorated product into the designer to further customise.
Now the second section “Blank products to use”.
This is a really handy feature, it allows you to have your design applied to not only the product you designed it on, but any of the products (of same type) within the list. You can tick the product(s) you want the design on, and select which colors it is available on as well, plus choose the default color (color that is loaded first).
If you don’t add any new products to your selection, it will default to the product you used in the designer when designing your decorated product.
Are you happy with everything so far?
Click “save” and now you see a screen that explains that your new decorated products are being created and added to your site.
Finished yet? Not quite, still have a few more things to configure.
Let us think about pricing.
Pricing. How was that product just priced?
The new decorated products have used your default store mark-up (as defined in “store settings” → “price settings”).
You have the option to override the default store mark-up for every product you add. You may be happy with all your defaults, or you could decide to sell it at a higher price and make more from this decorated product
To edit the price click “configure” on the decorated product you want to change the price of.
A popup now loads showing quite a bit of information. Here you can change the name category, description and the “Price”.
As said above, the price will, by default, use the store mark-up. To change this, un-tick “use store mark-up”.
You will now be able to change the price of the product to anything you like (above the wholesale rate of course, stores are not allowed to sell at a loss).
When you change the decorated product price, you will see the difference in the mark up, and also the commission rate, and the amount you will receive. If you press save, that product will have a unique price and will not be affected when you change your store mark-up.
Now, why might you want to keep all decorated products using store mark-up?
It is all about managing lots of products as simply and with the least effort possible.If you leave the decorated product linked to the store mark-up, it means you can change the price of lots of products all at once, by just changing the store mark-up. Make sense? Hope so.
There are some other options like “clone”, “edit decoration” and “make private” –we will deal with them another time.
So, there we are, we have walked through creating a decorated product. You can now have a look at the product on the website, or jump into website pages to configure how it appears within your site.
Any questions? Ask away. I know a few more of the advanced users may have some questions that I haven’t answered yet.
Happy Decoing
Greg
