3.1. Product Editing

Sub-page listing:

• Mass Product Changer

To create a new VirtueMart product or edit an existing one, proceed through several steps:

• 1. Click the [Add Product] or [Edit Product] button, to see the edit product window:

2. If you want to change position in the "Edit Product" window, simply drag-and-drop it to one of the pointers, which will appear once you select the "Edit Product" menu:

3. Specify the following "General Information":

• • • "Published" - select this checkbox to make product visible to customers.

    • "SKU" - The products SKU. VirtueMart uses SKU as a unique identifier for this product, across all stores and websites. SKU is global, meaning if you update the SKU for a product in one store, it will update in all other stores as well.

    • "Product Name" - The product name as it will appear on the front-end.

    • "Product Alias" - The Search Engine Friendly URL Identifier adds a relative URL path which can be entered in place of the standard Target Path. It is Search Engine Friendly because it can use the name of the product instead of the ID#. If you leave this field blank, it will automatically generate with the name of the product upon creation of the product. If you enter a value here manually, you cannot use spaces in this field.

    • "Product URL" - A URL that can be displayed with a VirtueMart product. Usually used as a link to the product vendor or manufacturer.

    • "Manufacturer" – Select Manufacturer form the drop-down. You can add to this dropdown by adding a manufacturer in Catalog->Manufacturers. You must do this before you add VirtueMart product if you want to use this dropdown. Alternatively, you can do it afterwards by editing your product.

    • "Shopper Group" - VirtueMart offers the ability to assign users to a Shopper Group. These shopper groups can then be used to provide special services, discounts, or access to a specific group of users. Because users and shopper groups are associated to a particular vendor, it is important to create your vendor records before creating the user and shopper group records.

    • "Short Description" - A short blurb to be used on category pages or in other boxes to help the customer decide if they want to click to see the long description.

    • "On Featured" - Used to indicate whether there are any specials running for the product.

    • "Product Details Page" - A display page for your online shop which shows the details about the product.

• • • "In Stock" - You can use this box if you wish to keep track of your inventory. Count how many pieces of product you have in stock.

    • "Booked, ordered products" - These are items that have been purchased (booked) by customers but have not been marked shipped.

    • "Low Stock Notification" - This box is used to send a reminder mail to you when your VirtueMart product is about to run out of stock, so that you can stock up your inventory. If you type the Low Stock Notification value as 3, you will get a reminder mail when the number of products in your inventory reaches 3. For very high-demand products or items that take a long time to arrive, use a higher value to help avoid running out-of-stock.

    • "Minimum Purchase Quantity" - Optional: set a minimum number of products that can be bought by a shopper. The shopper will see this information in a box only when he has not placed an order equal to the Minimum Purchase Quantity.

    • "Maximum Purchase Quantity" - Optional: set a maximum number of products that can be bought by a shopper. The VirtueMart shopper will see this information in a box only when he has placed an order above the Maximum Purchase Quantity.

    • "Availability Date" - If the product is not yet in stock, specify the date you expect it to arrive.

    • "Availability" - Optional: You can specify here if you want to mention when your product will be available for pickup after placing an order. For example, you can mention "48 hours", "Now in Stock!", etc. The shopper will see this information along with the product details.

• • • "Product Length" - specify VirtueMart product length value.

    • "Product Width" - specify product width value.

    • "Product Height" - specify product height value.

    • "Size Units" - Select the unit of size from the drop-down menu. For units, you may choose Centimeters, Millimeters, Yards, Foot, and Inches from the drop-down box.

    • "Product Weight" - specify VirtueMart product weight value.

    • "Product Packaging" -Specifies how many pieces of this Products are in one Package. If one item is in the package, type a 1 here. Units in Box Number of items in box, i.e. Eggs sold in a carton - 12. Skip if not needed.

    • "Units in Box" - Specifies how many packages of this Product are in one Box.

Prices . This section contains full information about product price. You can select currency; specify base and final product price; add new price; set deadlines for quantity range; select shopper group, if you have one.

Categories. The "Categories" tab allows you to assign VirtueMart product to any main category and to multiple additional categories. One product may be assigned to multiple categories. To assign a product to categories, simply enable the "Assign" checkbox next to the category name. Also, you can specify the Main category here.

Besides, you have an opportunity to manage product stock-able variants directly from the Product Page of Store Manager. Choose the necessary item from the product grid and at the bottom of the window you can find many tabs with the appropriate information about the specific product. Select the "Custom Fields" tab.

Here are all possible options of this product. For example, if it an element of clothing - then its most suitable options will be the size and color. You can choose each of them manually, or automatically generate them, by clicking the "Click to Edit Stockable Variants" field

and the following form will appear:

There you can add additional variants, automatically generate the missing one (s) or delete them from the existing list.

You have also the possibility to set the different make-ups for different variants of the appropriate product. For example, for the "evening dress" item you may supply the following price make-ups: for the dress of 'S' size in the 'Price' column specify "0"- this means, when buying a dress with this size the customer should pay the base price - 50$ without any extra payment. For the same product with medium size (M) specify the value 5 in the corresponding column - the customer will pay for this product with the specific size the extra price - 55$ and if you set the price make-up for the large size of the 'Evening dress' in the amount of 10 - then the basic price that the buyer will have to pay is 60 of currency units instead of 50.

Related Products. This section allows to manage related VirtueMart products in your store.

Images. This section allows you to manage photos to your products: add, delete, edit the current image. But in order to use this feature, you must specify the correct FTP settings.

Click [Apply] to save changes and to proceed or click cancel to discard this entry. When your FTP connection is successfully configured, you can add as many images as you need to the selected product and use the one of the following options:

• Add image locally - open the local drive system on your computer and find the media file you want to be assigned to:

• Add product illustration from the external source by using the appropriate full URL path to the image make sure it is reachable and accessible in the web-space. In the form that appears, specify the URL to the image and press the [OK] button, the image should be uploaded in the preview area in the right pane.

• Add new image(s) to the existing medias in the gallery. Open the form and fill in the fields:

• "File published?" - make the image visible or invisible on the front-end.

• "Unique Filename" - specify the filename that corresponds exactly to the image you want to upload.

• "Displayed image title" - the name which will be displayed on the front-end while selecting.

• "Image Alt-Text" - specify some text for the sight-impaired user that can be described on the front-end. On the store products page it looks like this:

• "Used URL" - the path to the base image, depending on its location: locally on a computer or in the web-browser by using the full URL path.

• "Used thumb URL" - the path to the thumbnail image location (locally or via HTTP Url path).

• "Role" - Choose "displayable" to allow customers to see (preview) the image only, "downloadable" position means that customers will be able to download the image, or "for sale" - an image that can be used for product sailing.

• "Storing location/type" - shows in which section you can see the following image file.

• [Select from media Gallery] moves to the Media Gallery sector with the existing images. Scroll down the media list and choose the necessary one(s) to add.

• To change or modify the current media file, press the [Edit] button from the Images’ toolbar:

• To view and change the basic settings on Image parameters, go to the "Image Settings" section in Preferences of Store Manager or press the next option on the toolbar; the necessary page will open right in the images tab:

Take a note, the latest update of the Store Manager has new feature related to the uploading image with the same name as the existing one.

For instance, your products has assigned image "Jacket", and you are trying to upload the same-named illustration:

You will see the pop-up message with the following actions:

1. Replace. The existing image can be rewritten on the image, which are uploading. In that case, you will get the fresh illustration of the product, named 'Jacket', and old image will be removed.

2. Upload with new name - to leave the existing image and upload new one, by renaming its name. In that case, all illustrations will be uploaded and their unique names will be maintained in Image Gallery.

3. Skip uploading. You can cancel image uploading process.

Choose the one that suits you best.

Here are some related articles on VirtueMart Product Management:

VirtueMart Product Editing. What Details Can Be Modified/Added?

Optimize Your VirtueMart Imagery: Upload Multiple Images in Bulk

Accomplish VirtueMart Products Update in Bulk with Mass Product Changer

What Are the Most Productive Ways of VirtueMart Bulk Product Updating?