osCommerce - Adding New Products

Now we'll take a look at how to add a category and product by clicking on the Category link on the left hand side.

Here you can either add products to this directory, or create a category and add the product there. We'll walk through doing both. First, let's click on "new product"

Fill in the following:

• Date available: if it won't be available till a later date, enter that date, otherwise, enter today.
• Type in the product name
• Choose the tax class (it will usually be taxable unless you have an exempt status)
• And set the product price

The next section includes the description

Fill in the product quantity. If you have more than one of the item, or want to offer more than one (you will make them as they are ordered), enter the number there.

Add the product image. Click on the Browse button and browse to the location of the item's picture. osCommerce will automatically add the file to the images directory when you click Save.

Product Weight, this is used if you will be basing your shipping fees on weight.

Click on Preview

If the item looks how you want it to look, click Insert. You will see that this item is now in the default category section.

Now let's add a category and then a product under that category.

Each category can have an image or icon associated with it.

Type in the Category Name. The Category Name is limited to 32 characters which needs to be adhered to as the number of characters will effect the width of the left column if increased too high. The characters can be increased in the categories_description database table in phpMyAdmin. If you have other languages installed you would set a category name for all languages.

Browse to the Category Image (you don't have to have an image, but it looks better than just text). The image size is set in the Configuration>Images and is called the Subcategory Image. This image will show to the customer in the upper right corner of the body after clicking on the category.

As you see in the example below, there is now a category called test as well as a product named test.

To create a product in this new category, double-click on the category and when it's open, click on "new product". Walk through making the product just as before. You will now see the product in that category. You can also create sub-categories within categories by clicking on new category instead of new product. You can make as many levels as you would like, however keep in mind how the customer will be searching. Some customers don't like to have to click too many times and may give up after the second or third click of having to dig down in a category structure.

Now let's look at what the site looks like so far. To do this, click on the "Online Catalog" link.

Now you can see there is a category called test with 1 product. The other product is listed towards the bottom in new items for March.