A simple product is a unique, stand-alone, physical product that you may have to ship to the customer. A simple product does not have variations such as size or colour. Follow these steps to add a new Simple Product to your inventory.
1 – From the LH menu, mouseover or click on Products and select Add new.
The Add new product screen will open. The screenshot below shows the top part of that page.
2 – Add your Product name.
Ignore the large text field directly underneath the product name. This area is for the product “long description”, which we are not using.
3 – Add Product data. This section includes several subsections, as shown below. We are only using some of these subsections. Because we are adding a Simple Product, first ensure that simple product is selected next to Product data.
3 a – Add the product Regular price and Sale price, if applicable (Sale price is for products which have been marked down or are on ‘Special’ – these products will appear with a ‘Sale’ badge on the frontend of the website).
3 b – Click on Inventory, and add inventory data. Check the “Manage stock?” checkbox to add stock data. Note: you can mouseover the ? beside each field for tips / reminders on how these fields are used. Enter Stock quantity in the Stock quantity field (highlighted below).
3 c – We can ignore Shipping as these costs have been setup to automatically apply by location (free for local postcodes) or Cart value.
3 d – We can ignore Linked products for now.
3 e – We can ignore Attributes for now.
3 f – We can ignore Advanced for now.
3 g – We can ignore Get more options for now.
4 – Add your Product description at the bottom of the product editing screen, in the field labelled Product short description. This is a simple text editing field.
The remaining steps all occur using the settings on the right hand side of the Product edit screen (note: ignore the Astra Settings panel).
5 – Select Categories for the product. Simply check which Category, or Categories the Product should appear under. Any given product can appear under multiple Categories as appropriate.
6 – Select Tags for the product. In this instance we are using Tags to denote the type of timber the Product uses. To add a Tag, click in the box and start typing the timber the name – an auto-suggest will appear. Click on the Tag / Timber name as it appears, then click Add to assign it to the Product. You can also click on Choose from most used tags.
7 – Add your Product image. Click Set product image (image 1 below). This will open the Media Library (image 2 below). If the product image has already been added to the Media Library, you can select it directly. Alternatively, click the Upload files link highlighted below and follow the prompts to add a new image. Note: ignore the Product gallery panel, we are not using this for now.
8 – Publish or Save draft.
If you are midway through adding a Product and need to come back to it before Publishing, you can save your work as a draft (highlighted below). The draft product will then be accessible by navigating to Products > All products and will be denoted in the list of products with a Draft label.
When you’re ready to Publish, click the blue Publish button (highlighted below). Note: once published, the button will change to an Update button – of course you can come back to the product and make any changes after Publishing – simply make your changes and click Update.
You can also use the Preview button to view your work as it will appear on the website frontend.
