Managing products

You can either add products to your catalog one by one (detailed below) or by bulk import, if you have all the relevant details in a .csv file.

Adding products

Video

Step-by-step instructions

Once logged into the Admin Dashboard, select on Products on the horizontal blue menu, and then click + New Product.

This will take you to the New Product page.

Supplier: Select the enterprise who produces and supplies the product (you).

Product name: This is the title of the product when displayed on the shop front.

Units: Choose the unit the product is sold in? (g, oz, lb, kg, L… or item (bunch, bag, packet))

Value: Enter the value of units that this product is sold in (for example if it is sold as 100 g then enter '100' here and choose 'g' for 'units'; or if it is sold as bunches of flowers, enter '1' here and 'units= items').

Display as: This field automatically shows you how the units and value fields will display, once you have filled the units and value fields. (i.e. units = kg, value = 2, Display as = 2kg)

Note: If you have selected ‘items’ as your unit, the display as field will change to ‘item name’. Fill this in with the type of item it is (i.e. jar, bottle, or bunch).

Product category: Select the most appropriate category for this product. Assigning a product category makes it easier for customers to locate the items they wish to buy; shoppers can filter your product list by category on your shop front.

Price: Enter the price for the value noted above. Note, this is the base price charged by the producer and the amount they will receive for each purchase. An admin and transport fee of 10% is added by Longwood Loop on top of your price, which is included in the total price shown to buyers.

If you want to show a round price to buyers after the Longwood Loop fee is added, you would take the final price you want to charge, divide by 1.1 and then round to the closest penny. For example, if you wanted to charge $4 for an item, you would divide 4 by 1.1 to get 3.63636363, which would be rounded to $3.64. When the customer sees the price of this item, they will see a price of $4 because it is your price ($3.64) + the Longwood Loop fee ($0.36).

If your enterprise is registered for GST or you select that this product carries tax, then the price you put here is inclusive of GST. If you select that this product is tax free, the price you enter will be the tax free price.

On hand: State how much/many of this product you have available and ready for sale.

Use this field if you want to track your stock levels. As customers place orders, the stock level will reduce, and when the in stock amount reaches zero, the product will no longer be visible in your shop. If you don’t want to track inventory in this way, click 'on demand'.

On demand: If you select this box, it will indicate that this product is always available. This stops the software from tracking inventory levels for products, and instead it will always show that the product is in stock.

Image: Upload a photo of this product.

Product images will be displayed on the shopfront in square (1:1) format. We recommend uploading photos with these dimensions. Landscape and portrait photos will be cropped to square automatically.

We recommend using good quality photos, preferably a real photo of your products rather than the standard image of the web. This makes the product more attractive to the consumer. Always take your photographs in good light.

If you use an image of the web, check that it is free of rights.

Tax category: Select 'New Zealand' from the tax category dropdown list. This will not add GST to the product unless you have also selected 'Yes' for Charges GST?' in your business profile.

Product description: Tell your customers a little bit about this product. You might like to include a story about the specific tomato variety, include hyperlinks to any certification it may have etc.

Don't forget to click on the "create" or "create and add new" button at the bottom of the page once all mandatory fields have been entered (those indicated by a red asterisk).

This is how your products will display to your customers on the shop front:

Main product page

When you have finished creating a product, you are redirected to the "products" page where you will find all your products:

Products listed in your admin panel can be sorted alphabetically by name (click on 'NAME' in the table to implement this).

This page also allows for bulk editing of product details, including updating product quantities.

Listing similar / variations of a product

If you are listing a product which comes in a number of different options (say different sizes or flavours, each of which may or may not have a different price), it is best to create a ‘variant’ for that product, rather than creating multiple, separate products. Creating product variants is explained in detail here.

Variants are useful if, for example, you sell lemons singularly as well as in 'packs' of 5. Rather than have two product listings the two options can be available for the same product.

If you would like to create a similar product then you can duplicate products by selecting the double page icon to the right of an item (red box). By subsequently selecting the pencil and paper icon (green box) the copied product can be edited and the details amended for the second item.

Editing products

Once a product is created, the best place to quickly edit its attributes, such as quantity, price and stock level, is through the listing products page shown above.

To edit images, product descriptions, categories and more you can select the edit symbol (pen on paper icon) to the right of the product in question in the table. This will bring up the following page:

From the right hand menu, you might like to add:

• Properties or labels to your products. This allows customers to find your items when searching for specific criteria (eg. certified Organic) and highlights specific qualities your products may have. Find out more here.

• Search terms described in the next section (below).

For tips on how to manage sales of "irregular" products such as meat or large vegetables sold in units but costed by weight, please read here.

Do not edit the Permalink field. This connects your product internally to an entry in the OFN database. Editing can corrupt the product entry.

Search keywords

Customers can filter your products to identify what they wish to purchase based on their product category and product properties. The filters are found to the right hand side of the shop page.

Some customers will use the Search box at the top left of the page to locate their produce. The following fields are searched by this box:

• Product name

• Variant name

• Producer name

• Search keywords

Keywords can be added by visiting Edit Product -> Search. Keywords entered into the top box (in red below) are reviewed by the platform if the customer uses the 'Search' field on your shop front. Those entered into the second box (in green below) are searched by external search engines on the internet (for example Google).

The 'Notes' section is not an active field. It is a handy box for you to 'make a note' of a seasonal search term which may be very effective/ineffective one year, so that you don't forget.