ProStores Product Management

Managing Backorders
How do Customers Find Products?
Placing Individual Products on Sale
Using Promotions
Troubleshooting Search Results

Managing Backorders

This information is detailed in the Store Administration help topic "Managing Backorders".

If merchants don't have enough product inventory to fulfill an order:

From a customer support perspective:

• If any item purchased cannot be filled by the quantity available, the entire order is held until the backordered item(s) can be cleared. The affected order will show up in the Orders Pending Backordered Items list.
• When an item goes on "Backorder," a message to that effect is included on any notifications sent to the Buyer. This option is selected in Store Manager | Mail Preferences.

From an inventory perspective:

• The quantity will not be deducted from the available inventory, but will remain available for other customers.
• Product inventory is decremented only when the quantity available is enough to fulfill the order for an individual product.

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How do Customers Find Products?

Once the product catalog is created and a store is open, customers can search for products. Following is information about how customers can search for products, and settings merchants can change to improve their searches.

Search Length Settings

In Store Manager | General Preferences, under Search and Cart Options, set the Min. Length to any number greater than zero. This will ensure that if a customer types in a single letter, the search will return all matches that start with that character.

Setting Search Options in Templates

By default, ProStores ships the Catalog (Search) templates with the option of controlling a search with And/Or criteria. If that option does not exist in the store, add the following code to the Catalog template:

<input type='radio' name='keywordoption' value='AND' checked>And
<input type='radio' name='keywordoption' value='OR'>Or

Searching on Custom Fields

Product Custom Fields one through four can contain information used to search for a product. To allow customers to search for products using these fields, add the

<ss:edit name='custom#' source="$catalog.custom#" size="30"/>

tags to the Catalog template (where # is from 1-4). See the Online Guide for more information.

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Placing Individual Products on Sale

This information is detailed in the Store Administration help topic "Placing Individual Products on Sale".

Product promotions are discounts that are applied to individual products.

Note: To define storewide promotions, see the Online Guide for more information.

Note: Once a sale ends, merchants will need to publish the storefront (to update the product sale information). To do so, click the Publish button on the toolbar.

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Configuring Product Promotions

To configure a product promotion:

1. View a listing of products. See the Online Guide for more information.
2. Click the Promotions button for the product to which merchants wish to configure promotions. The Promotion Information page appears.
3. Select the type of promotion merchants wish to apply by clicking the link in the Available Promotions section.

Note: Descriptions of each promotion are available in the Online Guide.

1. Enter the information in the Basic Information section. See the Online Guide for more information.
2. Enter the information in the Basic Information section. See the online field help for more information.
3. Enter the information in the Detailed Information section. Refer to the online Field Help for more information.
4. Click Submit.

Configuring Attribute Promotions

To configure a product attribute promotion:

1. View a listing of products. See the Online Guide for more information.
2. Click the Attributes button for the product whose attributes for which merchants wish to configure promotions. The Product Attributes page appears.
3. Under Current Attributes, select the link of the attribute to which merchants wish to assign a promotion. The Product Attributes Update page appears.
4. Click Promotions. The Promotion Information page appears.
5. Select the type of promotion merchants wish to apply by clicking the link in the Available Promotions section.

Note: Descriptions of each promotion are available in the Online Guide.

1. Enter the information in the Basic Information section. See the Online Guide for more information.
2. Enter the information in the Detailed Information section. Refer to the online Field Help for more information.
3. Click Submit. Merchants are returned to the Promotion Information page.

Ranking Active Promotions

If there are multiple active promotions for a product, ProStores will apply them in the order in which merchants have ranked them. By default, promotions are ranked in the order in which they are created.

To change the ranking of product promotions:

1. View a listing of products. See the Online Guide for more information.
2. Click the Promotions button for the product whose promotions merchants wish to rank. The Promotion Information page appears, listing promotions in the order in which they are ranked in the Active Promotions section.
3. To move a promotion down in the ranking, click the down arrow.
4. To move a promotion up in the ranking, click the up arrow.

Inactivating Promotions

To make a promotion inactive:

1. View a listing of products. See the Online Guide for more information.
2. Click the Promotions button for the product whose promotions merchants wish to rank. The Promotion Information page appears.
3. In the Active Promotions section, select the promotion(s) merchants wish to inactivate and click Deactivate.

Troubleshooting Search Results

Problem: Products Appear Multiple Times in Search Results

Situation: When searching, one product will appear multiple times in the search results, in different categories.

This occurs when the following conditions are true:

• A product is assigned to multiple categories.
• The Catalog List template is sorted by category.
• The customer performs a search that returns multiple categories that contain this product.

Solution: This behavior is by design.

Merchants can avoid this behavior by editing the Catalog List template, and sorting it by product instead. Doing so will display all products alphabetically, with no category headings.

However, this may not be an appropriate solution if customers are searching for products using the Category search option. In this situation, it is recommended that merchants create custom Category List templates that are sorted by category. See the Online Guide for more information.

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