Product Creation Checklist

Overview

There are multiple steps to creating or enabling a product in Magento.  This help page is designed to act as a checklist for the process.

1. Working with the configurable product, start on the General Tab and update the name of your product.  In general, Modern Retail recommends the product name be short.  Consider using the style name separated by a dash or other delineator, with the color name at the end.  For example:  Running Shoe - Blue
   

   

2. Update the description and short descriptions.  Both will copy down to your simple products when you save your work.  Additionally, the description will become your Meta Description.  For guidelines on description recommendations, click here.  Both the Description and Short Description are required fields.  The description field should be plain text, do not use the WYSIWYG Editor for this field.
   
   

   

3. If your site is using attributes to add additional information about a product, select them now.  Depending on your attributes, you may have the option to select multiple attributes.  For those cases, hold the CTRL key down while clicking your selections.  As with the descriptions, these attributes will copy down to your simple products automatically for you.
4. The Brand, ALU, SKU and UPC fields are all controlled by your integration and should not be edited at any time.
5. You must enable your product.  Enabling the configurable product will  automatically enable all the simple products for you.
   

   

6. Verify the Visibility of your product is set to "Catalog, Search".
7. The Country of Manufacture and Integration ID fields should be left as is.
8. CLICK "SAVE & CONTINUE EDIT" at the top of the screen.
   
9. Go to the images tab and upload your image.  Be sure to select all 3 radio buttons (Base/Small/Thumbnail) for your image.
10. CLICK "SAVE & CONTINUE EDIT" at the top of the screen.
11. Move to the Categories Tab to select the category (or categories) as needed for your product.
12. CLICK "SAVE & CONTINUE EDIT" at the top of the screen.
13. If you have the same product in multiple colors, and those additional colors will be separate products, you can link them on the Related Products tab.  Search for the additional product using any of the fields across the top.  In general, you'll get better results if you search by either product name or SKU.  You only need to include the Configurable product. 
14. CLICK "SAVE & CONTINUE EDIT" at the top of the screen.
15. If you will be using the Cross-Sell or Up-Sell features, continue to those tabs.  They are managed the same way you manage Related Products.
16. CLICK "SAVE & CONTINUE EDIT" at the top of the screen.
17. For more information on Related Products, Cross-Sell and Up-Sell products, click here.
18. If your site is using Product Reviews, you can approve them on the Product Reviews tab.
19. CLICK "SAVE & CONTINUE EDIT" at the top of the screen.

Depending on the stock availability of your product and the indexing configuration of your site, you should be able to see your product soon after saving.  Any of the information you entered can be edited or updated at any time!