Guide to product details

Products are the physical goods, digital files, and services that you sell. To create a product, you need to specify the name and upload product images. In addition, you can add product details that help your clients better understand the product: add description, available sizes, weight, etc. You don't have to provide every detail for each product.

You can view and edit product details from the Catalog → Products page in your Sauecommerce admin.

To manage product details for multiple products at a time, use our Bulk Product Editor.

Images and videos

You can add both images and videos to your product gallery.

Images show customers what your products look like. You can show the various perspectives of the product, such as front, side, underneath, close-up, etc., so that customers see what they are buying in detail.

Remember, the quality of your product images directly affects your ability to generate sales. Here are some tips:

  • Each product image should be of uniform size and style across all products you sell.
  • Use high-quality images, so customers can see any fine details.

Videos work best for showcasing your goods. You can show how to use a product, explain in details how it's manufactured, even record customer reviews. Shoppers tend to watch videos instead of just browsing static images. Statistics say that products with videos have more chances to be purchased.

Name and description

Name is the title of your product. You can include the most important information about the product to make it easier for customers to understand what you sell.

Description is the information about your product. It emphasizes product advantages, lists its characteristics, or highlights product features. You may also use videos, images, and animated elements to help describe your product. Unique product descriptions rank higher in search engines.

The product description section has the built-in text editor, so you can easily add collapsible blocks, bullet points, paragraphs, links, or additional images and videos.

Tips to improve your product descriptions:

  • Avoid long sentences and complex vocabulary: Imagine you are explaining the product to a 10-year-old.
  • Include product demo videos: Sometimes it is easier to show than tell. Show in detail how to interact with a product.
  • Provide a short and long version of your description: Some people scan rather than read, some like to read more in-depth about your product, make sure you cover both types.
To add links to downloadable files like datasheet PDFs to product descriptions, you can use the paid File Hosting app from Sauecommerce App Market. The app also allows you to upload files and share links to them on your website or elsewhere.

Adding video to a product description

To showcase your product and help customers make a well-weighted decision or to make your instructions more helpful, you can add a Youtube/Vimeo video to your text.

To add a video to your text:

  1. Upload your video file to YouTube or Vimeo.
  2. Copy the link (address from the browser) of the uploaded video.
  3. From your Sauecommerce admin, go to Catalog → Products.
  4. Create a new product or choose an existing one.
  5. Click the video icon in the editor menu.

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  6. Enter a video embed code or an external link.
  7. Click Insert.
  8. Save the changes. The video will appear in your product description:

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You can also simply enter the video address or an embed code right into the text field.

SKU

SKU (short for “Stock Keeping Unit”) is the code that identifies the product within your business. You can use the product identification code provided by manufacturers or your own combinations of letters and numbers. You can make each SKU unique to track products. It's also possible to leave the SKU field empty. That way a product won't have SKU.

You can choose whether SKUs are displayed on the product details pages and on the category pages in your catalog (e.g., if you want customers to know SKUs). For that, go to Design → Sidebar → Product SKU and Design → Product Card details and layout → Product SKU respectively.

Want to sell the same product but in different sizes or colors from one page? You can add variations of the product with their own SKUs.

Weight

Weight is the product's actual weight. You can leave this field empty (the weight will be set equal to 0) if you sell digital products or services or if you don’t ship this product. For calculating the correct automatic shipping rates, enter the exact product’s weight (with packaging).

If you want to display the entered weight values on product pages, you can choose this option on the Design page, in the Sidebar section (Product details block).

To display product weight without packaging, you can use product attributes.

Check the Requires shipping or pickup box under the Weight field if the product requires shipping. Uncheck this box, if you don’t ship the physical product:

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Pricing

Pricing is what you're charging for the product. You don't need to factor in shipping/delivery costs in the price that you input, as they can be set separately.

There is an All prices include taxes or All prices do not include taxes text under the price that you enter if you have taxes that apply to this product in your store:

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This text is displayed according to the option you choose in the Settings section on the Taxes page in your Sauecommerce admin. This way, you can enter prices with or without taxes.

If you sell differently taxed products or some of your products are tax-exempt, you can add product-specific tax rates and assign the rates to items in their Taxes tabs.

If you click the Manage pricing options link below the price, you can see the Compare to priceBulk discount, and "Pay what you want" settings:

"Compare to" price — The original price for a product that is on sale. When you enter a "Compare to" price, the product displays a sale price and savings.

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Bulk discount — Tiered pricing for each product based on quantity. Discounts are applied immediately as soon as the quantity added to the cart changes. For example, a product costs $44, but if you buy five items, the price will be $40 each.

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"Pay what you want" — A pricing option that allows customers to name their own prices for products in your store. If you enable it, there will be an empty field on the product page where your customers can enter the price that they are ready to pay. You can set the minimum possible price (e.g., $44) for your product and provide price suggestions if you want to.

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"Compare to" Price, "Pay what you want" pricing and Bulk discount pricing are available on Essential, Professional, and Business plans.

Product availability and stock control

Availability — Product availability can be selectively enabled (and disabled) for each product. When disabled, your store visitors can’t see this product on your storefront. Enable whenever you are ready to sell.

Stock control — If you have a limited number of a product to sell, you can use the stock control section to specify the quantity that you can sell online and set up low stock notifications. You can also choose the behavior for this product when it's out of stock. Out of stock product visibility options include hiding the product from storefront, showing the product on storefront, and accepting pre-orders.

  • Enter the number of items in stock into the Quantity in Stock field
  • Set the out of stock behaviour in the When out of stock dropdown
  • Enter the number of items left in stock at which you want to receive the Low Stock notice into the Send me a note when quantity in stock reaches field (by default, it is “1”)

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If you don’t want to track the stock of this product in Sauecommerce, choose Unlimited in the Quantity in Stock field. This will mean that the product is always available for purchase in unlimited amounts (it is useful when selling e-goods, for example).

Stock tracking is available on Essential, Professional and Business plans.

Category

Categories are groups/collections of products that a product is included in. They help customers navigate your store faster and find the products they need.

A product must be assigned to at least one category. One product may belong to several categories. If you do not assign a product to any special category, it is automatically added to the default Store front page category. Disable the Feature on the store’s front page toggle if you don’t want to show this product on the front page of your store:

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If you assign a product to any category on top of the Store front page category, this category is considered to be the product's default store category. If the product is assigned to two or more categories, one of the categories will be marked as Default:

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The default category will be shown in the breadcrumbs on your product's page. In our example, if you assigned boardshorts to the "New Arrivals" and "Men’s Apparel" categories and selected the "New Arrivals" category as default, breadcrumbs for the item on the product page will look like this: Home / Store / New Arrivals.

Product ribbons and product subtitles

Both product ribbons and product subtitles are a way to attract additional attention to a product on your storefront.

Product subtitles are short descriptions that you can provide for your products to give customers more information about product advantages or ingredients. You can choose to display subtitles on both the product list and on the product details page, or in one place only.

Product ribbons are colored labels that are displayed in your catalog above product images. They can help visually highlight certain products on your storefront. These tags contain your custom text; for example, "Bestseller", "20% Off", "New", "Christmas deal" or "Free Shipping" — depending on your case.

Product ribbons and product subtitles are available on Essential, Professional, and Business plans.

Atributes

The Attributes tab allows you to specify product identifiers, which you may need for accounting, inventory, or other purposes. For example, books are typically distinguished by such attributes as ISBN, author, publisher, cover type, language; apparel can be characterized by brand, season, material, etc. You can add this information in attributes.

With the help of attributes, you can also keep some private details that you don’t want to share with your customers (e.g., net cost).

If you use unique identifiers such as UPC, EAN, and ISBN numbers, you can use the barcode scanner in your Sauecommerce mobile app for iOS or Android for managing your products. You can scan a UPC/EAN/ISBN code right on your product to find the same item in the catalog or add codes to any existing products.

If you are selling on marketplaces, you can also choose the Marketplace category for this specific product. This can be useful in case you have products from different categories.

To be able to set a marketplace category for specific products, you need to set up a general marketplace category for your whole catalog first.

Options, input fields, and variations

The Options tab is where you can create options, input fields, and variations for your product.

Options — If you sell products that come in different colors, sizes, etc., you can list them as one base product with options. With the help of product options, you can also offer extras like gift wrapping.

Input fields — If you want customers to provide additional information like gift messages for presents, preferred dates, or files for products or services that you sell, you can add input fields to collect this data.

Variations — If your product has options, you can additionally create variations for it. Product variations are unique sets of options (e.g., size L, or a Yellow XL).

Variations can help you track the stock of individual product options as you can assign a unique SKU to each variation. You can also add images for specific variations so that customers have a better picture of what they are buying. Additionally, you can set individual weights, UPCs, and prices for your variations.

Product variations are available on Professional and Business plans.

Digital files

The Files tab allows you to upload the file or files, so you can sell downloadable files such as e-books, videos, music, digital art, and any other digital stuff. Sauecommerce instantly and securely delivers them to buyers upon purchase.

If you want to sell a physical product or service that includes a file (instruction, manual, e-book, etc.) that buyers can download after the purchase, you can also attach such a file in the Files tab.

Digital products are available on Essential, Professional, and Business plans.

Shipping & Pickup

The Shipping & Pickup tab allows you to mark products as shippable, set product-specific shipping methods and specify products’ weight and dimensions.

This product requires shipping or pickup — The setting for whether a product needs to be shipped. Uncheck it for digital products and services or for products that you never ship.

If you switch the This product requires shipping or pickup toggle, the same changes will be applied in the Requires shipping or pickup box on the General tab.

Weight and Dimensions — The product's actual weight and dimensions.

You can specify product dimensions on Professional and Businsess plans.

The value in the Weight field mirrors the value in the Weight field on the General tab of the product details page. In the Shipping & Pickup tab, you can also specify your products' Length, Width, and Height to obtain precise carrier-calculated shipping rates for your customers (if the integration with your shipping carrier supports dimensional weight).

Shipping Rates — Individual shipping rates for this particular product (if it requires shipping). Use one of four offered options to set product-specific shipping rates:

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By default, your store’s shipping methods that you set on the Shipping and Pickup page are used. You can keep the first shipping rates option — your store's regular shipping rates — if the item is shipped like most of the products in your store.

Or you can set special shipping rates for the product — add a fee above your regular store's rates, choose individual shipping methods for this product, specify individual shipping price per each item ordered or offer free shipping for this product.

Taxes

If you’re using manual taxes in your store and your product requires product-specific tax rates (e.g., it has a special tax applied to it, or it is tax exempt), you can enable or disable specific taxes on the Taxes tab.

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If this product is taxed like any other product in your store or you’re using automatic taxes, you don’t need to set anything on the Taxes tab.

SEO

On the SEO tab, you can set specific SEO-related information for your product's page. When analyzing a webpage, search engines get information about its content from the so-called “meta tags”. This includes the page title and meta description. Search engines use meta tags to describe pages as they appear in the search results and rank them by relevance.

Sauecommerce automatically generates metadata based on your product's name and its description. Search engines display a limited number of characters, so you may want to rewrite the page title and meta description. Edit page title and descriptions with relevant keywords, so your product appears higher in search engine results.

Page title — The title is shown as a clickable link in search results. You can customize the title to target your clients’ interests more accurately.

Meta description — A short sentence summarizing the content of the product. Write a more detailed text describing your product offer. Meta descriptions can be any length, but Google generally truncates snippets to ~155–160 characters.

Custom meta tags are available on Essential, Professional and Business plans.

The Related Products tab allows you to display the “You may also like” section in your online store as well as to cross-sell products in the cart. You can manually select specific recommended products, show random products, or use a combination of these two options.

"Buy now" button

On the “Buy Now” Button tab, you can generate a product's individual integration code to add this specific product to an external website or blog. You can go for this option if you don’t want to add a whole Sauecommerce store — for example, you sell only a few items, or you want to create a landing page for a product, or you need to supplement a blog post with the option to buy the product, etc.