Categories/Products
<historylink type="back">🠈 Back</historylink> 🠉 ADMINISTRATION
Store Planning
It is best to have a clear plan of your store organisation and hierarchy of categories, subcategories and products before starting.
Give thought to the naming from the perspective of your customers and what they will be searching for so they will find navigation and therefore find your products easily. It is worth noting that it is difficult for customers to scan long lists and will also notice the first and last items most. Therefore, limit the number of top level categories as much as possible. Ideally a maximum of 7-10 works well.
Categories can contain subcategories or products but not both (although developers can make Phoenix Cart do anything).
Sub-categories can have more subcategories and so on to create a category tree.
You will also need pictures for your categories and products, optimised for viewing on the internet. This means they need to have a small file size so they do not take up too much memory or take too long to load, while still being of a quality good enough for viewing. They should also all have the same aspect ratio. See - GIMP
Delete Sample Data
From admin go to 
Catalog → Categories/Products
If you chose to include sample data when you installed CE Phoenix Cart you will see this.
The sample categories, subcategories and products should be deleted.
- Click the folder icon for a category to open it to show the subcategories or products it contains.
- Repeat for subcategories if the category contains them.
- Click on a product in the list.
- Click Delete
- Repeat for each product.
- Click Back
- Click on the category/subcategory in the list.
- Click Delete
- Repeat until all categories, subcategories and products have been deleted.
New Categories & Subcategories
Click New Category - you will see this:
- Category Name
- Enter the name.
- Category Title for SEO
- Leave blank or enter something different to the category name if required.
- Category Description
- Enter a description to show on the category page. Text can be styled how you wish by using HTML markup. At its simplest, to create a paragraph with a line break, enclose your text with <p> </p> e.g. <p>your text.</p> or to create a line break type <br> e.g. your text.<br>
- Read more about HTML here - Simple HTML to Format Text
- Category Meta Description for SEO
- Think of this as a short description of less than 30 words.
- Category Image
- Click Browse to choose and upload an image from your computer.
- Sort Order
- Enter a sort order value to order your categories.
- Click Save
Click the folder icon for a category or subcategory to open it and repeat as above to add new subcategories.
Read more about Search Engine Optimisation here - Search Engine Optimisation
Many Addons and Extensions available in the CE Phoenix Cart Addons Library
If help is needed, support is available in the CE Phoenix Cart Support Forum
Phoenix Cart User Guide, like CE Phoenix Cart, is free to use but is maintained by unpaid volunteers.
All other content is the reserved Intellectual Property and Copyright of phoenixcart.org
- From admin go to Catalog → Categories/Products
Add Product
- Click on a category in the list to select it.
- Click on it again to open it.
- Click New Product to see this (it is split into 3 tabbed sections, opens showing Product specific):
Product specific
- Product Status:
- This can be changed to hide the product in the store, when Out of Stock, for example.
- Note that if customers cannot see it, neither will the internet search engines.
- Date Available:
- It might be preferable, if Out of Stock, to enter a date when more stock expected here, using the calendar icon date picker.
- Products Manufacturer:
- If you require products to be assigned a manufacturer go to Catalog → Manufacturers first to enter manufacturers names.
- Tax Class:
- Choose a tax class from the drop down menu.
- Products Price (Net):
- Enter a tax exclusive (net) price here and the tax inclusive (gross) price will automatically show.
- Products Price (Gross):
- Enter a tax inclusive (gross) price here and the tax exclusive (net) price will automatically show.
- Products Quantity:
- Enter a stock quantity on hand.
- Products Model:
- Enter a model number if you require, it can be used for any identifier you want - the Model Number module Modules → Content needs to be installed for this to show on product page.
- Products Weight:
- Enter a weight value for calculating the shipping cost.
- Products GTIN:
- Enter a GTIN if required.
- The GTIN module Modules → Content needs to be installed for this to show on product page.
Language specific
- Click Language specific tab and you will see this
- English
- Languages are flagged for each language installed.
- Products Name:
- Enter your product name.
- Products Description:
- Enter your product description - be as detailed as you require. Text can be styled how you wish by using HTML markup. At its simplest, to create a paragraph with a line break, enclose your text with <p> </p> e.g. <p>your text.</p> or to create a line break type <br> e.g. your text.<br>
- Read more about HTML here - Simple HTML to Format Text
- Products URL:
- Enter a web site address if required e.g. for the manufacturer.
- A 3rd Party Addon needs to be installed for this to show on product page (search Addons Library: Products URL Link
- Products Title for SEO:
- The Products Model will show in the breadcrumb by default - enter the Products Name here if you wish that to show there instead.
- Product Meta Description for SEO:
- Think of this as a short description of less than 30 words. This will show on search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Product Keywords
- The keywords can be thought of as what a person would type into the store search box to find your product.
Product images
- Click Product images tab and you will see this
- Main Image:
- Click Browse to choose and upload an image from your computer.
- Gallery Images
- Click Add New Gallery Image to see this:
- Enter more images if you require more than one.
- Click Browse to choose and upload an additional image from your computer.
- It is advisable to use a system for naming image files e.g. so the names relate to the product, names are not duplicated and you can identify them.
- Input text and/or HTML to the HTML Content box to add a caption to the additional images.
- If more than one additional image is added, click on the vertical double arrow icon to drag and drop images to change their order of display if required.
- Click the Red Trash Icon to delete any additional image.
- Click Save
When the product image is clicked on the product page, a sliding carousel, that will cycle through all the images, will pop up like this:
Digital Products
If digital downloads are being sold - see Download
Read more about Search Engine Optimisation here - Search Engine Optimisation
Many Addons and Extensions available in the CE Phoenix Cart Addons Library
If help is needed, support is available in the CE Phoenix Cart Support Forum
Phoenix Cart User Guide, like CE Phoenix Cart, is free to use but is maintained by unpaid volunteers.
All other content is the reserved Intellectual Property and Copyright of phoenixcart.org
Please visit again soon for additions and changes
Phoenix Cart User Guide, like CE Phoenix Cart, is free to use but is maintained by unpaid volunteers.
All other content is the reserved Intellectual Property and Copyright of phoenixcart.org
