Working with Products
Choosing the best product names
| New Product
To get started adding products just click the New Product button on the RealCart toolbar. The product wizard will appear.
|
A complete list of all the toolbar buttons as well as explanations for what each of them do can be found in Section 1.3.1.
Stock Number
This is the stock number of the product you are adding. If you do not already use some type of stock number system now is a good time to make one up. Many products have a UPC code which includes a UPC product identification number already. This number will work OK or you can make up your own.
The Product Wizard requires a different and unique number for each product you add to your store. You may, if you have no existing reference system, assign an arbitrary number to each product. You can also enter letter-number combinations, as well as just a word. But they all need to be different for the RealCart to keep track of them.
Due to the fact that RealCart utilizes stock numbers as the filename of the product page you are not allowed to use certain characters which cannot be used in a filename. The characters include: \ / : ; * ? " < > | ' ( ) and #.
SHORT Product Name
The short names you use for your products must adhere to a size limitation so they fit into the shopping cart window (usually in the upper left corner of your on-line store). These names must remain physically small enough in width so that the entire name of the item is visible in the shopping cart window without having to scroll back and fourth.
Some themes also use this short name to create pull-down navigation menus. Keep in mind that the majority of internet users have a screen resolution set at 800 x 600. Sometimes the hardest thing for some web designers to understand is that not everyone has a 19" monitor. You can control how good your store looks by trying to keep to some size standards when entering info into the program. Here are the product names and the approximate lengths to keep them.
The SHORT Product Name should be kept around 20 characters or less to prevent potential problems with secure order providers. If these “short names” aren’t short the shopping cart applet in the corner of the shopper’s screen will have a horizontal scroll bar in it and they will have to scroll left to right to read the cart contents. Here are two examples of acceptable sized product short names and one that is too long:
Proper length for
Short Name
|
Short Name is
way too long
|
|
|
LONGER product name
The LONGER Product Name should be kept around 50 characters or less so that themes with “Pulldown menus” won’t be so wide that the shopper has to scroll from side to side just to read the page. Neither of the Product Name fields are intended to hold description type info. Only the name of the product belongs in these name fields.
The key to success is to size your browser window to 800 x 600 and then view your store. If it looks good at this resolution then you are OK. If you have to scroll side to side to see the entire page then your product names (or thumbnail images) are likely too wide. The key to success is not to try to put your product description in these fields. The program has a product description field that has no limit on size. You can be as wordy as you want to in the product description field. Keep the names within these established parameters and you will be fine.
|
Copyright © 1995-2006, RealCart.com®
Made possible by the Grace of God.
Do yourself a favor, LoveYourWife.com.
This page last modified on
|
|
