A Complete Guide to Managing Your Products
This guide provides a complete overview of the product management workflow within ShopDot. It covers all the necessary steps and features, from the syncing your products to advanced management and strategic best practices.
- Introduction & Navigating the Products Page
- Completing Product Details and Variants
- Publishing a Product
- Automatic Product Availability
- Understanding the Product Table Fields
- Adding New Products to ShopDot
- Using Filters and Deleting Products
- The Customer View
1. Introduction & Navigating the Products Page
The Products page is the central hub for your entire product catalog. When products from your eCommerce store sync to ShopDot, they will all appear here.
This page is organized with several tabs to streamline your workflow:
- The 'All' tab displays your complete product catalog.
- The 'Published,' 'Unpublished,' and 'Disconnected' tabs allow you to filter your view to focus on products in a specific state.
For a more detailed explanation on products statuses, please refer to our guide:
When a new product syncs, it is assigned an 'Unpublished' status by default and is marked with a red triangle indicator. This indicator signifies that the product is missing required fields that must be completed before it can be published.
Product Listing Table
- The following table provides a detailed explanation of each column in the Product Listing Table."
| Product | Includes Name of Product and the non-editable SKU. |
| Status | Published, Unpublished, Disconnected. |
| Category | The primary discovery fields . |
| Commission | The rate paid to Sellers for this specific product. |
| Stock Level | Stock level is the inventory available to order. By default, the stock level in ShopDot is the stock level in your eCommerce store- (minus) Available Inventory Percentage Safety Stock. |
| Last Updated Date | Last date you updated this specific product. Changes in both your eCommerce store and in ShopDot trigger a change to this date. |
2. Completing Product Details and Variants
To add the required information to publish your products, click on an individual product to access its detail page. This page is organized into several tabs to manage product information.
- 'Product Details' Tab
- You will start on this tab, where you can edit the product's name and description. It is essential to complete all fields marked with a red asterisk (*), such as 'Animal Type,' 'Category,' and 'Sub-Category,' as this information is critical for product discovery by sellers.
- 'Variants' Tab
- After completing the main details, navigate to the 'Variants' tab. This section is used to manage all product variations, such as different sizes or colors. Here, you can view each variant's unique SKU for reference and edit its specific Price. The status of each individual variant can also be managed here, allowing you to publish or unpublish specific options as needed.
3. Publishing a Product
Once the red triangle indicator is no longer visible, the product is ready to be published and made available to Sellers. You can publish items from the 'All' or 'Unpublished' tabs by selecting one or more products and clicking the 'Publish' button. Alternatively, you can change the status to 'Published' from within an individual product's detail page.
For detailed, step-by-step instructions on publishing products please refer to our guide:
4. Automatic Product Availability
ShopDot automatically manages your product availability across all of your Sellers' storefronts. If you unpublish a product, or if it runs out of stock, it is instantly and automatically removed from sale on every Seller's site. This system ensures customers cannot order unavailable products and eliminates the need to manually manage listings with each individual Seller.
5. Understanding the Product Table Fields
The main product table provides several key pieces of information at a glance: when you click on the product, you will be directed to the Product Details page which has the following Product (Details Tab) and Product Variant fields (Variants Tab)
Details tab
Product-level Fields:
Field Name |
Source |
Description |
Mandatory |
Editable with ShopDot |
| Product name | Imported from your eCommerce store | The text here is directly synced from your eCommerce store. You can choose to edit this field | mandatory | editable |
| Product description | Imported from your eCommerce store | The text here is directly synced from your eCommerce store. You can choose to edit this field. | mandatory | editable |
| Product commission | This is a ShopDot field | Select a specific commission percentage for your product. When you filled out Settings you set a default commission across all products, but can change specific product commissions at any time. | mandatory | editable |
| Product images | Imported from your eCommerce store | The images here is directly synced from your eCommerce store. You can choose to remove or add additional images. At least 1 image is required. | mandatory | editable |
| Product category and features. | This is a ShopDot field | Select at least 1 for:
|
mandatory | editable |
Variants tab
Product Variant Fields
Field Name |
Source |
Description |
Mandatory |
Editable with ShopDot |
| Product Variant Title | Imported from your eCommerce store | The variant title comes from your eCommerce store. | mandatory | not editable |
| Status | This is a ShopDot field. | This status will let you know if you're product variant is published, unpublished, or disconnected | mandatory | not editable |
| SKU | Imported from your eCommerce store | The SKU is directly synced from your eCommerce store. If you are missing the SKU, please enter that within your eCommerce store and re-sync the product listing. Your product will not sync to ShopDot unless you have entered a SKU. | mandatory | not editable |
| Barcode | Imported from your eCommerce store | The barcode is directly synched from your eCommerce store. | optional | not editable |
| Stock | Imported from your eCommerce store By default, the stock level in ShopDot is the stock level in your eCommerce store- (minus) Available Inventory Percentage Safety Stock. The inventory buffer can be edited at any time under Settings <> Preferences. |
Stock level is the inventory available to order. Customer will not be able to order this product variant if the stock level is 0. |
mandatory | not editable |
| Base Price | Imported from your eCommerce store When you sync your product with ShopDot, the base price will also sync from your eCommerce store. You can edit this field at anytime. |
This is the retail price of your product and the amount that you will be charging customers. | mandatory | editable |
6. Adding New Products to ShopDot
As you expand your product catalog within your eCommerce store, you may want to add your products to ShopDot.
The product must be in Active or Published status in your eCommerce store.
Once a new product is synced, it will land in your 'Unpublished' tab with the red triangle indicator, ready for you to complete its details as outlined in the following sections.
For detailed, step-by-step instructions on the syncing process and how to add new products, please refer to our guide:
7. Using Filters and Deleting Products
On the main products page, you can use the filters at the top to locate specific products quickly. This allows you to isolate information to make decisions or take action on a group of products.
To learn how to efficiently update categories and other attributes for multiple products at once, please consult our guide:
If you need to permanently remove a product, you can select it and choose the 'Delete' action. Please be aware that deleting a product is a permanent action and cannot be undone.
8. The Customer View
To see how your products will appear to end customers, you can click on 'Customer View' within the Product Listing. This will display the final listing as it appears on the storefronts built by your Sellers.
Next: How to create Promotions? and How to create Product Groups?