FAQ- Products

1. How do I publish my products?

Once you have publish your first product, your brand profile and published products will be discoverable by sellers within ShopDot.

You must complete these onboarding steps before publishing a product.

Understanding Product Statuses

1. Click on the Products tab. By default, all products come through to ShopDot as Unpublished status.

• If the tablet is Unpublished and gray, that means the product has NOT met all requirements and you will need to edit Products to complete required fields.

• If the tablet is Published and green, that means the product is published and visible to sellers within ShopDot.

• If the tablet is Disconnected and red, that means that the product is either not in the ShopDot sales channel, in draft or achieved status or deleted in your eCommerce store.

2. How do I get a product to go from Unpublished to Published?

Prior to publishing a product, you must have the mandatory fields completed.

1. Method A (Bulk Edit):
   1. Select multiple products from the main list and use the "Edit Category" and "Edit Animal Type" buttons.
2. Method B (Individual Edit):
   1. Click into a product
   2. Navigate to 'Product Details' and 'Options' tabs
      1. Complete Categories and Animal Type tabs.
3. The red triangle should disappear
4. Publish the product using either the main list's "Publish" button or the toggle within the product detail page.

Publishing, Unpublishing or Disconnecting a product(s)

• Individual Products:
  • Click into the product listing and under Status toggle the status published or unpublished.
• In Bulk:
  • With in the Products tab, select multiple products, and bulk publish, unpublish, or disconnect on the top of the table.

Understanding Your Product Statuses

• Published:
  • This is your main hub for products currently live and available for sale on online storefronts. Use the Published tab to track active listings, monitor inventory levels, and review performance.
• Unpublished:
  • Think of this tab as a staging area for upcoming product launches or seasonal items. It's a great place to keep products you're preparing for release. Use it as a checklist to review important details—like images, descriptions, pricing, commission, and promotions—before publishing to ShopDot.
• Disconnected:
  • The Disconnected tab is ideal for future products that aren’t yet synced with your ecommerce platform. Treat it as a to-do list for items that need setup or review before they’re ready for you to publish.

Understanding the "Disconnected" Status

• A product will appear in the 'Disconnected' tab if its listing is no longer in an active state within your eCommerce store. This can happen for various reasons, such as the product being set to 'draft', 'inactive,' or moved to the trash.
• To resolve this, you'll need to go back to your eCommerce platform to find the product and ensure it is active and available or in the ShopDot sales channel in Shopify
• After the next sync between your store and ShopDot, the product will then appear in the 'Unpublished' tab, ready for the next steps.
• If a product remains disconnected despite being in the ShopDot sales channel:
  • Go to your ShopDot sales channel
  • Remove the product and save changes
  • Re-add the product to the ShopDot sales channel and save again

If the product still shows as disconnected after these steps, please contact our support team at support@shopdotapp.com for assistance.

Managing Product Variants

• Navigate to the 'Options' tab in a product listing
  1. How to edit the price for a single variant?
     1. Navigate to BasePrice on the right-hand side of the table
     2. Enter a new price
  2. How to unpublish a single variant (e.g., a size that is out of stock)?
     1. Untoggle the Variant you wish to unpublish.
  3. How to select multiple variants and use the "Bulk Actions" dropdown to change their status simultaneously?
     1. Select the variant you wish to unpublish by checking the box next to the variant name.
     2. Select Unpublish on the right-hand side

3. How do I add new products?

There are several way to add products into ShopDot.

There are two main requirements in order to add products from your eCommerce store to ShopDot:

1. The product must be in Active or Published status in your eCommerce store.
2. (Only for Shopify) The product must be added to the ShopDot sales channel in your Shopify store.

As soon as these requirements are met, the product listing will automatically sync to ShopDot. There are a few things to note:

1. Inventory will automatically sync in real time.
2. If the Shopify product listing is deleted, archived or removed from the ShopDot sales channel, the product listing will immediately deactivate within ShopDot.
3. After a product is imported from Shopify to ShopDot, any changes to the Shopify product listing will NOT automatically update in ShopDot. If you edit the product listing in Shopify and want that reflected in ShopDot, you can re-sync the product content. Click here to learn more about this process.

4. How do I manage products in bulk?

ShopDot has provided bulk actions to make it easier for brands to manage multiple products all at the same time.

Within the Product Tab:

1. Select the checkboxes next to the products you’d like to manage.
2. Choose the desired bulk update action (Sync, Publish/Unpublish, Edit, or Delete) from the available buttons.

Edit Status

• What it does: Quickly publish, unpublish or delete multiple products at once.
• When to use it: When launching new products or temporarily removing items from your storefront — no need to update products one by one.

Edit Category / Edit Animal Type

• What it does: Allows you to bulk edit product categories or associated animal types for multiple products at the same time.
• When to use it: When reorganizing your catalog or correcting category assignments for a group of products.

Delete

• What it does: Permanently removes selected products from ShopDot.
• Important Note: Once deleted, products must be resynced from your eCommerce store to relist them on ShopDot. This action cannot be undone.

Sync with eCommerce

• What it does: Updates the information of your product(s) on ShopDot with the latest data from your connected eCommerce store.
• When to use it: If you’ve made changes like pricing or descriptions in your eCommerce platform and want ShopDot to match those updates.

5. What does the red triangle mean?

It signals missing required fields:

• Product Name, Description, SKU, Price, Product Images (from your eCommerce store)
• Animal Type (entered in ShopDot)
• Category & Subcategory (entered in ShopDot)

Until these are completed, the product cannot be Published.

6. What’s the difference between Product Status and Variant Status?

• Product Status = overall visibility. To publish a product:
  • All variants must have SKUs, and
  • At least one variant must be set to Published.
• Variant Status = which sizes/colors are available. Unpublished variants stay hidden, while Published ones are selectable by customers.

7. What’s the purpose of the Published / Unpublished / Disconnected tabs?

• Published – Review active products, monitor stock, and ensure high-demand items are available.
• Unpublished – Focus area for setup and cleanup. Publish what’s ready or delete products you don’t plan to use.
• Disconnected – Prompts you to resolve issues in your eCommerce store (Draft, Archived, missing SKU) or remove products that no longer matter.

Why this matters: Staying on top of these tabs helps you avoid overselling, missing sales, or cluttering your feed with inactive products.

8. How does Safety Stock work?

See full Safety Stock resource → [placeholder for link/manual].

Quick version:

• It’s a buffer that hides items from the storefront when inventory is low.
• Prevents overselling but doesn’t change your back-end product status.
• Once stock rises above the threshold, the product automatically reappears.

9. How do I manage Commission %?

• Global commission % can be set in Settings.
• You can override at the product level from the Product Detail page.
• If you’ve already customized a product’s commission, global changes won’t overwrite it.

10. What happens if I Delete a product?

• Deleting removes the product from ShopDot completely.
• If you later decide you want it back, you’ll need to:
  1. Re-add the product in your eCommerce system.
  2. Re-sync it into ShopDot.

⚠️ Best practice: Only delete if you’re certain the product is gone for good. Otherwise, leave it Unpublished so you don’t create extra work for yourself.

11. Why is managing my products so important?

Because Sellers and customers rely on your feed being accurate. Strong product management means:

• No oversells.
• No dead listings.
• The right products in the right place, at the right time.

Think of your Products page as your daily dashboard for operational health.