X-Cart allows you to find products by specifying various product parameters.
To find a product or several products:
| 1. | Open the 'Search for products' form in the 'Products Management' section of your store. |
If you are an X-Cart PRO administrator: click on Products in the Management menu.
If you are an X-Cart GOLD administrator/provider or an X-Cart PRO provider: click on Search for products in the Products menu.
You can use basic search:
and advanced search (accessible by clicking the [+] Advanced search options link):
In basic search, you need to specify what you are looking for ('Search for pattern' field), where you want to look for it (all the 'Search in...' fields that apply) and (if the search pattern you provided is a not a single word, but a group of words) what components of the search pattern the results returned by your search need to match ('All words / Any word / Exact phrase').
Note: Matching by individual components of a search pattern (All words / Any word / Exact phrase) is available only when the option 'Allow searching by individual words of a search phrase' is enabled in General settings->General options. Please be aware that, when matching by individual components of a search pattern is enabled, a special filter ensures that service and link words that occur in the search pattern are ignored.
In advanced search, you can specify product details which the product(s) you are looking for must have.
Note: You need to specify only the parameters relevant to your search; the more information you provide about the product, the more accurate the search results will be.
| 3. | If you are doing this search in order to modify all the products that will be found, select the 'Search-and-modify' check box. If you wish to immediately export the search results to a CSV file, select the 'Export search results to a CSV file' check box. |
| 4. | Click the Search button. This should make X-Cart search for the product(s) in the database and output a list of search results in a dialog box titled 'Search results': |
The 'Search results' dialog box provides an SKU, a quantity and a price for each of the found products.
The buttons in the bottom part of the dialog box allow you to perform various operations on the found products: you can delete, preview, modify and clone products, as well as update the products' quantities and prices and generate HTML links. In addition to that, you can export all or some of the found products to a CSV file.
Note: X-Cart retains the parameters you define for a product search until your session expires. This means that, if you decide to do a new search after you have already searched for something in your current session, the 'Search for products' form will still have all the settings you used during your previous search. Make sure these old settings agree with what you are going to search for or readjust the search parameters. If the advanced search section of the 'Search for products' form contains any settings which you do not need for your new search, you can quickly clear this section by clicking the Reset button at the bottom of the 'Search for products' form.
Updating product quantities and prices
You can quickly update prices and quantities of products.
To update the quantity and/or the price of some product (or several products):
If you are an X-Cart PRO administrator,
| 1. | Find the product(s) whose quantity/price you wish to update. |
| 2. | In the 'Search results' dialog box, edit the necessary quantities/prices. |
| 3. | Click the Update button. The edited quantities/prices will be updated. |
If you are an X-Cart GOLD administrator/provider or an X-Cart PRO provider,
1. Open the Update inventory section in the Products menu.
2. Select 'Quantity in stock' or 'Pricing' from the drop-down box depending on what information you want to update.
3. Select CSV delimiter.
4. Browse and locate the prepared CSV file, containing the necessary changes.
Warning! Maximum file size that can be uploaded: 2Mb.
5. Click Update. The edited quantities/prices will be updated.
You can quickly preview the details of any product in your store.
To preview the details of some product:
| 1. | Find the product whose details you wish to preview. |
| 2. | In the 'Search results' dialog box, select the check box next to the product name. |
| 3. | Click the Preview product button at the bottom of the 'Search results' dialog box. |
This should open a product preview page with a summary of the product's details:
You can use the links provided in the bottom part of the product preview box to modify, clone or delete the product. Clicking on the printer icon will open a printable version of the product preview page.
You can modify previously created products, which means you can edit any of their details.
To modify a product:
| 1. | Find the product that you wish to modify. |
| 2. | Open the product for modification. Do one of the following: |
| ▪ | In the 'Search results' dialog box, select the check box next to the product name, then click the Modify selected button. |
or
| ▪ | In the 'Search results' dialog box, click the product name link. |
This should open a page with the details of the selected product.
| 3. | Change all the necessary product details. |
| 4. | Click the Save button to save the changes. The details of the product will be updated. |
| 5. | If necessary, add, edit or delete international descriptions and other additional features for the product. |
Group product editing (mass product editing)
If you need to make similar changes to more than one products, you might want to edit these products as a group.
To modify several products simultaneously (using X-Cart's group product editing feature):
| 1. | Find the products that you wish to modify. |
| 2. | In the 'Search results' dialog box, select the products that need to be modified (select the check boxes next to the product names). |
Note: You can use the Check all link to select all the products on the page.
| 3. | Click the Modify selected button. |
This should open a page with a list of products selected for modification:
and a 'Product details' dialog box displaying the details of a product whose name is written in bold font in the list of products selected for modification:
Now you can view the details of any of the products from the 'Product list': all you need to do is click on the name of the product whose details you wish to view, and the details will be displayed in the 'Product details' dialog box below.
| 4. | From the 'Product list', select a product whose details you wish to use as a model for all the products in the list. The details of this product will be opened for viewing and modification in the 'Product details' dialog box. |
| 5. | In the 'Product details' dialog box, change all the product details that need to be changed for the currently selected product. You can make any changes, no matter whether they need to be applied only to this very product or to all of the products selected for modification. |
| 6. | You might have noticed that the 'Product details' dialog box looks a bit different when used in group product editing mode: all the fields of this dialog box have check boxes located to the left of their names. These check boxes allow you to assign the product details of the product you are viewing to the rest of the products selected for modification. Select the check boxes next to the fields which need to be applied to all of the products in the 'Product list'. |
| 7. | Click the Save button at the bottom of the 'Product details' dialog box to save the changes. The product details you have changed should be updated (The ones with selected check boxes should be applied to all of the products in the 'Product list', the ones whose check boxes were left unselected - just to the product whose details are displayed in the 'Product details' dialog box). |
| 8. | (Optional) Now, if you need to make further changes to any more products from the 'Product list', select one of these products so its details are displayed in the 'Product details' dialog box and continue editing as described above. |
| 9. | (Optional) Add, edit or delete international descriptions and other additional features for one of the products and apply the changes to all the products being edited. |
X-Cart's 'Clone product' feature allows you to create new products based on existing products. If you wish to create a product whose details would be just a little different from those of another product already existing in your store, the best and quickest way to do it would be by cloning. When you clone an existing product, X-Cart creates an exact copy of this product in the database. This copy (the clone product) can then be modified and saved with a new name.
To create a product by cloning:
| 1. | Find the product that you wish to clone. |
| 2. | In the 'Search results' dialog box, select the check box next to the title of this product. |
| 3. | Click the Clone product button at the bottom of the 'Search results' dialog box. X-Cart will create a copy of the product. After an automatic page refresh you should see a 'Product details' dialog box with the details of the clone product. The clone product will have the same details as the original product; its name will consist of the name of the original product + (CLON). |
| 4. | Change the name of the clone product and edit all the necessary product details and additional product features. |
| 5. | Click the Save button to save the changes. The product will be added. |
It is possible to use products from your X-Cart database not only on the pages of your store catalog, but also on any other HTML pages in the same online store or on a different website. For example, you can place a description and a thumbnail image of some product on an external page somewhere on the Web and provide an 'Add to cart' link next to the description, so visitors of this external page can purchase the product directly from there. Visitors who will click the link will be redirected to the shopping cart section in your X-Cart based store, so their further steps towards placing an order will be the same as those of any customer ordering a product from your store catalog.
On demand, X-Cart can generate HTML code which can be integrated into HTML pages to create links to products.
Three types of HTML links are supported:
| ▪ | links to product thumbnails - links allowing you to insert product thumbnail images into any HTML pages: |
| ▪ | simple HTML links to add 1 product to cart - links allowing a visitor of an external page to add one item of a product to the shopping cart: |
| ▪ | advanced HTML links with selectable quantity and product options support - links allowing a visitor of an external page to see the price of the product, to select the number of product items which should be added to cart and to specify a desired set of product options with which these items should be added. |
Every time you tell X-Cart to generate HTML links to a certain product, it generates links of all the three types. You can choose any one link or use a combination of a thumbnail link with any of the two 'Add to cart' links.
To get X-Cart to generate HTML links:
| 1. | Find the product for which you need HTML links. |
| 2. | In the 'Search results' dialog box, select the check box next to the title of this product. |
| 3. | Click the Generate HTML links button at the bottom of the 'Search results' dialog box. X-Cart will generate links of the three types described above. This is it. You should see a preview of the product's details and (below the preview section) three forms with previews of links and corresponding HTML code. |
Now you can copy the HTML code for the desired link(s) and paste it into the code of your external page.
Products that you do not wish to sell ever again can be deleted (permanently removed from the database).
To delete one or more products:
| 1. | Find the products that you wish to delete. |
| 2. | Mark these products for deletion by selecting the check boxes next to their names in the 'Search results' dialog box. |
| 3. | Click the Delete selected button. |
A confirmation box will appear with a list of products selected for deletion:
| 4. | Click Yes to confirm your desire to delete the products (Please be aware that this operation cannot be reverted!). All the selected products will be removed. After an automatic page refresh, you should see an information box with a confirmation message. |
Note: If you clicked the button Delete selected by mistake and do not wish to delete the products, cancel the operation of deletion by clicking No.