|
Product Number: |
Use this field to specify your product number or item number.
This is a required field.
Although it is called a "product number", this
field can actually contain any kind of text (e.g., a combination of
digits and alphabetic characters, or just alphabetic characters).
If you don't have Product Numbers for your items, you can just use a
short abbreviation of the product name. Note: This field should be
limited to a total of 18 characters. Excess characters, beyond 18, will not
be displayed on the order listing.
|
|
Price Ea.: |
Enter the price for a single item. This is a
required field. Note that
PayPal currently supports only US dollars for prices. (However, that is expected
to change when PayPal begins accepting international payments.)
|
| Sale? |
Check this box to put the words "Sale Price:" in front of the item price
in the listing.
|
| Fixed Qty.: |
This field should only be used when you want to set a fixed quantity
(typically 1) in the order for a particular item, and you don't want
the customer to be able to change it. A fixed quantity of 1 might be
used, for example, if you only have one of the items for sale, or you might use
it if you are charging for a one-time service (rather than a "product"). If you
put a number in this field, then this quantity will be shown in the shopping cart
and the order, but the customer will not be able to change it before placing the
order. If this field is not set (which would be the typical case),
then the shopping cart will initialize the quantity field to 1, but the
shopper will be able to change this number and recalculate the total charge.
|
|
Product: |
This required field should contain a
short description of the item.
(A longer description can be put in the Description field below.)
This short description, along with the Product Number, will be used to identify
the item on the order listing. (Note that this field and the Product Number will
be the only fields shown on the order to identify the item, so make
sure that the combination of the two fields uniquely identify each product.)
Although the size of this field is not limited, the order listing will be
easier to read if this field does not exceed 36 characters.
|
| Picture URL: |
If you have a graphic (a picture) of the product, you can enter the URL of the
image file in this field. Like other URLs specific to your site, this can be
a "relative" URL, but full URLs (starting with "http://yourdomain...") are
recommended.
|
| Ref. Link URL: |
This optional field may be used to provide a link from the item to another
page, which would typically be a larger picture or an HTML page containing
more detailed information about the item. If this field is used, then both
the image from the Picture URL above (if any) and the Product short description
will be set up as links to this URL, so the shopper can click on either to
visit this link.
|
| Description: |
This field can be used for a longer, more detailed description of the item.
You can use HTML in this field, if you like.
|
| Selections: |
The two Selections entries can be used to define "pull-down" menus to allow
the buyer to select options such as size, color, style, etc. as appropriate
for the item. Note: The format of this entry is very important in order
for the pull-down lists to function properly. The entry for each Selection
can begin with an identifier followed by a colon (for example, "Size:" or
"Color:"), to specify what is being selected. (On the item page, the pull-down list will be labeled with "Select Size:", "Select Color:", etc.) Following this
identifier, the available selections should be listed, separated by commas. For
example, a complete Selection entry might be "Color: Red, Blue, Green" or
"Size: Small, Medium, Large, X-Large". Note: The buyers selection(s) will
be added to the end of the Product description shown in the order listing (for
example, "T-Shirt; Size:Medium Color:Blue"). There may be cases where you do
not need or do not wish to use the colon-delimited identifier, because the
selections are simply self-explanitory options. In that case, omit the
colon-delimited label and just list the options separated my commas. (These
options will appear in a pull-down list labeled simply as "Select:".)
|
| Shipping Cost: |
For each of the Shipping Options that you define in the Merchant Information
section, you can set a Shipping Cost for each item. (That is, the numbers
assigned to these Shipping Cost fields in the Item section correspond to the
numbers assigned to the Shipping Options fields in the Merchant Information
section.)
Note that there are two boxes, with a "+" sign between them,
for each shipping cost. The first box is a "base" shipping
charge that will be applied regardless of the quantity of the item
that the customer orders. The second box is to specify a per-item shipping
charge (i.e., a charge that is multiplied by the quantity ordered).
Both of these charges may be used, or either one can be omitted. For example,
you may want to add only a small charge, or no extra charge at all, for extra
quantities of a small, light item. On the other hand, if you have a fixed
charge for each item, you can omit the "base" cost and put the entire
per-item cost in the second box.
For each item, the total shipping cost will be the cost in the first box
(if any), plus an amount calculated by multiplying the ordered quantity for
that item times the cost in the second box (if any). Note that the shipping cost
for a single item will, therefore, be the sum of the two boxes.
A frequently asked question is, "What if I want to charge $5.00 for the first
item and $1.00 for each additional item?" In that case, use 4 for the "base"
charge and 1 for the "per qty." charge, and the first item will simply be the
sum of the two charges.
Important Note: If you have several different items that have the
same base shipping rate, that base rate will be charged only once,
but the per-item charge will be calculated for each group of items. That is,
the program assumes that different items with exactly the same base shipping
rate can be shipped together, so the base charge will be applied only once for
all the items. (This consideration only applies to the base rates; the per-item
rates can be different.) Note that the entries must be exactly
the same: "5" will not be recognized as the same thing as "5.00".
If you do not what to consolidate the base charges (i.e., the different
types of items will be shipped separately, so the base charge should be applied
for each type of item), you will need to make the base rates slightly different
for each type of item, even if the difference is only one cent, or you could
intentionally use "5" for one item and "5.00" for another, to make them appear
different to the program.
Important Note: The number of Shipping Cost entries that you make for
each item must be exactly the same as the number of Shipping Options
that you specified in the Merchant Information section. Also, if you are
going to create several catalog pages, you must be careful to specify the same
Shipping Options on all pages, and a matching number of Shipping Cost
entries for all items. Otherwise, the final shipping calculation for
all items will depend only on the shipping options on the page that was
last used to order an item, which may be incorrect for items selected from a
different page.
|
