In this tutorial on managing your products and categories in OpenCart, we will cover the following:
How to Add Product Categories in OpenCart
How to set up product attributes in OpenCart
How to add products to your store in OpenCart
Further Reading:
How to install OpenCart on a live server
How to install an Opencart template
How to Add Product Categories in OpenCart
In this tutorial we will show you how to add product categories in your OpenCart store. Product categories are used to organize your products to make it easier for your customers and visitors to find the exact product they are looking for. You can categorize your products as you find it suitable for your product portfolio. Furthermore, a product can be added to more than one category in case you find it suitable.
In order to add a new product category in OpenCart you will need to login into your OpenCart admin panel and navigate to the Catalog dropdown from the main navigation menu.
This will redirect you to the OpenCart categories list. In case you have demo data installed on your OpenCart you should see some demo categories already created. You can easily remove these categories by selecting them via the check box row and clicking the Delete button on the top right corner of your screen.
To add a new category, please click on the Insert button located at the upper right corner of your screen.
On the next page you have a few fields to fill in with the characteristics of your product category. You are completely free to input the data that most suits your needs and best describe your products that will be added to this category later.
For this tutorial we will use some demo data to create a new category. First, we should input the Category Name as well as some data for the search engines such as the meta tags and meta keywords. You can leave the last 2 empty or fill them later.
Next, you can input some category description. This information is used to help your customers to get better idea of the products organized in this section. If you believe your category name is self-explanatory you may leave this field empty or fill it later.
When you are done on this page you should refer to the next tab from the tabs navigation called Data. Here you can specify if this is a subcategory by setting a parent category. If a parent category is set the newly created category will be set as a child category. You can select a parent category by start typing an already existing category name in the Parent field.
Additionally, you should select the store for which your category will be added. OpenCart support a multi-store configuration which makes this field mandatory. If you have a single store configuration you should check the "Default" store to make the category active for your store.
If you scroll to the bottom of the page you will be able to set an image for the category and the sort number of the category. If you would like this category to be your first one in any list on your website you should set this to zero. Make sure your category status is set to Enabled to have this category active when created.
From the last tab in the tab navigation of this page you may choose the layout of the category. Leave this unchanged if you do not have any custom category layout for this section.
When you are ready with your new category settings, please click Save at the upper right corner of your screen to create your product category.
How to set up product attributes in OpenCart
OpenCart allows you to create attributes for your products. Product attributes are used to describe features of your products and help your customers to find what they are looking for easier. Additionally, product attributes can be used to provide additional options of a single product to your customers such as size, color or any other features applicable for your products.
Attributes are organized in attribute groups. For example, different colors such as red, blue and yellow can be organized in an attribute group called Color. For the purpose of this tutorial we will use this example to show you how to create a custom attribute group and add an attribute to it.
To begin, please login into your OpenCart admin panel and refer to the Catalog ? Attributes ? Attribute Groups from the main navigation menu in your admin dashboard.
If you have the default OpenCart demo data present you should see a few groups already created. You can easily remove these groups by selecting them and click on the Delete button from the upper right corner of your screen.
To add a new attribute group, please click on the Insert button. On the next page input your Attribute Group name and apply a sort order for the group. The sort order number is not mandatory and should be filled only if you specifically need this group to be sorted in a certain order in your attribute categories list.
When you are ready click on the save button. Now your new attribute group should be successfully created. We should proceed with adding attributes to the newly created group.
This can be done by referring to the main navigation menu under the Catalog ? Attributes menu.
On the attributes page you should see a list of all existing attributes and the categories under which they are submitted. To add a new attribute please click on the Insert button.
On the new page input the attribute name, select your newly created attribute group and the sort order. When you are ready, click on the Save button.
Now you should see your newly created attribute in the attributes list page and the attribute category under which it is submitted. You newly created attribute group and attribute item are now available to be applied to any existing or new product.
Further Reading:
How to manage extensions and themes in OpenCart
How to manage payments and shipping in OpenCart
OpenCart 2 Marketing and Affiliate Program
Important Steps After an OpenCart Installation
OpenCart Configuration Tutorial
OpenCart installation tutorial
How to add products to your store in OpenCart
In this tutorial we will show you how to add new products in your OpenCart store. We assume you already followed our previous tutorials and you have already created your product categories and attributes.
To begin, please login into your OpenCart admin dashboard and refer to the Catalog ? Products link.
On the next page you can view all of your existing products with their price, quantity and status. To add a new product, please click on the Insert button from the upper right corner of your screen.
This will redirect you to the product configuration page where we can input all the characteristics of our new product. Let's add a new product, a red shirt, for which we will use our newly created category called New Products and the attribute "Red" we created in the previous tutorial.
On the first tab page we need to input the product name, some meta data for the search engines, product description and optionally some tags.
Next, please click on the Data tab. Here you have a few options to configure related to your product. First, let's input our product model. For the purpose of this tutorial we will simply use "Men". You can also input your SKU number to help you track your inventory as well as other product codes depending on your inventory tracking methods.
Another important option is the price tag of our product. Additionally, please select the number of available units and the minimum order amount for this product. Let's say we have 10 red shirts so we will set 10 for the quantity number and set the minimum order quantity to 1. We will set the Require Shipping to Yes as this is a physical product and we will provide order delivery for our customers.
Next, lets upload an image for this product by clicking on the Browse button and click on the Upload icon from the popup.
Double click on your product image when it is uploaded from your local computer. Now you should have your image selected for this product. You may add additional images for your product via the Image tab on the same page. You may add some dimensions for your product as well if this is applicable for your product and set the status to Enabled.
When you are done, please refer to the Links tab to add the product into the appropriate category. You can select the category by start typing its name and click on the desired category from the drop down.
Now we should add the product attributes. This can be done via the Attribute tab by clicking on the Add Attribute button. To select the desired attribute start typing its name and click on the desired attribute from the drop down list.
You may input some description for the attribute as well.
If you would like to apply any other specific options for this product you may review the rest of the tabs on the page. When you are ready, please click on the Save button from the upper right corner of your screen to complete the new product creation process.
Now you should be able to locate your product on your store front end.
