This tutorial covers how to manage products and categories in a Magento store. The following sub sections will be covered:
- How to Add Product Categories in Magento 1.x
- How to Setup Product Attributes and Sets in Magento 1.x
- How to Add Products in Magento 1.x
- How to Manage Magento 1.x Tags
- How to Manage Magento 1.x Product Reviews and Rating
Further reading:
How to login to Magento admin backend
Magento Website Optimization Tips
Magento Website Security Tutorial
Magento Store Settings Configuration Tutorial
How to Add Product Categories in Magento 1.x
To add a product category in your Magento store first you need to login your Magento admin dashboard. From the Magento admin panel, please refer to the Catalog ? Manage Categories from the top navigation menu.
On the next page, you will be able to input your new Product Category settings such as Category Name, Description and some SEO data such as meta keywords and meta description.
Please do not forget to activate the category from the drop down to make this category available to your store. If you need to apply custom display settings for your products under this category, please refer to the Display Settings and Custom Design tabs.
The Category Products tab displays all products that are already in this category. If this is a new category there will be no products to display on this tab. You can add products to this category later via the Manage Products menu following our tutorial on How to add products to your Magento store.
Click on the Save Category button when you are ready with your new category settings.
How to Setup Product Attributes and Sets in Magento 1.x
This tutorial will show you how to setup product attributes and attribute sets. Attributes are the building blocks of your product catalog, and each describes a specific characteristic of a product. The data entry fields that you complete when adding a new product to your catalog are attributes. Attributes provide the customer with product information, and can also be used as search criteria and to present a selection of options.
Your store includes predefined attributes such as Name, Price, and Description, that can be used for any product. In addition to these, you can create custom attributes to describe other characteristics a product might have.
To create additional attribute for your product login your Magento admin dashboard and refer to the Catalog ? Attributes ? Manage Attributes Menu from the main top navigation.
This will refer you to the list of all attributes available in your Magento store. To create a new one click on the Add New Attribute button on the right of your screen. On the new screen input the required values and all optional settings you need.
Make it globally available on your store from the drop down menu of the Scope section. Choose the input type depending on your preferences and select if this attribute will apply to only selected products or all products in your store.
Next, scroll down and configure the Frontend behavior of this attribute depending on your preferences to allow different options for your customers to use the attribute for comparing products, as a search term and etc.
When you are ready click on the Manage Label/Options tab on the left and input your title.
To save your new attribute click on the Save Attribute button on the top right corner of your screen. This will bring you back to the attributes list page on which you should see your new attribute. Now refer back to your top navigation menu's Catalog ? Attributes ? Manage Attribute Sets section. The attribute sets allows you to group several attributes that are relevant to each other. This way you can create different attribute sets for different types of products to easily apply their characteristics.
To achieve this click on the Add New Set button on the right. On the new page input the name of the new attribute set and select if it would be based to a previous set you have created or to the default one. When you are ready click on the Save button on your screen. This will direct you to a new page via which you can add or remove different attributes from your set.
You can drag and drop different attributes and you should be able to see your newly created attribute on the right side. Remove any unnecessary attributes that are not applicable to the product group you will be creating in your Magento store.
How to Add Products in Magento 1.x
Adding products to your Magento store is a pretty straight forward process. We assume you have already created your Product Categories and Attribute Sets. You can find the required steps to achieve this in our previous chapters of our Magento tutorial.
To add a new product, please login your Magento Admin Dashboard and navigate to Catalog ? Manage Products from the main top navigation menu.
On the new page click on the Add Product button on the right side of your screen. On the new page, select the desired attribute set or use the default one and the product time then click the Continue button.
This will bring you to your product configuration page. Please input the required fields such as product name, short and full product description as well as the product SKU and enable the product via the status drop down. Be advised that the SKU should be an unique number which will be associated with your product and it is used by the Magento store to differentiate products.
When you are ready click on the Prices tab from the menu on the left to configure your product price and any promotional price periods if you would like to offer certain discount for a period of time.
To upload your product images, please refer to the Images tab from the menu on the left and use the Browse Files... button. When you have all the images selected click on the Upload Files button.
You can check all the available options if you need to further tweak your product settings but one of the most important options that need to be covered is the product quantity located under the Inventory tab. Please click on the Inventory tab on the left and fill in the quantity available for this product and put the product "In Stock" via the Stock Availability drop down menu.
When you are ready click the Save button on the top of the screen.
How to Manage Magento 1.x Tags
Tags are descriptors that you can set to any product to help you organize and remember them. They are essentially keywords or keyword phrases. Any logged in user can add as many tags to a product as they want and rename or delete them later. Tags will be viewable by everyone browsing the product, and will display in a block on the product info page.
To create and approve tags you should refer to your Magento Admin panel's Catalog ? Tags ? All tags.
On the new page click on the Add New tag button on the top. On the new page input the tag name and make sure its status is Approved.
To save the new tag click on the Save Tag button on the top right. To review tags that have been added by your visitors and clients refer to your Catalog ? Tags ? Pending Tags
This will direct you to the list of all pending tags that have not been approved yet. To approve tags click on the check box next to the tag name and select Change Status from the Action drop down menu.
Now from the status drop down menu you should select Approved and click on the Submit button.
Now the approved tags that have been associated with your products will be displayed in the product description.
How to Manage Magento 1.x Product Reviews and Rating
First, login your Magento Admin Dashboard and refer to the Catalog menu from the top navigation.
To manage product ratings click on the Catalog ? Reviews and Ratings ? Manage Ratings menu. On the next page you will see all the available ratings such as Price, Quality and Value. If you would like to add an additional rating name click on the Add New Rating button located at the top right corner of your screen. On the new page input your new product rating name and select the store for which the rating will be available.
When you are ready click on the Save Rating button at the top right.
In order to manage your Customer Reviews, please refer again to the Catalog menu from the main navigation and select Reviews and Ratings ? Customer Reviews. From here you can either review your pending reviews or view all reviews. The Pending Reviews section allows you to list all pending reviews to either change their status or completely remove them. Via the View All Reviews menu you can list all reviews submitted to your website or add a new review via the Add New Review button at the top right on your screen. To add a review to a specific product click on the product's name.
On the next page input the Nickname of the customer, the Summary of your review and the full review text.
When you are ready you can save the review via the Save Review button. To have your review displayed on your product page, please make sure its status is set to Approved.
