Guide

Mail-orders

When you have created a new category or have clicked “Add item” in an existing category you will have the option to add a “Mail order” item.

Mail-order items cover any item that will be posted by mail with the exception of music recordings such as CDs or vinyl records. Music recordings should be uploaded using the “Music release” option.

To add a mail-order item you will need the following information:

Item upload

A form for uploading the item is split into required and optional fields.

Title (required)

The item's title should describe the item in a clear and concise way. The title will appear on a customer’s receipt as well as your mail-order notification; therefore ensure each title is different.

Description (required)

The item's description allows you to give a more detailed description of the item than the one offered for the title. This is typically displayed alongside the item's image when a customer is browsing your store pages.

Image (required)

This is an image of your product that will typically be displayed on product listing pages next to the product description. Note that images are kept to a maximum of 800px high or 600px wide, depending on the image orientation. A thumbnail version of the image is also created at 200px high or 200px wide.

Note that a larger image can be uploaded in the optional preview section. A gallery of images may be included for the product after the item is uploaded, on the item edit page.

When uploading an item with variations, each variation can have an associated image (see 'variations' on this page).

Item will ship to (required)

This section determines the parts of the world you will allow the item to be shipped to. There are four global shipping zones plus a local zone, and the option to ignore shipping altogether.

Shipping zones:

You must select at least one option and you can select multiple shipping zones or all of the shipping zones.

The local shipping zone refers to a single country that is set on your accounts 'Order preferences' page (accessed from “My Store” home page). Choose the country where you operate from - allowing you to set lower shipping costs for domestic orders or restrict orders only to that country.

Sell item in (required)

You are required to provide at least one currency for an item. Items can be sold in multiple currencies.

Shipping values (conditional)

For every shipping zone you have selected a shipping value will appear for the currencies you have opted to sell the item in.

The shipping value entered here is a per item shipping value. This means if you enter a value of $1.00 and two items are bought, the customer will be charged $2.00 for shipping. Note that this shipping charge is optional and is in addition to the base shipping charge that is set in the 'Order preferences' page (accessed from “My Store” home page). The base shipping charge is a single charge applied to each order as opposed to each item.

Note: You should tailor your shipping charges according to how your delivery company charges for shipping. It is common for the shipping of each item to have only a small effect on the overall shipping charge, especially if you are delivering light weight goods. Heavier goods will likely require a more significant per item charge on top of the base shipping charge.

Also note that many countries apply tax to shipping charges. You are advised to use automatic tax calculations available in “Account settings” → “Tax settings” to ensure the correct tax is applied.

Item price (required)

For each selected currency you will see a price for the item/variation.

Group (optional)

If you have created an entry in the Groups application (see groups section), you can assign the product to one of those groups. When assigned to a group you can omit any information included in that group, including information normally required such as item price.

Variations (conditional)

If you select an item to have variations, then instead of an item price, a new information zone for variations will be displayed. You will be asked to select the number of variations for the item, then you will be able to select a variation using the “SELECT VARIATION” drop-down.

Variation information (conditional)

The variation name is appended to the product title, so try not to repeat this, just add what makes it a different variation, e.g. for a black t-shirt that has the title “T-shirt design” just add “Black” as the variation name and it will be displayed as “T-shirt design – Black”.

Each variation can have its own price, stock level and associated image.

Sub category (optional)

You can select the item to belong to a sub-category if you have previously created a sub-category on the category edit page. Sub-categories are useful for stores with large numbers of product types.

More information on creating sub-categories can be found in the categories section of the 'My Store' guide.

Long description (optional)

The long description allows you to write a full description of the product with HTML styling such as lists, bold and italics. You may also add hyperlinks here.

Item ordering (optional)

Item ordering is a basic way to order your items numerically. This overrides the standard by-date ordering.

Tags (optional)

Tags are a simple but very useful feature. They can be used in a number of different ways. The most common use is to link products by a tag, or to link a product to an entry in the Inzu CMS or a ticket entry. So perhaps you have a gallery of images in the CMS that are relevant to the product. Instead of uploading them all again, you can just add a tag to both the product and the gallery entry and then your website will be able to relate the two.

This works for all products and CMS entries whether it be news, galleries, video, events etc, meaning your product pages can be rich with useful and engaging information.

Preview (optional)

The preview field allows you to add a computer file that provides more detailed information about the product. This may be a very large image, a video, PDF or word document etc.

Gallery (optional)

The gallery option only appears on the item edit screen so you will need to complete the item upload first. Any number of images can be uploaded. Note images will be shrunk to either 1000px wide or 1000px high depending on the image orientation.