There are multiple ways of adding products to your 3dcart Store, each with their own strengths and weaknesses:
Using the Admin Quick Design Bar
Allows the adding of products while viewing the storefront.
•Pros:
•Great for a quick add of a product.
•Interactive: Helps one see the product as it is developed on the store.
•Great for users who are brand new to 3dcart.
•Cons:
•Not very well suited for large stores
•Can be limiting in regards to fine-tuning products
Manually specifying product information
Adding products directly from the Online Store Manager.
•Pros:
•More hands-on approach.
•Better suited for fine tuning.
•Great for both beginners and users more familiarized with 3dcart.
•Cons:
•Time consuming
•Not suited for large stores with many products
CSV Import
Using a populated .csv text files to import and add products to your store.
•Pros:
•Fastest method available.
•Better suited to large stores
•Excellent for adding, removing or updating product information en masse.
•Cons:
•Slight learning curve involved with CSV
•Can be a bit overwhelming for beginners
•Greater potential for end-user error.
The Following Knowledge Base Articles will give you information available for each of these methods.
Admin QuickDesign Bar
- Introduction to the Admin Quick Design Bar
- Not seeing the Admin Quick Design Bar?
- Having trouble adding products with the Admin Quick Design Bar?
Manual Product Adding From the Online Store Manager
- Specifying Basic Product Information
- Adding Product Images
- Creating Product Options and Variances
- Specifying related items and accessories for cross selling
- Adding “buy in bulk” discounts for items
- Advanced Product settings
- Adding SEO elements to Product pages
- Creating eProducts
- Viewing product stats
CSV Import of Products
- Product CSV visual “Cheat Sheet” (Popular Article!)
- Information on using the Product Import Sample CSV File
- Information on using the Product Option Sample CSV File
- Importing Product Options
- Importing Product Option Templates
- Importing Product Image Gallery data
- Removing Products via CSV import
As mentioned, the CSV product import is the fastest and best suited option for adding products to large stores. However, it will can require a bit of a learning curve. Therefore, a good practice is to first create a small handful of products directly from the Online Store Manager.
Then, export your created products from the store. This way, you are able to see your exported items in spreadsheet form and better correlate the columns with their specified attributes.