Module 3 - Shopify Vendor Settings; Working with Collections; Working with Outside Vendors
Shopify and Vendor Integration
Now that you have your Shopify Store trial account open and you have your Vendor account open, let’s make sure they talk to each other. To ensure that your customers get their orders in the quickest possible time, you’ll want to make sure that Shopify hands off your orders to your Vendor right away.
Again, I’ll be working with Gooten, but your Vendor (if you choose another one) will have a similar setup.
Log into your Shopify store and choose your Vendor under Apps.
If the Vendor you want to use isn’t listed as a Shopify App you can still use that Vendor. We will cover non-Shopify Vendors in this lesson.
Start inside your Shopify dashboard. It’s kind of nifty that Shopify integrates nicely with the Vendors. One-stop shopping so to speak. So always start inside your Shopify dashboard. That’s going to be home base for everything we do.
Go to Apps and click on your Vendor account. I’m using Gooten so Shopify sends me over to the Gooten dashboard
Let’s walk through creating your first product.
Go to the Product Catalog and choose apparel, tee shirts, “Bella + Canva 6004 Women’s Jersey Crew Neck Tee.” This will be your sample product. Don’t worry if you don’t want to sell this tee. This is a sample only and can be deleted from your store at any time.
You will start with this screen.
Before you click on “Start Selling…” Look at the Product Information. Pay attention to where the product ships from, materials and so on.
Review the information for details that you can use in your product description in your store. Also pay attention to production time. Times may vary for different options (variants).
Next pay attention to “your price.” This will impact the final price of your product.
Be sure to drop down the nested menus for complete information on prices, sizes and so on.
Inside the “Print Specs” menu you will see the specs for images for that product. It’s a good idea to keep a list of print specs handy for all of your products. Don’t worry right now if you don’t have an image. A sample image for this exercise is included below.
Go back to the product page and click on “start selling…”
The next window will open and you can choose the options, also referred to as variants, for the product that you will sell.
A word of warning here. Don’t choose too many variants for a product to start with. You could end up with too many products to keep track of.
Instead, narrow your variants to one or two. You can always add more variants later.
Click “continue with …. skus” and you will get to this page.
Double check that you have the correct variants listed. Download this sample image to use on your tee shirt. Click “Bulk upload artwork.” We will cover images in great detail later in the course. For now just use this sample image.
Once you click on Upload Artwork you should see this screen. Take note of the image percentage. You can make it smaller or larger. Gooten will tell you if the image does not have enough resolution.
Check that you have “Apply edits to all skus” checked. And check your products for correctness in the right hand window. Then click “continue.”
You’ll see this page. Click on “Edit” to download your Product Mockups.
On this page you can choose the mockup background and size. Click “Select all” and download your mockups. These will be used in your product description and/or for marketing purposes.
Save your mockup files with a new name for later use.
After you’ve saved your files, click “Continue.”
This page will open. You will see your store name (you’ll see several for me) and “Storage.” Be sure the radio button for your store is selected as well as “Storage.” Put in the title and description for your product.
Scroll down and include tags and create a collection if desired. See the video below “Working With Collections” for an overview of tags and collections.
Scroll down further and set the “Customer Price” for your product. You should have filled out Product Cost Analysis so you know what to charge for your product.
Verify that the information is correct in both “Storage” and “Your Store". Then click “Save.”
Once your product is saved to both “Storage” and your store, click on “Publish to Store.” Your product is still not live in the store but is available for you to edit inside your store.
Once your product has been published to your store you should see this. Head on over to your Shopify dashboard to verify that the product has been published.
Inside your Shopify dashboard, click on “All Products” and you should see your tee shirt. If your Shopify store and Gooten are integrated properly, you should see your product listed.
Click on the product to open it and review the details. Your product is still not live in your store. On this page you can rename the product, add a description, create tags and put the product in a collection. Tags and collections are covered in the video below on this page.
Scroll down on the Product page and verify that the variants that you created are correct. Take note of the Search Engine Listing Preview. This will be discussed later when we cover marketing.
You need to make your product available. There are several channels that you can use. Watch the video below for information on how to set these up.
Finally, you need to organize your Products inside your store. See the video below for information on working with collections, tags and product types.
A note about outside vendors:
Sometimes you want to provide a product that is not made by a Vendor inside Shopify. You can do this in a couple of ways. See the video below “Using Outside Vendors.”
Your homework this week:
Create the sample tee shirt product in your store.
Order at least one sample product from your preferred vendor.
Tag your product and create at least one collection.
Review “Product Availability” above.
Review “Using Outside Vendors” above.
