- The fields Name, Description, and Short Description are all very important. They are used to introduce the product to your visitors, but they are also important for the search engines.
- Let's have a look at where we'll see these fields in the frontend of your store:
Note
Often in software programs or websites, the mandatory fields are all marked with an asterisk (*). These fields are required. If you leave one of them empty, you will not be able to save your product. If you try to save the page, the tabs on the left of the screen turn red indicating that there are one or multiple mandatory fields that have not been set.
Looking at the example screenshot, it's clear that we still need to set fields such as images and pricing, but that's something we'll do in a minute. For now, take a look at where the Name, Description and Short Description values are used.
Let's go back to our product in Magento and we'll fill those fields with our data:
- Start with filling your Description and Short Description fields. Note that below these fields, there's a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) button. Click on it to open an editor that gives a way to create a better looking text using, for instance, bullet points, bold or italic text, and so on. It's even possible to add images here, but we recommend that you don't use those in your description fields. Magento offers a better way to work with images on your product page, and having an image in your description fields might not be the best choice.
- Fill the SKU field. SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit, also often referred to as an "item or article number". The SKU field must be unique in your Magento installation.
Although there's a lot that can be said about using these codes, concerning whether or not to use a meaningful code, we don't do it and just use a number value for the field. However, using alphanumeric values is also possible and you could even decide to keep the exact code as your vendor does.
- The Weight field is mandatory as well and can only contain a numeric value. The strange thing is that it is unknown whether this is in lbs or kg. On the other hand, that's good, so you can decide for yourself.
But be aware to use it consistently throughout your shop, because the weight of a product can be used to calculate shipping prices. Therefore, it makes sense to enter a weight including packaging material and not only the weight of the bare product.
- The Set Product as New From Date and Set Product as New To Date fields can be used to mark a product as New! in your shop, just to emphasize it. You could also use this function to show a list of new products in your store.
The way it looks for your visitors completely depends on your theme. Because it makes sense to do this only for a limited time period we recommend to immediately fill the End Date field if you want to use this function.
- Set the Status field to Enabled to make sure your product is visible to your audience. A disabled product will never be visible in your store.
- The URL Key field can be set automatically when you save your product, but it is possible to set it manually as well. Just make sure that you do not use any spaces or capitals, and use your most important keywords for this product in it!
The URL Key value is used by Magento to create the link to this particular product page. It's better to keep the URL Key field unique as well, but Magento doesn't warn you if you don't.
- The Visibility field is mandatory, but it is set by default. For regular simple products, you do not have to change it. We'll see later on in the next chapter why it might sometimes be necessary to use a different value.
- The Country of Manufacture field is optional and is sometimes needed by companies for mandatory reporting.
- Start with filling your Description and Short Description fields. Note that below these fields, there's a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) button. Click on it to open an editor that gives a way to create a better looking text using, for instance, bullet points, bold or italic text, and so on. It's even possible to add images here, but we recommend that you don't use those in your description fields. Magento offers a better way to work with images on your product page, and having an image in your description fields might not be the best choice.