Customizing osCommerce Catalog

The next step is to add categories that will contain the products you will be selling in your store. To do that, please select the [Catalog] icon from the administration index page. You will be taken to a page where the three default categories are being displayed. You will be able to edit or delete an existing category, or add a brand new one after clicking the respective button.

After clicking the [New category] button the page will refresh and a box for the new category name will appear in the rightmost column.

Since osCommerce is a multi-language shopping cart, you will be able to add category names for German and Spanish as well as for the default English name. Please note that these are only optional and you may leave them blank. You can also select an image to represent the specific category (images are also optional and you can ignore warnings for a missing image). It can be uploaded from your local computer. The last thing to do before clicking the [Save] button is to select the order number for the category. The lower the number - the higher in the list will your new category appear (zero will represent the top of the list).

Next you should add a product to your new catogory. To do this, please click on [New Product].

First off, select whether you have the product in stock or not. Next, select the availability date and the manufacturer. Type in the name of the product on the languages you have installed and decide whether the item is taxable or not; select the Net and the Gross price.

Enter the product description in the language fields, the quantity of the product and its model. Images can also be uploaded from your local computer - osCommerce automatically creates a thumbnail. If you are linking to an external product page, please enter the address without the http:// part for the specific languages. Last thing to add is the product weight, since this will help in determining the shipping costs. When done, hit the [Preview] button to see the result.

Then scroll down to the bottom of the previewing page and select one of the three buttons ([Back] to continue editing, [Insert] to confirm product creation and [Cancel] to drop the new entry). If you have not uploaded an image, you can disregard the warning for no uploaded file.

When you insert the product, you will be taken to the category/product list. If you wish to move the product in a parenting directory, select the desired category from the dropdown list and click the [Move] button in the rightmost column.

You will be able to see the new addition at the top of your product list when you visit the store. The new item will also increase the count of items in a category.