New to Zencart! New Product Form questions? (What is products model? sort? etc)

[lynnlove]

Hi everyone...I am new at this...my daughter is designing my site...she does non-profit sites professionally so this is her first E-commerce site. Just went live! ON THE NEW PRODUCT FORM: What does PRODUCTS MODEL mean? Can I use this as my inventory number? Each item is unique as I am selling vintage. Vintagelucy.com. What is SORT ORDER? Does this govern what items show on home page in rotation? How does it work? How can I vary what items show on home page? Where can I find EASY info on the NEW PRODUCT FORM? Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you!

[fairestcape]

In most well-managed retail outlets, shop-keepers allocate a product code (SKU = Stock Keeping Unit) to a specific product / item.

This code number lives and dies with the product - so when a particular product is discontinued, it's code goes too.

Zencart calls this the MODEL NUMBER - and it should therefore be unique for each product. If you plan to use the Easy Populate module, then this data is vital, and it must be unique for each product.

The SORT ORDER is a feature you will see in many places in zencart. By default, zencart will display lists of information in Alphabetical / Numerical order... Lets say you are selling fruit:

Apples
Pears
Bananas
Plums
Strawberries
Mangos

... and each of the above has NO sort order value (or a value of 0), then they will display in alphabetical order...

FRUIT . . . . . . . . . . SORT ORDER VALUE
Apples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Bananas . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Mangos . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Pears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Plums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Strawberries . . . . . . . . . 0

Lets say you want them to be displayed differently - with Strawberries showing first, then Apples, then Bananas, then Pears, then Mangos and Plums last...

FRUIT . . . . . . . . . . SORT ORDER VALUE
Strawberries . . . . . . . . . 1
Apples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Bananas . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Pears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Mangos . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Plums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

[lynnlove]

Thanks for all the info! Very helpful. When you say spend time in the Administration panel, what do you mean....the whole thing that appears when you log in? I will learn and figure things out...don't know how fast...my daughter set it all up...and my learning curve may be slower then hers as she sets up sites professionally. I am always afraid I will misunderstand something and screw things up. :O)