You can apply product properties to your products, as a way of letting your customers know more about how your products are produced and what their characteristics are. Current product properties that can be applied include:

There are two ways to assign properties to your products:

1) You can assign a property to an enterprise, so that all products belonging to that enterprise will carry this property (unless it’s manually removed, which is covered in the “Inherited Properties” section below).

2) You can assign properties to particular products, on an individual basis.

Assigning a property to an enterprise

When you assign a property to an enterprise, all products belonging to that enterprise will, by default, carry that product property. For instance, if all of your products are ‘Certified Organic’, you can assign this property to your enterprise, to save you from needing to manually apply this property to every product. If a property only applies to a few of your products, it’s better to apply it to the product, instead of the enterprise (instructions below).

Next, there are 2 fields when applying an enterprise property:

Property Name: You can select a pre-defined product property from the drop-down list. This is the name of the property that your products will be tagged with, and which customers will be able to filter for in your shop.

Description: You can add a small description to give more information about your label. For example you may wish to add a certificate number.

Assigning a property to a product

To assign a property to a single product, rather than an enterprise’s entire product range, click on Products on the main horizontal menu, and then edit an existing product (you cannot apply a product property when you are first creating a product).

To edit a product, click on 'Edit' under 'Actions' in the right hand column.

Once editing the product you can add or change its properties by selecting 'Product Properties' from the right hand menu.

There are 2 fields when applying a product property:

Property Name:You can select a pre-defined product property from the drop-down list. This is the name of the property that your product will be tagged with, and which customers will be able to filter for in your shop.

Description: You can add a small description to give more information about your label. For example you may wish to add a certificate number.

You can apply multiple product properties by clicking “+ Add Product Properties“

Inherited Properties

When editing a product’s properties you will see a checkbox titled “Inherit properties from (Enterprise Name)(Unless Overridden Above)”. By default, when an enterprise has a property, this box will be checked for all products belonging to the enterprise. Unchecking this box will remove any enterprise properties that have been inherited.

View Product Properties in online shop

By clicking on the profile of a producer, Enterprise Properties appear on the pop out page:

Customers can also filter products in a shop based on their properties:

You can either add products to your catalog one by one (detailed below) or by bulk import, if you have all the relevant details in a .csv file.

Adding products

Once logged into the Admin Dashboard, select Products on the main horizontal menu and then click + New Product.

This will take you to the New Product page.

Supplier

Select the enterprise who produces and supplies the product.

Product name: This is the title of the product when displayed on the shop front.

Units: Choose the unit the product is sold in (g, oz, lb, kg, L… or item (bunch, bag, packet))

If you choose g and then enter 1000, the product will be displayed as 1kg for the buyer. Keep in mind that some units of measurement will impact on the operation of certain enterprise fees.

For example, a fixed fee by weight can only be applied to products with units of kg. In this case, you can enter non-integer unit numbers, such as 0.2 kg, and the product will be displayed as 200 g but will be recorded in kg on the reports and when prices are calculated.

Value: Enter the value of units that this product is sold in (for example if it is sold as 100 g then enter '100' here and choose 'g' for 'units'; or if it is sold as bunches of flowers, enter '1' here and 'units= items'.

Display As: This field automatically shows you how the units and value fields will display, once you have filled the units and value fields. (i.e. units = kg, value = 2, Display as = 2kg)

Product category: Select the most appropriate category for this product. Assigning a product category makes it easier for customers to locate the items they wish to buy; shoppers can filter your product list by category on your shop front.

Price: Enter the price for the value noted above. Note that this is the base price charged by the producer and the amount they will receive for each purchase. Mark-ups and fees (for distribution admin etc) are added in Enterprise Fees, Shipping Fees and Payment Methods.

Unit Price: This will be automatically calculated for you from the unit and price supplied. If the units are in weight or volume then the unit price will be cost per kg/L etc. If the units are in 'items' then the unit price will be cost per item.

On hand: State how much/many of this product you have available and ready for sale.

Use this field if you want to track your stock levels. As customers place orders, the stock level will reduce, and when the in stock amount reaches zero, the product will no longer be visible in your shop. If you don’t want to track inventory in this way, click 'on demand'.

On demand: If you select this box, it will indicate that this product is always available. This stops the software from tracking inventory levels for products and instead it will always show that the product is in stock.

Image: Upload a photo of this product.

Tax category: Select the applicable tax category from the drop-down list. Tax (VAT in the UK) depends on the nature of the product and the country in which you are retailing.

Product description: Tell your customers a little bit about this product. You might like to include a story about the specific tomato variety, include hyperlinks to any certification it may have etc.

A short demonstration of the steps outlined above:

When you have finished creating a product, you are redirected to the "products" page where you will find all your products:

To customise the format of this table to only display information relevant to your organisation you can choose which columns are shown using the drop down menu under 'Columns'

This is how your products will display to your customers on the shop front:

Listing similar/variations of a Product

If you are listing a product which comes in a number of different options (say different sizes or flavours, each of which may or may not have a different price), it is best to create a ‘variant’ for that product, rather than creating multiple separate products. Creating product variants is discussed fully on the next page.

To edit or replicate a product, simply click on the three vertical dots in the 'Actions' column for the product row in question. The two options: Edit (highlighted in green below) and Clone (highlighted in red below) become available.

Edit your products

Once a product is created the best place to quickly edit its attributes, such as quantity, price and stock level, is through the listing products page shown above.

To edit images, product descriptions, categories and more you can select edit, from the actions column to the right of the product in question in the table. This will bring up the following page:

From the right hand menu, you might like to add:

• Properties or labels to your products. This allows customers to find your items when searching for specific criteria (e.g. certified Organic) and highlights specific qualities your products may have. Find out more here.

• Group Buy: This enables you to manage and organise sales of products in bulk lots. Read more about this here.

• Search terms described below.

For tips on how to manage sales of "irregular" products such as meat or large vegetables sold in units but costed by weight, please read here.

Search keywords

Customers can filter your products to identify what they wish to purchase based on their product category and product properties. The filters are found to the right hand side of the shop page.

Some customers will use the Search box at the top left of the page to locate their produce. The following fields are searched by this box:

• Product name

• Variant name

• Producer name

• Search keywords

Keywords can be added by visiting Edit Product -> Search. Keywords entered into the top box (in red below) are reviewed by the platform if the customer uses the 'Search' field on your shop front.

The 'Notes' section is not an active field. It is a handy box for you to 'make a note' of a seasonal search term which may be very effective/ineffective one year, so that you don't forget.

If you are listing two or more products which are very similar, but only vary on price, or size, or something like flavour, it is best to create a ‘variant’ for that product, rather than creating multiple, separate products. This will make the listing clearer to customers and prevent your store from becoming cluttered.

How do I create a Product Variant?

In your admin dashboard, go to the products page where you will find the list of products (highlighted in green below) and their associated variants (highlighted in red below) for companies of "producer" nature that you manage.

The variants of all products are shown. If a product has only one variant (option) then there will be only one line underneath the product row.

To add or delete variants, the simplest way is to click on the '+' sign at the bottom of the product row in question.

This will bring up a new variant row which can be edited for the specific properties of the item in question.

Properties of a variant which can be edited:

Display name: name of the variant. For example, for a product of 'Apples' the display names may be 'Granny Smith', 'Golden Delicious', .... or you may opt for a product named 'Granny Smith Apples' and name the variants 'small bag full', 'medium bag full'....

Product code: Often enterprises may add an SKU code here for management purposes.

Display as/Unit: the unit of a variant is always inherited from it's parent product. Hence if the unit of the product 'Apples' is in kg, then the variants will all have units of kg.

Price and Stock Level

NOTE:

Tax and shipping categories of a variant must always be the same as those of its parent product.

Edit an existing variant

To edit stock levels, prices and variant names it is easiest to do this from your main Products page which lists all products and their variants:

To edit other properties of a variant (such as its weight), choose 'Edit' from the 'Actions' column of the associated product and then visit the 'Variants' page from the right hand menu.

By selecting the pen and paper symbol next to a variant (highlighted in red below) you can edit the variant. To delete it, select the 'bin' symbol:

If your enterprise is a "producer" type (you checked the corresponding box in your profile settings), you can now and to your producer catalog. These products can be (Excel file saved in csv format).

The price entered for each product in the producer catalog is the full amount the producer will receive from a sale - hence a 'wholesale' price. Hubs (distributors) can add their fees for admin, transport and packing etc on top using fee options in , or .

Here we refer to products as 'irregular' if they are sold according to weight/volume but the exact quantity is not known until time of harvest/distribution.

For example joints of meat, slices of cheese, large vegetables.

There are a number of different tools available on the OFN platform to help manage and organise these sales.

Option One: Set an average weight / price and reimburse

You can charge the average price of the product, and then reimburse or charge the customer extra, if the actual weight deviates from the mean.

When you know the true weight of the products (ie. when you are preparing orders for collection by customers), log into "Bulk Order Management" (Orders -> Bulk Order Management) and add the Weight / Volume column to the table.

You can then change the weight shown for each buyer for a given order and a given product. The price will be recalculated automatically according to the quantity entered.

Option Two: Display price ranges

Same logic as Option One, but simply instead of displaying an average price initially, indicate a price range. This solution has the advantage of clearly indicating to the buyer that the final price is likely to be modified.

Example 1 (single product and one variant): Product = Chicken (between 8 and 12 kg with price according to weight, £10 / kg)

Example 2 (two variants for one product): Product = Chicken (£10 / kg) Variant 1 = Small chicken (between 8 and 12 kg, price according to actual weight) Variant 2 = Large chicken (between 13 and 20 kg, price according to actual weight) ...

Option Three: Create variants with fixed prices

A slightly simpler version of Option Two is to create variants for your products based on weight ranges but charge a fixed price for all items that fall within the range. For example if butternut squash costs £1/kg then you could list the variants with the following fixed prices:

• Small (0.7 - 0.9 kg) £0.80

• Medium (0.9 - 1.1 kg) £1.00

• Large (1.1 - 1.3 kg) £1.20

• Extra Large (1.3 - 1.5 kg) £1.40

Option Four: Create variants with known weights

If you know the weight of all your steaks, for example, in advance you can use the variant functionality to directly display the precise price for each item. Example:

Editing Orders

It may be difficult for meat producers to know in advance about product availability or prepare their packaging accordingly. (Until slaughter the weight of a chicken or a leg of lamb maybe unknown.)

Reimbursing or Charging customers the difference: How does it work?

If a customer pays for their goods on their collection or delivery, then the hub manager will have been able to modify the order before payment according to the actual weight and the products actually delivered. Hence in this instance there will be no need to reimburse or re-bill customer.

Inform the buyer about your pricing policy

The product and inventory import tool lets you upload a .csv file to add and update your stock. This can be much quicker and efficient than adding or updating products one by one. For producers who already update a catalogue of their products in an Excel spreadsheet regularly, this can save a lot of time!

The product and inventory import tool can be found by clicking Products in the horizontal blue menu, and product import in the green menu.

There's four main ways you can use the tool:

1. Import new products

2. Update existing product details

3. Import products to a new shop/hub inventory

4. Update products in a shop/hub inventory

In all cases the process involves downloading a CSV template, filling in the fields and then uploading your CSV file back into OFN.

Import New Products

Use these instructions if you want to add new products to a producer's profile.

Prepare the CSV file for import

Firstly, download the Product List Template CSV file from the Product Import page and open it with Libre Office, Excel or equivalent.

You'll see that the template gives all the column headings required to successfully import a product. Each row is for a new product or variant. Below is a description of how to fill in each column.

Import Product Variants

In the import process, variants are distinguished by the units (such as raspberries sold in 200g and 500g packs) or display_name fields (such as apples sold in multiple varieties). As long as the product name is the same, the rows will be imported as variants. For products sold as items, the unit_type must be the same across variants (e.g. rolls below).

The image below shows how these products will display in the shop. Note that the 'name' field becomes the primary heading, and the 'display_name' field and/or the units becomes the secondary heading.

Unit type examples

Below are some examples to show how products with different units (g, ml, kg and items) should be uploaded.

Import the CSV

Once you have filled out the Product List Template CSV you are ready to upload it into OFN.

1. Go to Products > Product Import.

2. Select import type: Product List

3. Select a spreadsheet to upload: select the CSV file you've updated with your product info.

   Because you are uploading new products, you can leave the 'Set stock to zero for all exiting products not present in the file' checkbox unchecked (see next section for an explanation of this feature).

4. Click Upload.

You'll be shown a summary of your upload, including any errors. You'll also be told how many products you are creating and how many you are updating. If you're happy with the upload results, click save.

You can then upload another spreadsheet or go to the products page to view your new products.

Update Existing Product Details

The instructions below relate to updating the details of an existing product. This tool is intended as a quick way to update product prices and stock levels.

Prepare the CSV file for import

The process for updating product details is similar to uploading new products. The first step is to download the Product List Template and fill in the product names and the supplier names. If you have this spreadsheet on hand from a previous upload even better.

The system requires seven fields to correctly identify the product you want to update. There are four fields which can be updated and four fields which cannot using this tool.

^ if you try to update these fields you'll see an error message

*If you try to update these fields you'll actually create new products or variants, rather than update an existing product.

Once complete, the .csv can be imported in the same manner as for new products.

Import New Inventory or update your inventory

Use these instructions if you want to add or update new products to your inventory.

Prepare the CSV file for import

Firstly, download the Inventory Template CSV file from the Product Import page.

You'll see that the template gives all the column headings required to successfully import a product. Each row is for a new product or variant. Below is a description of how to fill in each column.

Import the CSV

Once you have filled out the Inventory Template CSV you are ready to upload it into OFN.

1. Go to Products > Product Import.

2. Select import type: Select Inventories

3. Select a spreadsheet to upload

4. Click Upload.

You'll be shown a summary of your upload, including any errors. You'll also be told how many products you are creating and how many you are updating. If you're happy with the upload results, click save.

N.B. All fields are case sensitive so you must use the exact category and unit_type names, e.g. 'mL' and 'Dairy' instead of 'ml' or 'dairy'.

The Group Buy function is designed for enterprises who purchase some of their incoming stock in bulk quantities and resell them in smaller units (for example, purchasing a 25 kg bag of rice and retailing to customers per kg).

Bulk purchasing is a common practice for buying groups, who, by buying large volumes, can benefit from wholesale prices in the same way as conventional distributors. By doing so, members can access food much cheaper than they might be able to from high street retailers.

For such enterprises, the decision of whether to order a certain product is dependent on whether customers have collectively ordered enough to justify a bulk purchase. This may be due to volume discounts, or delivery fees. The group buy function makes it easier for the hub to achieve bulk buying efficiencies.

When a product is allocated to group buy it will display with the label 'Bulk' across the photo on your shop front. When a customer chooses to add the product to their basket, a pop-up screen will prompt them to enter minimum and maximum quantities as shown below:

Customer are asked to indicate:

• Their minimum quantity- this is the amount of the product they ideally want.

• Their maximum quantity- this is the maximum amount they would be willing to buy.

In Bulk Order Management you can view the total minimum and maximum order quantities for the product, from all of your customers. Then you can either raise customer orders, within their acceptable range, to achieve the bulk quantity, or if the maximum order quantity falls short, you can delete all orders for this product.

Enabling Group Buy for a product

On the admin dashboard, go to 'Products' on the main horizontal menu. Select to Edit a product under the 'Actions' column to the right of the product in question:

Then select Group Buy Options in the menu to the right.

Select Yes under Group Buy? to activate this feature for the product.

The Bulk Unit Size is the amount that the group’s collective order needs to reach.

Adjusting Orders to make complete Batches

Under Orders-> bulk order management you can view and edit customer orders for Bulk Buy products to make the combined order from all customers reach your required threshold.

1. Select the order cycle or date range of interest.

2. Search for the product (Apples in the example below).

3. Make sure the ‘Max’ column is displayed so you can see the upper limit each customers is prepared to purchase.

4. Next, click on the value ('Apples: Granny Smith' in the example below) in the Product : Unit column, to display the orders total box (in blue) for the product in question.

5. Using the information in the column Max, you can increase the quantities ordered to reach the threshold for a complete batch.

6. Click update to save changes to customer orders.

Current Fulfilled Units divides your total quantity ordered by the group buy unit size. If this figure is greater than 1, it tells you that the existing customer orders satisfy or exceed your required group buy unit size. If this figure is less than 1, existing customer orders don’t meet that threshold. As you raise the quantity of customer orders, this figure will raise.

Max Fulfilled Units takes the sum of all of the customer’s MAX order quantities and divides this by the Group Buy Unit Size. If this figure is greater than 1, then you know that the total of your MAX orders exceeds the required group buy quantity. If this figure is less than 1, it means that even the MAX order quantities won’t reach the threshold.

Introduction

The 'inventory' gives enterprises increased control and flexibility with their product management, if they require it. The feature will mainly be of interest to Hubs and Hub managers.

By using the Inventory, Hub A can modify the price and stock levels of the items it has permission to retail. The feature can also allow Hub A to make only a sub-selection of goods from its supplying producers available for sale on its shop front if they don't wish to distribute entire product ranges. All this can be done without modifying the master copy of the products. Hence if both Hubs A and B stock the same products, then by using the inventory tool Hub A can alter price and other fundamental information about the items it sells, without impacting on Hub B.

Profile settings for the Inventory

To access the Inventory, go to Enterprises (on the main horizontal menu) and then 'Settings'. From the menu bar on the left hand side, select 'Inventory Settings'

You have two options:

• New products can be put into my shopfront (recommended): Your supplier's products can be added to your online shop-front without you having to add them in your shop/hub inventory beforehand. When you create an order cycle, all products from the selected producers will be available for you to add to the 'incoming' portion of it (the order cycle). This is the default option and is recommended for hubs who do not wish to modify price or stock levels of the items they retail

• New products must be added to my inventory before they can be added to my shopfront: When you create an order cycle, only those products which you previously added to the hub inventory will be visible for selection in the 'incoming' portion of the order cycle.

Visiting your Shop/Hub Inventory

Click the Products menu on the top of your the admin dashboard, and then click Inventory on the sub menu. If you manage multiple enterprises, you will be asked to select one because each inventory is managed independently.

If new products have been added by your suppliers between each visit to your shop/hub inventory then you will see the following message:

Until you have added these products to the inventory they will remain in the 'New Products' category and invisible for selection when creating an order cycle. By clicking on 'Review Now' you will be redirected to the list of new products.

Reviewing New Products

New products can be either Added to your inventory list or Hidden. If there is a product in the list for which you would like to override details, or apply a recurring stock level to, you’ll need to add it to your inventory list. If there is a product which you never want to sell in your shop, or at least don’t want to stock in the near future, you can choose to hide it (see Hidden Products section below).

Managing Your Inventory Products

Your inventory products list is where you can override product details, set up stock level resetting, and hide products.

Via the columns button on the right of the table, you can choose which settings you would like to see and modify.

Modify SKU, prices and stock levels for products in your shopfront

Any changes you make here will be visible on your shop and will hence override details set by the supplier. You can modify the following fields:

• SKU – if you wish to use an alternative SKU (reference number) for a product, you can over-ride the producer’s SKU here by typing in an alternative.

• Price – You can set a different price to show in your shop. Keep in mind the units of the product will remain the same. Hence if the product is priced per kg then you can only modify its cost per kg and not change it to a fixed cost per item.

• In Stock – If your stock of this product differs from the available stock offered by the producers, you can indicate your stock. Your products will no longer be visible in the shop once the inventory stock level reaches zero.

• Unlimited? – You can select whether to 'use producer stock settings' (in which case the number in the 'in stock' column will remain grey and producer stock levels are inherited), to have unlimited stock by selecting 'yes' (where the item will never run out and will always be available, if added to an active order cycle) or to define your own stock levels by selecting 'no' (in which case the number in the 'in stock' column will be on a white background).

Refresh yourself about 'in stock' and 'unlimited' here.

Enable Stock Reset?

The enable stock level reset column allows you to reset the 'In Stock' amount to a default value, for example at the start of each new order cycle. The default amount is the number entered in this column next to the check box. The checkbox allows you to select only those items that you want to reset at any give time.

To reset the default stock for these products, click 'Actions' at the top left of the inventory table and then 'Reset stock levels to defaults'. Only products for which the enable stock reset box has been checked will be affected by this action.

In this example the default stock level of Granny Smith apples is 50. There are currently 30 left in stock. If the user, at the beginning of an order cycle wishes to reset to 50 then they must click on 'Reset stock levels to defaults' under 'Actions'

Inherit?

If you have not changed any of the values in the Inventory table for a product, the check box "inherit?" will be, by default, checked. This means that the information entered by the producer and visible in grey will be displayed on your shopfront.

By modifying one or more of the fields, this check box will be automatically de-selected. To reset values (price, stock, SKU etc) to the producer's master copy values, you can re-select this box at any time.

Hide

As in the New Products list, you can also hide products from your Inventory List. Clicking on the hide button will move the product to your Hidden Products list. If you have your inventory profile set up as 'New products must be added to my inventory before they can be added to my shopfront' (see here) then the product you just hid will no longer be available for selection in your hub's order cycle and thus will not be visible on your shopfront.

Hidden Products

When viewing your list of hidden products you can choose to make them visible once more by clicking the 'Add' button to the right of the item.

Inventory and Order Cycles

When setting up order cycles you can on a case by case basis choose between selecting from all available products or only those which are in your shop/hub inventory.

This is controlled by visiting 'Advanced Settings' (top right of order cycle page):

This option has the same effect as changing our enterprise profile settings for your inventory, but unlike the latter it applies only to the order cycle in question.