The eStyleCentral product management system has been honed over the years to account for the unique e-commerce challenges faced by our industry. Standard e-commerce systems have difficultly dealing with the changing nature of a specialty store product (i.e. a style is initially available in all colors/sizes, but is then discontinued and only colors/sizes in-stock should be sold. Sometimes products are then reintroduced by the designer and all colors/size become available again.). The eSC system handles these changes automatically, and if you add your inventory, the system helps you maximize traffic to your products. See the Inventory Manager video for an overview of some of these features: http://youtu.be/ackl9-c5fiQ
By adding your inventory in combination with using the subscription system:
Active styles are normal products on your web site. Inactive styles are style that have been discontinued and set to inactive by the subscription system. They will remain in an inactive state for an extended period of time and are only accessible on your website if the URL is accessed directly (they do not show in your site search results or in collection overview pages). The inactive state serves two purposes. First, it allows these pages to remain indexed in search engines so users searching for these styles will still find and arrive at your web site and hopefully continue to browse for other styles. Second, you can view inactive styles in the product manager if you want to add inventory to them after they have already been discontinued, in which case, the style will be made active again in an inventory-only status. If a style is reintroduced by the manufacturer, the product is automatically set back to active status.
Standard products show all colors and sizes, including all colors and sizes that can be special ordered and any colors and sizes you have in-stock. Inventory-only products only show colors and sizes you have in-stock. Inventory-only status is automatically set when a style is discontinued. If a style is reintroduced by the manufacturer, the product is automatically set back to standard status.
Participating designers have their available and work-in-progress inventory synced automatically with their products on your web site. Check your admin home page for the most up to date list of participating designers.
Manufacturer Dedicated Inventory is inventory that has been reserved for eSC clients by the manufacturer. This inventory will be automatically listed at the top of your collection overview pages but below any inventory you have in-stock. Manufacturer Dedicated Inventory is set to pending the item is removed from availability to others while you have a chance to fulfill the order. If you cancel or refund the order it is automatically made available again. The inventory is reserved for you for a set time while the order is set to "in progress" or "not yet shipped" status in the order manager.
When an order is placed for an item in your inventory or in Manufacturer's Dedicated Inventory, it is removed from availability on your web site and placed in a pending status while you have a chance to fulfill the order. If you cancel or refund the order inventory is automatically made available again. These actions on the inventory are triggered by setting the order status to in progress / on order / not yet shipped / shipped / cancelled / refunded. This status is shown to the buyer in their "My Account" order tracking area.
"Inventory Type" indicates if the order is being fulfilled from your own inventory or from Manufacturer Dedicated Inventory. If an order is placed on your inventory but you want to special order it instead, you can set the status to "on order" which will release the pending inventory back to your web site.
You can click the "edit inventory" link next to each product to change inventory in the colors and sizes grid. From this screen you can also set the product to "standard" or "inventory only". You should choose "inventory only" if the style is discontinued (this is automatically selected for manufacturer preloaded products, but you may want to use it for your custom products).
When an item is sold in your store (as opposed to on your web site) you should also remove the item from your web site through the product manager. However if you want to remove inventory items in bulk you can export a CSV file of all your inventory from "Manage Products" -> "Import/Export Inventory" -> "Export Inventory to CSV for manual excel editing". In Excel you can remove rows that are no longer in-stock and import the changes under Manage Products" -> "Import/Export Inventory" -> "Import Inventory". Using this option does change inventory in your custom products (as opposed to the POS System system option below which does not change custom products).
Currently only your eSC Preloaded Manufacturer products are synced from the P&B system. Your custom products added on your web site are unaffected. You can manage inventory import and export for your POS system from "Manage Products" -> "Import/Export Inventory".
Inventory is synced automatically with BBL and also updated on your eStyleCentral web site when quantity on hand is updated within BBL. To link your BBL system go to "General Settings" -> "BBL Integration".
Inventory added can be made available for sale through GoDressy. The sale will be completed on GoDressy but the order will be assigned to your authorize.net account and appear in your order manager. If the customer created an account on GoDressy they will be able to view any tracking and status updates you make on the order in your admin panel. Their GoDressy customer account is not related to any customer account they might have with you on your own web site.