Step by Step – Add Merchandise To Entry Form

In this step-step-step guide, we add a merchandise item to an existing event registration form. You would use this function if you wanted to offer t-shirts, caps, etc for sale as part of your online registrations. Other, less obvious items can be sold in this way too, such as bus tickets or tent sites.

There are two parts to getting your merchandise to appear in the entry form; Create the Product & Add Product to Store.

Create the Product

Important! In Director, “Products” live independently from Stores. This is so that a particular product can appear in more than one store. For example, let’s say you have three events with a common theme. Each event would probably have it’s own store for online registration. But if you had a t-shirt for sale which was applicable to all three events, you’d want to create that tshirt product once only and then just present it in each of the stores. Director allows you to do this.

If the merchandise product already exists, you can skip this step and go straight to “Add Product to Store”

1. Create a New Product: menu: Stores -> Products & Skus // on that page click “Add New” button
   In the Add New Product popup, give your new product a name. If you already have another, similar product, you can use the Clone option to make a copy of that product which you can then adjust. Otherwise, select the product type of Merchandise and set a sales tax (GST) rate.
   
   Once created, you’ll be in the Product Editor.
2. Change the default product image to a photo of your product. Create a jpeg image 750 pixels square. Hover over the default image and click on the Change Image link.
3. Use the Description field to tell your participants about your awesome merchandise item. This description will appear next to the product photo wherever the merchandise is shown.
4. If the product is logically connected to a specific event, choose that event here. For a generic t-shirt, you would leave this field un-selected, for an event t-shirt, you would select the appropriate event. This will help Director to attach the item to the correct registration.
   
   Next up, move to the SKUs tab
   
5. You need to create one SKU for each unique item you are selling. For instance, if the merchandise item is a t-shirt, you need to create one SKU for each unique size. This means that when a participant purchases the item, you know exactly which item to ship or pack for them. Let’s say you are selling a cap. If you cap is “one size fits all” then you only need one SKU. If your cap comes in small, medium or large, you need 3 SKUs.
6. For each SKU you create, the “Name” field is what the participant will see so set it to “Small” or “Unisex 12” or “One Size Fits All”. The Description field is not used for merchandise SKUs so you can ignore that.
7. If you have a limited quantity of each item, you can enter that total in the “Stock on Hand” field and Director will monitor sales against this figure and mark the item as “Out of Stock” when all have been sold. If you have an unlimited supply of the items, leave this field blank and Director will always show the item as available.
   
   Once the SKU has been created …
   
8. Click on the Actions menu next to each SKU you create and select “SKU Pricing Bands”.
9. As a general rule, the price of merchandise items does not change over time so you’ll only need one pricing band. However, you will still need to create a pricing band for every SKU even though the price of all your sizes of tshirt are probably the same.
10. When creating the Pricing Band, choose a very early “from” date (say jan 1, 2010) and a very late “to” date (say Dec 31, 2030). This ensures the pricing band is always in effect and available.

Add Product to Store

Even when you have created the Product, it will not appear on any transactions until you add it to a Store.

1. Find your store: menu: Stores -> My Stores
   Find the registration store and click on the Dashboard icon
2. Store Dashboard
   In the Store Dashboard, click on the “Store Contents” tab.
3. Add to Store Contents
   1. Click on the Add New button at the top of the Store Contents tab
   2. Select your Merchandise product from the drop down list. If it does not appear in the list then either, a) it is already present in the store, or b) the product has been marked as Inactive.
   3. Use the Display Sequence number to control the order in which your Merchandise items are shown on the merchandise page (it is helpful to give merchandise items in your store contents a lower display sequence than your registration products. Registration products are only used on the Category Selection page so they are always used before the merchandise products in the registration process flow, ).
   4. Default settings for most other field should be left as is, however:
      1. Set the Max Quantity to 1 if the product should logically only be selected one. For example, logically an iTab medal insert (for finisher medals) would only ever be purchased in a quantity of 1 per registration. So it makes sense to set the max quantity for that item to be set to 1. For most merchandise items (t-shirts, caps, etc), however, this field should be left at the default value.
      2. If you want participants to have the ability to add the item to their registration at a later date (like when they change their mind and decide they want that awesome event t-shirt after all!) then slide the Can Add Later selection to ON. (Important! This setting must be used in conjunction with “Registration Change Rules” to allow the add later transactions to take place).
   5. Once confirmed, your merchandise product should now appear in the Store Contents list and be available for selection by participants.

Check Your Work

The moment of truth! Launch your entry form (Stores -> My Stores -> click on the launcher icon next to the store), fill in some details on the entrants page and click continue.

The next page to appear should be the Merchandise page and your new product should appear with a thumbnail photo and description.

• if your product has more than one SKU, a drop down list will allow the selection of each SKU
• If the max quantity in Store Contents was set to more than 1, a quantity field will appear next to the SKU
• click the Add to Cart button to add your selection to the cart.
• Boom! You’re all set