Several requests

[Paula]

A few requests, all for backend:

1. Ability to connect Shopsite with Endicia so there is no having to go back and forth.

2. For inventory section, ability to categorize items by say, manufacturer.

3. A place to put how much an item cost us to purchase, then how much profit is made on each, etc.

Thanks,

[Paula]

Any ideas on this?

[Jim]

I don't know anything about Endicia but if it is a browser based application you could probably use the iMacros scripting language to automate moving data between ShopSite and Endicia. The T-Hub product indicates that it works with ShopSite and Endicia. http://www.shopsite.com/partners-tools.html

For items 2 and 3 there are upto 25 extra product fields that you could use for categorizing by manufacturer and keeping track of product cost and margin per product.

[Paula]

Thanks, Jim. I will take a look.

I don't know anything about Endicia but if it is a browser based application you could probably use the iMacros scripting language to automate moving data between ShopSite and Endicia. The T-Hub product indicates that it works with ShopSite and Endicia. http://www.shopsite.com/partners-tools.html

For items 2 and 3 there are upto 25 extra product fields that you could use for categorizing by manufacturer and keeping track of product cost and margin per product.

[Paula]

That works, thanks. Now, when I attempt to download all my products, I highlight all of them, choose tab-delimited, then proceed. It appears difficult to read. Is there a way to get this data info a nice Excel spreadsheet or more readable form?

[Jim]

I don't have Excel (I use Open Office or QuatroPro) but there should be an option to import a tab delimited file that allows you to specify what the delimiters are and then it will import so that everything is in the proper columns. In Open Office there is an option under Insert called "Sheet from File" that I think is what I use. Sometimes I can just right click on the file and use the Open With menu option to open it directly.

Note that when saving a file from Excel to a Tab delimited format that it will drop columns if there is nothing in them. It also insists on putting quote marks around any cell data that has text in it. This causes problems when uploading the file to ShopSite since ShopSite expects a true tab delimited format where each cell's information is separated from the other cells by a TAB character. To get around both of these problems either save the file in an older xls format or copy the entire data content from the file and paste it into a text editor and then save it and use that to upload to ShopSite. See the Kbase articles at
http://support.shopsite.com/KBase/questions/1978 and http://support.shopsite.com/KBase/questions/2358

[john powell]

Re: #2 and #3, Shopsite already provides the ability to provide custom product fields, so if you wanted the ability to do a filtered search by Manufacturer, you would simply designate one of these custom fields as "Manufacturer," and then enter the manufacturer information for all of your items via an individual PowerEdit. For your cost on products, just designate another field as "Unit Cost," populate each item with your buy price, and then that information will be available for you to compare vs. your sell price to determine profit margin (either dollar amount or percentage) when you export your inventory data into an excel spreadsheet.