[Video Walkthrough] All about Services, Products & Packages

INTRO: WHAT IS A PRODUCT?  WHAT IS A PACKAGE?

Products in Pixifi are defined as anything you would like to sell or add as a line-item to an Invoice.  This list of “Products" can be physical items such as albums, greetings cards, etc or non-physical items such as digital files, print releases, etc or anything service-based like hours of photographic coverage, album design, editing time, etc.  Packages are created by grouping your Products and services together as a collection sold for one overall Package price.  

I know you are all probably very anxious to set up your Packages right off the bat, but trust me, you will want to pay attention to how to build your Product list and create your Packages based on the work you do with these Templates!  This will save you SO MUCH TIME as you create your various Packages!

CREATING PRODUCT TYPES (01:02)

To create a Product Template, we are going to click on TEMPLATES, PRODUCT TEMPLATES, and since we first need to create Product types as a way of organizing our Products, we’re going to go right to that tab first. Now click on the [+ Add Product Type] button and just give it a name and designate its sub-Type, which tells the system whether this type of item is a service or a Product which matters for organizational and tax-related purposes.  If you haven’t done this already, check out your State’s tax laws surrounding the sales of services and non-physical items because some states do not require you to charge sales tax on those items or services when your Client is not receiving a physical item.  This can save your Clients money that you were never going to be able to keep in the first place and save you the headache of being the middle-man who delivers that check to Uncle Sam.  Circling back to creating Product Types, some generic examples might include Prints, Photographic Coverage, Albums or any other “type" of Product/service the items you sell might fall into.  

CREATING PRODUCT TEMPLATES (02:07)

Now that we’ve created the Product types that the items or services we offer could be grouped into, let’s create some Product Templates!  When you click [+ Add Product Template] you’ll see a pop up window and this is where you would choose from your list of types (and actually if you find yourself creating a Product Template that you haven’t yet created an appropriate type for, you can simply click the [+] button to add a new type right there on the spot).  Next you will set the retail price (what you sell it for) versus the wholesale cost (what it costs you to order that item) of your Product/service, mark whether it is a physical item or not, whether it is taxable or not, and whether your Clients can order multiple of this item.  If you want to attach an image URL of the Product you are selling that your Client or prospective Client will see on the pricing pages, proposal pages, and booking pages, you can add that photo here as well.  You can either paste a link to an image you’ve already loaded to your website or click on this button to upload your image here.  You want to make sure you enter the year of each Product because you will be able to make a duplicate list of the entire year’s worth of Products and change the year in a batch edit, but it’s nice to keep a record of each year’s pricing for your own records.  

Let’s say the calendar year has changed and you have updated your pricing and dropped a couple Products or added a few Products.  What you will want to do at this point rather than re-typing them all or duplicating these Products one by one, you will want to click [Duplicate Templates], choose the year you’d like to copy and give the duplicate copy a target year to copy to.  When you click [√ Save], the system will loop through each of the things it finds with that year, make an exact copy of it and change the year to the target year you’ve specified.  At this point, you can filter all of your Templates by the year you want to see and begin making any changes you desire for that year, changing pricing, descriptions if necessary, wholesale costs to keep accurate records of your overhead, and deleting any Products you’re not offering in that calendar year.  We can’t recommend enough that our users keep their Product Template lists organized and “tidy" so to speak, easily filterable, easily searchable, etc for your own efficacy and your own sanity!  When you have too many jumbled things to look at, and no way to simplify the listing by filtering, it can become overwhelming as you continue to duplicate Product lists over the years.  You will thank yourself later!  

There is another very valuable tool you will find within this module called [Batch Update].  One easy way to change pricing for many Products at once is to select all the Products you’d like to change (or filter them by type, year, etc) and then select [Batch Update], and from here you can update the retail price by a fixed dollar amount or by a percentage, and you can choose whether you’d like to increase by that amount or decrease by that amount but we do NOT recommend selecting “decrease" because YOU NEED TO MAKE MORE MONEY!  Momma needs a new pair of shoes!  Amirite?! :)

You will notice on the right side of the list screen that there is a little [Sales] button where you will hopefully see a little number of how many sales you made of that specific Product within the specified calendar year.  That number will show up from Products that have been added to Invoice lineitems.  When you click that [Sales] button, you will be able to view a drop-down break-down of the total sales of that specific item or service.  This is great data to see how you’re doing not only month to month with any given Product/service but also year to year and overall to see whether this is even a Product worth keeping in your offerings.  

PACKAGE TEMPLATES (05:44)

So, now that you have a beefy list of various Product Templates, let’s work to build our first Package Template.  Follow me to TEMPLATES, PACKAGES, and [+ Add Package].  You want to start by giving your new Package Template a name and a price.  Next you can use the filter tool to choose how you want to see the Products you offer.  You can also filter by the year so that this list only shows you Products from the year you want to work in.  As you select the Products you want to include in this Package Template, you click the [> over] button and they will appear under Package View to the right.  From here you can select the quantity of this specific item you’d like to include in this Package, and even adjust the price if you need to.  Just as a side note, adjusting the pricing in the itemized list will not change the Package price that you have set.  Once you open up the Package Template you have created you can click the [Edit] button to add a photo to your Package which will display on your booking pages, pricing pages, and proposals, and we will cover these more in depth in Class 302: Proposals and Class 303: Booking Pages.

CLOSING REMARKS (06:52)

Class dismissed!  Thank you for taking the time to learn all about PRODUCTS and PACKAGES.  In this video, we covered what Product Templates are and how to create and organize them as well as what Package Templates are and how to create them!    In the next video, we will be showing how to use those Product Templates and Package Templates to create Invoices.  

If you’d like to polish the teacher’s apple, there is one extra credit “assignment" for this class but this one is not for the faint of heart, so come with an open, de-stressed mind, and plenty of coffee!!!!

EXTRA CREDIT

Welcome to the extra credit section for our Products and Packages class!  What we want to show you in this video is how to add further customization to your Product Templates.  Before we dive into the HOW, I want to show you the WHAT so you can see the WHY you might want to do this!  While we aren’t going to cover Pricing Pages until Class 302: Products & Packages, I’m going to take you to one of my finished pricing pages to show you Product Template options and how they function from the view of a pricing page and what your Clients will see.

Extra Credit: Pricing Pages | Client View (00:40)

Right now we are viewing a sample pricing page where my Clients can add on an album to their Package.  The way I’ve set up my Albums Product Template, I have given my Client the ability to choose from a variety of options as they go through their selection and ordering process.  Why would we do this?  In the traditional method you just learned where each different Product has it’s own Product Template, you would have to create as many Product Templates as you offer options which is time consuming, inefficient, and inconvenient for you and your Clients!  Using a method like the one I’m about to show you for Products such as Albums that may have many possible options and preferences allows for a much smoother and less confusing selection process by your Client, as well as a much more organized and streamlined system on your end within Pixifi.  

So let’s take a closer look at this Flush Mount Album Template and how this functions to give you some context for how to build it.  The Product Template’s base price is set to $1550.  When I click [Choose Add-On], a series of drop-down boxes, radio buttons, and/or check boxes can appear to your Client depending on how you design it to display.  Each of these labels on the left are what we call “Option Types" and then on the right, your Client can select from various options that are grouped within those option types.  

For an example, let’s click on Leather Type and you can see that there are many color and style options to choose from.  Similarly when you click on Page Amounts, you can select how many spreads you’d like, etc.  If you pay attention to the Album price we showed you in the beginning, when my Client selects 1-11 pages, there is no price change; that option is included within the base price.  However, if they select any of the other ones, in the parentheses next to the other options for page amounts is the amount the price of the album will increase by selecting it.  And if you look here in page size (or album size) the 12x12 album is included in the base price, but if they choose a smaller size to save money, the price of their album will decrease by the amount shown in the parentheses.  As your Client clicks back and forth to see how certain options shake out, the price of the album they are building continues to update for them in real time.  You can also set the option types as required or not required as your Client makes his or her selections.  

So, take a deep breath with me.  Now that you’ve seen how cool this is from the Client’s perspective, I’m going to show you how to set it up, but it can appear to be overstimulating and a little bit disorienting at first.  Once you see it from this side, you will probably get it, and if you don’t you can always replay this section and watch it again.  So, here we go….

Extra Credit: Product Templates With Options (03:23)

I’m going to go back into Product Types within our PRODUCTS & SERVICES Module, and find my Flush Mount Album Product Template.  If I click this button here labeled [Option Types] on any of my Product Templates I will be able to [+ Add Option Types].  For the sake of this example and what we just showed you from the Client’s perspective, our Option Types will be “Album Finish, Page Amounts, Leather Type, Front Cover Type and Page Size."  Now that you have created the Option Types for this Product Type, you will want to find the specific Product Template you want to add all of these various options to (in this case our “Flush Mount Album" Product Template) and click [+ Add Option] where you can then choose one of the option types you’ve just created (or if you’re adding option types as you go, you can click on the little [+] button to do that), give your option a name and then create a price difference for your Client as well as update your wholesale cost for that option to be added.  The wholesale cost difference is not required, but it is always great to keep the most accurate record possible of your overhead costs with respect to your Product sales.  To control what is required or not, you can simply go to the Product Type tab, find the Product type associated with the Product Template you’re displaying and adjust the option settings by clicking on the [Option Types] button.   You can also change how your options are displayed within this same screen, whether you prefer drop down boxes, radio buttons, etc.

As you are adding all of your Product Template Options, you can duplicate any that might make the process faster for you, delete any options you no longer want, and also re-order your list if that’s helpful for you visually.  

So now just to show you again how this all relates, I’m going to flip back and forth between what you see on the Pixifi side when you set this up and what your Client sees on the pricing page.  So here are the Album Finish options in the Admin and here is what those same Album Finish Options look like on the live Pricing Page.  Here are the Leather Type options and here is the drop down that shows all the options we have added for Leather Types.  

I hope this helps you see things a little more clearly after you’ve gotten a handle on how to create these options!  If you need a quick refresh, you can always just replay the last few minutes of this video to see it all again as you’re walking through the steps of doing this for yourself!  

Thank you for taking the extra time to explore this extra credit section!  We hope that these little extra tools and tips help you to acquire the skills and confidence to continue killin’ it!