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Managing products

Use the Products page in Subscription's Retail to configure products in Arc XP Subscriptions.

Products are the core building blocks for your subscription offerings. Every subscription sold is tied to a specific product through a SKU (stock keeping unit). These products allow you to set different pricing options and determine what content subscribers can access based on their subscription tier.

Tip

We recommend limiting the number of products in your catalog, as you can use offers and campaigns to tailor messaging for your marketing promotions.

The main Products page provides a list of all your site's products and their current status. Products can have one of the following statuses:

  • Published - an active product that is part of at least one live offer.

  • Draft - an active product not currently included in any published offer.

  • Archived - a product that is no longer active.

After you create a product, your marketing team can link it to an offer. To learn more about offers, see ???.

Prerequisites

To create and manage products, you must have the following items in place:

Scenario: Creating a subscription product for the playoff season

As a news organization administrator, you want to create a new subscription product for football fans that allows them to receive analysis and exclusive content during the next playoffs season.

On the Retail page, you configure your new product, giving it a unique SKU and setting its pricing strategy to make recurrent monthly payments from May through July, allowing your customers to renew or cancel each time.

You also set this new strategy to recover some of your ex-subscribers who might be convinced by the exclusive Sports section content.

Procedures

Creating a product

To create a product for your site, complete the following:

  1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Retail > Products. The Products page opens.

  2. Click Create Product. The Create Product window opens.

  3. Complete the following fields: 

    • Product name - enter a descriptive name for your product. You can edit the name after creation.

    • SKU - enter an alphanumeric value, up to 25 characters. You cannot edit the SKU after creation.

  4. Click Create. The Edit product page opens, showing a Product summary on the right side of the page.

    The Product summary displays the following static information:

    • Last updated - shows when and who made the latest changes.

    • Created details - shows when and who created the product.

    • Website - shows the website where the product is available.

  5. Complete the following fields: 

    • Name - confirm or change the product name.

    • Description - enter a description of the product; up to 1,000 characters.

    • Entitlement - select an entitlement from the drop-down menu. For more details on creating entitlements, see ???.

    • Allow associate subscribers - toggle on or off to enable or disable subscription sharing with multiple users. The associated subscribers have the same privileges as the subscription owner. This option is useful for offering family subscriptions, where one user purchases the subscription and can share it with a number of family members.

      • Number of subscribers - set the number of associated subscribers who can access that subscription. The maximum number of associated subscribers is 100.

    • Product image - click Add image to associate an image from Photo Center with this product.

  6. In the Edit product page, click Save.

The following sections guide you through setting up the different sections in the Create a product page.

Adding a product feature

A product feature is a list of benefits associated with your digital product. You add features to products to showcase their value to potential customers. Each feature has a style attribute used to control how it displays on the front end.

To learn more, see Configuring product feature styles.

To add a product feature when creating a product, complete the following:

  1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Retail > Products > Your desired product. The Edit product page opens.

  2. In the Features section, click Create feature. The Create feature window opens.

  3. Complete the following fields: 

    • Style - select a predefined style from the drop-down menu. For more details on how to create a style, see Configuring product feature styles.

    • Feature - enter a feature description.

  4. Click Create.

Adding a product price

To add a price to your product, complete the following:

  1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Retail > Products > Your desired product. The Edit product page opens.

  2. In the Prices section, click Create price. The Create price panel opens.

  3. Complete the following fields: 

    1. Name - enter a customer-facing name of the price.

    2. Summary - enter a customer-facing detailed summary of your price, up to 255 characters.

    3. Description - enter a customer-facing description of your price, up to 1,000 characters.

    4. Currency - select the currency from the drop-down menu. The default currency is the currency you defined in your Subscriptions settings. See Setting your products' currency.

    5. Eligible for subscriber-initiated changes - toggle on to allow your current subscribers to use this price to upgrade or downgrade their active subscriptions.

    6. Gift price - toggle on to create a gift price. This gift price tag cannot be updated after you create it.

    7. Include tax as part of the displayed price - toggle on to set the price rates as the final price for your customers. Toggle off if you have custom taxes or an external tax provider enabled; this way, the system calculates the final price by adding the applicable tax amount to the price you defined in price rates.

  4. In the Price Rates section, click Add. A new Rate card opens.

    1. Complete the following fields: 

      • Charge - set the amount of money to charge for a subscription.

      • Every... - set a numerical value for recurring payments.

      • Frequency - select one of the following frequency options in the drop-down menu: day(s), week(s), month(s), year(s), or one time.

      • For... - set a numerical value for the subsequent charges.

      • Term length - select the term to continue charging your subscriptions. The drop-down menu includes the following options: day(s), week(s), month(s), year(s), or until cancelled.

      Important

      For gift subscriptions, you can set only one price rate, because gift prices do not go through renewals.

    2. Click Save.

      You return to the Edit product page.

  5. Click Save. The product price updates automatically.

Filtering your products

If you have a multisite organization, you must first filter products based on the site they are associated with; if you have a single-site organization, your main site is the default. Complete the following to filter your products.

  1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Retail > Products. The Products page opens.

  2. Select a site from the Prods for drop-down menu. The Products page updates accordingly.

  3. Click the funnel icon icon_funnel.png on the top left. The Filter panel opens.

  4. Select the type of items to show from the following options: All, Published Only, Draft Only, or Archived.

    The Products page updates accordingly.

Tip

Using the top-right-hand drop-down menu, you can also filter the items by ascending and descending alphabetical or last updated order.

The paginated menu at the bottom of the page allows you to navigate through your site's products.

Archiving and unarchiving a product

You can archive draft products or restore an archived draft. You cannot archive a published product.

To archive a product, complete the following:

  1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Retail > Products. The Products page opens.

  2. Search for your desired product >icon_ellipsis.png > Archive. The Archive Product window opens.

  3. Click Yes, Archive Product. The system moves your product to the archived products list.

To unarchive a product, filter the products by Archived criteria, following these steps:

  1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Retail > Products. The Products page opens.

  2. Click the funnel icon icon_funnel.png on the top left > Archived. The Products list updates accordingly.

  3. Search for your desired product > icon_ellipsis.png > Unarchive. The Unarchive Product window opens.

  4. Click Yes, Unarchive Product. The system moves your product to the Draft product list.

Use your Draft products to create offers for your customers. For more details, see ??? .

Copying a product

To create a copy of your product, complete the following:

  1. Navigate to Subscriptions > Retail > Products. The Products page opens.

  2. Search for your desired product > icon_ellipsis.png > Create Copy. The Create a Copy window opens.

  3. Enter the following details:

    • Product name - enter a descriptive name for your product. You can edit the name after creation.

    • SKU - enter an alphanumeric value, up to 25 characters. You cannot edit the SKU after creation.

  4. Click Create Copy. The Edit product page opens.

  5. Follow the Creating a product procedure.

  6. Click Save.

Your product becomes available in the main Products page.

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