Adding products
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Products are at the core of Flow Retail. While some retailers manage a few hundred products, others work with tens of thousands.
To get the most out of the platform, it’s essential to invest time in adding accurate and detailed product information. This not only improves daily operations, but also enhances reporting, inventory control, and customer experience — all alongside the most important task: selling.
To sell products using Flow Retail, you must first add them to the system.
Here, we discuss different methods to accomplish this:
Manually in Flow Backoffice:
Ensure your user has Backoffice access with at least Department Manager permissions.
Log in to .
Navigate to Products > Products > New Product.
Fill in all the required fields and click Save or Save and Create New.
This document focuses on this manual method of product addition.
Integrating an External System:
Integration with an ERP or PIM system that contains the necessary product data.
Importing from a Spreadsheet:
Use an XLSX file to import product data directly into the system.
Cloning Existing Products:
Utilize the Clone Product function to create similar product entries quickly.
Choose the method that best suits your needs to efficiently manage and sell products through Flow Retail.
Under 100
Manual or Cloning
100 - 10.000
Spreadsheet import
More than 10.000
API integration
You can use the Clone function to clone most details from an existing product.
Product Type
Select 'Stock' for items to track inventory. Choose 'No Stock' for services, fees, or subscriptions. Use 'Configurable' for parent products with variants.
Yes
SKU
Use a unique SKU or product code.
Consider using a random 6-7 digit SKU if not using the supplier's SKU.
Different suppliers might use similar SKU formats, so verify for uniqueness.
Generate a new SKU if one is not already available.
Yes
Name
Short name / title of the product
Yes
Product Group
Select one relevant product group. The product group is used for reporting and more
Yes
Brand
Select one brand. The brand is used for reporting and more
Yes
Serial number controlled
Choose whether the product shall be controlled by unique serial numbers, either both during Receivement and Sale (validation), or just via Sale (no validation)
Yes
Recommended retail price
The default price you are selling the product for. If you have price lists or campaigns, they will be prioritized over the RRP
Yes
Agreed purchase price
The default purchase price, if no specific purchase price has been set on the supplier for this specific product
No
Calculation factor
Used for various things, like setting the cost price if no purchase price has been set. Use 1.25 if the VAT is 25% and you have a zero-margin on a product
Yes
Flow Retail supports an unlimited number of EAN/GTIN/barcodes to a product.
Simply add the EAN/GTIN(s) you want to be able to be scanned in any product lookup field in the clients.
EAN stands for European Article Number, and is a 13 digit unique number assigned to most products sold in Europe. EAN is over the time being replaced with GTIN, which stands for Global Trade Identification Number.
GTIN-13 is basically EAN-13, with GTIN-12 (UPC) being used for most US products.
There are four available description fields on a product.
In Flow Retail, the distinction between Short Description and Description fields facilitates integration with external systems, like e-commerce platforms.
These systems typically support both short and long/full descriptions, enabling seamless interaction, particularly between a PIM system and an e-commerce platform.
Both fields are visible to users, although typically, only one field is utilized in practice.
When adding a product to a sale, users will receive a notification if there are specific details in the internal info description field.
This feature is useful for reminding users to inform customers about important precautions or to remember internal sales information related to the product.
Same as internal info, expect that the information in this field will be displayed to the customer, on the receipt or offer.
The Advanced section consists of very specific features that can be added to any product.
Option to disable the possibility of selling a product, either indefinitely or from a set date.
Option to set a date from when the product was expired. This option wont limit either selling or purchasing the product, so it is just an information to the user.
Option to disable the product from being allowed to be refunded. A typical use case is for expired products that are sold at high discount, and where the customer has been informed that they cannot return it. Or for custom made products, which normally are not obligated to be returned.
Option to block the user from being able to adjust the price during a sale.
Option to block from purchasing the product.
Option to disable the product from being delivered out, either indefinitely or from a set date. A typical use case would be a new product that is not allowed by the manufacturer to be delivered to the customer before a certain date, due to a launch campaign.
Option to set a commission in percentage. Used in for example the Arts functionality in Flow Retail, for payouts to a supplier based upon the number of sales.
Option to hide visibility, e.g. when searching for products, a product with visibility Not visible will not be shown.
When entering the exact SKU, products with Not visible set will still be opened.
By default, all products are visible to all stores.
By adding one or more specific stores to the "Limit to stores"-list, only those stores will see the product.
This feature is mainly used for retail chains, where certain stores are purchasing and selling products very specific to them.
Option to, via Flow Retail, exclude certain products from being syncronized with the e-commerce store.
Option to disable sales statistics for certain products, like gift card, etc.
Option to select a pre-defined warranty condition text (maintained under Products > Warranty conditions).
Used to inform the customer about specific warranty details, or any other additional details, that are common across multiple products.
The conditions text is being printed on the receipt to the customer.
Option to set a custom number of pieces a specific product consists of.
Lets say you sell a sofa which is one SKU with one inventory, however it consists of two physical packages/boxes.
When receiving the product, and printing out labels, Flow Retail will print X number of labels for the product, each presented with "1/3", "2/3", "3/3", etc.
In this section you can add requirements related to the customer, before the product can be sold.
You can require a basic customer record (name), and email, mobile and/or a delivery address.
You can also set an age limit (e.g "18"). This will simply inform the user to do an age verification on the customer. Flow Retail itself wont do any age verification.
Option to set a specific accounting number for this product, in terms of accounting/finance.
Flow Retail supports adding product images to a product, either from an external fixed URL (e.g from a PIM or DAM or e-commerce system) or by uploading the actual images to the system.
Flow Retail supports linking various types of products to a specific product.
Linked insurance products will appear once a product is being added to an order.
One can only select one insurance product to the order.
If the relevant product is being removed from the order, the insurance product is also automatically removed.
Linked accessories appears once a product is being added to an order.
One can any number of accessories to an order.
Accessories will be kept on the order even though the original product is being removed.
Linked service products can be anything from assembling to delivery.
Linked spare parts are mainly used in the Service system to display relevant spare parts to a specific product.
Allows for adding any pre-defined properties to the product.
This section allows for adding warehouse-specific details to a product.
Set a pre-defined max/min value per warehouse.
This is mainly used for more efficient and even automatic purchase ordering.
The Min[imum] is set to 10. The Max[imum] is set to 50.
The product has 20 in stock.
When generating a purchase order based upon Max/Min values, it finds 20 in stock, which is above the Min[imum] threshold of 10. Nothing is then added to the purchase order suggestion.
If the stock would be below 10, lets say 5, then the system would automatically suggest 45, so it reaches the Max[imum] of 50.
Allows for setting a location value of the product, per warehouse.
The location system can be anything, though a basic yet solid system is using XX-YY-ZZ, where XX is the first row in the warehouse, YY is the first section in that row, and ZZ is the floor in that row.
Allows for adding the purchase price per supplier (normally just one), alongside an optional supplier SKU.
These values are used when creating purchase orders.
To learn how to add media / images to a product, check the article.
Read the section to learn more about properties.