Swatch Images, Standard Colors (Variations) Overview
Uploading your swatch images and defining your standard colors for your products allows you to:
define wholesale pricing by swatch or color,
specify production manufacturer and production pricing by swatch or color,
define shipping, weight, textile content and tariff codes by swatch or color,
re-use defined standards of swatch or color for other products across all seasons,
build swatches or colors into your SKU's when associating with your sizing, warehouses and EAN/UPC information for your products.
The links for building out these items further are at the bottom of this article. This article focuses primarily on the swatch images and standard colors.
Swatch images and standard colors differ from the Product Images in that they are samples of your fabric materials or colors (e.g. woven canvas or pink silk); whereas the Product Images are the full item being manufactured (e.g. a woven canvas hat, a pink silk shirt, etc.). Your Product Images should be tied directly to your "Variations" which are explained further in this article.
Prerequisites
Creating a new product and defining Colorways for your product
You must setup your Product Images for your products before uploading the swatch images and/or specifying the standard colors.
Adding/Updating Swatch Images, Standard Colors
Once you find your product as described in #1 in the prerequisite section above, click on the Variations tab from the main horizontal menu at the top of the screen.
Getting Started
Step 1: Click "Add a Variation" in the top right corner as illustrated in #1 below.
Step 2: Click on the blank field under the "Color" column to see what colors have been predefined by you for your products. Select the color from the drop down pick list.
3 Options for Entry (Step 3):
You have 3 options for adding a swatch or color. It is only necessary to choose from one of these methods and you can alternate methods for each color. And, you must have completed Steps 1 & 2 above before moving forward with one of these options.
Option 1 - Color Pallet: Select a color from the color pallet. For this option, you must click on the grey square in the Swatch Color column as illustrated in #3 below. Look for the color that matches your swatch or color. If it is on the pallet, you may use this method. If it is not there, you may need to use one of the other two options.
Option 2 - Hex Code: Type or copy/paste your specific hex code for the color into the blank area under Swatch Color as illustrated in #4 below. If you do not know your hex code, you can find this information on many reputable websites on the internet. The hex code method provides you a broader range of colors than those offered by the Color Pallet.
Option 3 - Uploading a file: For this method, you would click on the "Choose File" button and browse for your swatch image as illustrated in #5 below. The illustration below shows shirts. However, the swatch image could be the actual fabric/material of what the shirt is made of.
Repeat Steps 1 through 3: Add as many colors/swatches as necessary by repeating Steps 1 through 3.
Step 4 - After completing your color/swatches, specifying your standard colors, Save your work by click on the "Save" button in the top right corner of the screen.
Note: If you have many color/swatches to add, after performing steps 1 thru 3 for one product, you can quickly "double click" the SAVE button and Uphance will "duplicate" the last variant you added. You will have to change the name of it before you save. However, this handy feature may help reduce your time on adding your variations if they are all very similar.
Managing Standard Colors List
For swatches or colors that you want to reuse across other seasons or other products without having to recreate them (e.g. have them available in the "pick list" under the color column as discussed in Step 2 above), click the Save standard color link as illustrated below.
If you do not see a "Save standard color" option for one of your colors, make sure your cursor is in the field of the color column next to your color name. As demonstrated above, the cursor (black vertical line) is next to the word "white".
If you still do not see a "Save standard color" link, that means the color is already one of your standard colors. Standard colors can be defined defined when a new product is created as specified your colorways (see Creating/Editing a New Product). Or, Standard colors can be saved when updating other products.
To manage (or see) your Standard Color lists, perform these steps:
Click on your initials in the grey circle at the top right of the screen (as indicated next to the blue arrow in Figure 1 below).
From the pop-up menu, select the Settings menu option (Figure 1)
Figure 1:
Select Product Setup from the new vertical menu displayed in the center of your screen as illustrated in Figure 2.
Then, scroll down to the Colors section as illustrated in Figure 2 below.
Figure 2:
You can add or delete colors to this "Standard Color" lists using the same methodology as described in the Adding/Updating Swatch Images,Standard Colors section of this article by following Steps 1 through 4.
Examples
For reference, listed below are visual examples of some of the Options noted above demonstrating usage of Hexi Code:
Swatch Color Hexi Code Input
Demonstrates where you type the HexiCode for Grey in the Swatch Color field after selecting Grey from the drop down menu under color.
Swatch Color Hexi Code Output
Demonstrated what using the Hexi Code for Grey will look like once you save. In comparison to the other colors, the Hexi Code shows a solid grey color instead of the image of the swatch.
Swatch Color File Upload Method
Demonstrates how Grey looks after the image upload method is applied:
Next Steps:
To complete your Product Variation setup, see these Knowledge Articles to associate your Swatches and Colors to appropriate:
Product Variation Pricing
Product Variation Production
Product Variation Shipping