Introduction
Overview
Now that your Resource Shop is configured, this guide will show you how to start managing it day-to-day.
You’ll learn how to:
Access the shop admin area
Creating and managing Products
Create and manage Product Displays (see below to understand more about product displays)
List your products on pages on your site
Create discount codes
Create member discount price lists
Understanding the difference between "Products" and "Product Displays" in your site:
In PlusCMS, a product is the thing you sell; whereas a product display is the page where shoppers see and buy it. This is an important distinction to understand when managing your site.
Products are standalone items, like SKU, price, taxes, stock, and any attributes you use for variations (size, colour, etc.). They’re what ends up in the cart and order, and they exist even if there’s no public page showing them. Think of products as the transactional backbone: they capture exactly what was purchased and for how much.
A product display however is a website page (or "node") that presents one or more products to the customer. It controls the URL, title, menu placement, taxonomy, teasers, SEO metadata, and the general marketing copy and imagery. The display pulls in purchasable products via a Commerce Product Reference field and renders the Add to Cart form. Because it’s a website node, it behaves like the rest of your site content and shows up in listings, uses your theme’s node templates, and supports revisions and publishing workflows.
This separation is what enables variations. You can attach multiple product entities (e.g., T-shirt S, M, L) to a single product display node. The display shows one page with attribute selectors; choosing an option switches the underlying product (and thus its SKU, price, and stock). Likewise, a single product can be referenced by multiple displays if you want to promote the same SKU in different sections of the site (a seasonal landing page and a standard catalogue page).
Practically, your workflow is: create product types (define fields like price, SKU, attributes) and create products first; then create a product display node that references those products. To stop selling, you can disable/unpublish the product so it can’t be added to the cart, even if the display is still visible; to hide the page, unpublish the display. Deleting a display does not delete its products, and vice versa, handy for reusing SKUs or rebuilding pages.
In short: the product is the purchasable, cartable entity with commerce data; the product display is the customer-facing content page that markets and aggregates one or more products. Keeping them separate gives you clean storefront pages and back-office control over pricing, inventory, and orders.
1. Accessing the Shop (Admin View)
Purpose:
Guide administrators on how to access the Shop area and locate key management sections, including Products, Product Displays, and Configuration.
Navigating to the Shop
From the admin toolbar, go to “Store”
Use the following menu links:
Products
Product Displays
Configuration
After accessing the Store section, you can begin creating and managing the products available for purchase.
2. Creating and Managing Products
Purpose:
Create and manage individual products that can be purchased or downloaded, including their pricing, VAT, and financial mapping to CiviCRM.
Adding a New Product
Go to Store → Products → Add Product
Select ‘Product’ as the type
Complete required fields:
Product SKU - (unique identifier for the product)
Title / Name
Product type - ‘Shippable’ or ‘Downloadable’
CiviCRM Financial Type – defines how the product’s income is recorded in CiviCRM.
Images / Videos - shown on the Product Displays to promote your product
VAT category - VAT rate for this item
Status - Active or Disabled (Disabled products cannot be added to shopping carts)
Click Save product.
Editing an Existing Resource
Go to Store → Products
Use filters or search to locate the existing item.
Click Edit.
Make your updates.
Save changes.
Archiving or Unpublishing
Open the resource in edit mode.
Change the Status field to “Disabled”.
Save.
Once products are created, the next step is to configure how they appear to users by setting up Product Displays.
3. Create and Manage Product Displays
Adding a Product Display
Go to Store → Product Displays → Add Product Display
2. Choose the Product Type
Choose from:
Shippable
Downloadable
3. Set Free Access Options (if Product type = Downloadable )
Choose one of the following:
Paid only
Free for everyone
Free for logged-in users
Free by role
4. Select or Create a Product
In the Product Reference field, select an existing product or create a new one.
The options shown depend on the Product Type you selected:
If you choose Shippable, only shippable products will appear.
If you choose Downloadable, only downloadable products will be suggested.
5. Add any other required details
Title
Description
Categories or tags
Images or files
Price or access settings
6. Save the Product Display
Viewing Existing Displays
Go to Store → Product Displays
You’ll see a list of all existing Product Displays.
Use filters to narrow down results by:
Title
Author/User
Editing Product Displays
From the list, click “Edit” on the display you want to update.
2. You can change any of the fields used during the original setup, except the product type.
3. You can:
Add a new product to the display
Link an existing product
Remove products currently linked
4. Click “Save” to apply your changes.
After setting up Product Displays, you can feature them on pages using Product Listing components for dynamic product grids and category filters.
4. Product Listings on Pages
Purpose:
Add and configure Product Listing components to display product cards dynamically on pages, using filters, categories, or featured settings.
Use the Product Listing component to showcase products on any content page.
Adding a Product Listing Component
Edit the page where you want the products to appear.
In the component chooser, select “Product listing”.
How the Product Listing Works
The Product listing component works like other listing components (for example, News) and can be configured:
You can configure it to:
Display 3 or 4 cards per row
Show up to 7 rows of products
Filter products by taxonomy term (e.g. specific resource types)
Expose filters to users to refine results
Display featured products
Once the component is added and the page is saved, the configured product cards will display automatically based on the selected settings.
After saving, refresh the page to confirm that the product cards display according to the selected filters and layout settings.
With products and displays configured, you can now set up discounts and promotions to offer special pricing or benefits to users.
5. Discount codes
Purpose:
Set up and manage discount rules and coupons to apply special pricing or offers based on user roles, product types, or order conditions.
4.1 Discount Types and Rules
Discounts allow you to apply reduced pricing or benefits to products in the Resource Shop. They can be configured in different ways and targeted to specific users, products, or order conditions.
Discounts can include:
Percentage reductions (e.g. 10% off)
Fixed amount discounts (e.g. £5 off)
Free shipping
Coupon-based offers
Time-limited promotions
You can control when discounts apply using conditions such as:
Product type or category
User role
Minimum order amount
Specific users or codes
4.2 Accessing Discounts
Go to Store → Discounts (/admin/commerce/discounts)
The page displays an overview of all existing discounts.
Click “Add Discount” to create a new discount.
4.3 Creating a Discount
Enter a Name – used internally for admin reference.
Choose a Discount Type, such as:
Percentage off – e.g. 10%
Fixed amount off – e.g. £5
Free shipping
Enter the Value (e.g. 10%, £5, or leave blank for free shipping).
(Optional) Set Validity Dates:
Start date
End date
Add or select an existing Coupon Code if the discount is code-based.
4.4 Adding Conditions
Conditions control when a discount is applied and can be combined when needed.
Examples include:
Products in a specific category
Cart/order total above a set amount (e.g. £50)
Individual users
You can apply a single condition or layer multiple conditions together to target discounts precisely.
After saving, test the discount by adding an eligible product to the cart and confirming the reduced price appears correctly.
In addition to standard discounts, you can configure member-specific pricing using Price Lists.
6. Member Discounts
Purpose:
Member discounts allow reduced pricing or exclusive access for specific user groups.
You can manage this using a Price List, which is a tool that lets you set specific, static prices for products based on various conditions. Unlike the default single price per product, a price list allows you to assign different prices to the same product variation for different customers, user roles, or quantity tiers.
Setting Up a Price List for Member Discounts
There are two places where you can view and manage Price Lists:
From the Store menu
Go to Store → Price List (/admin/commerce/pricelist).
Here you can see all existing price lists configured on the site.Click “View” to see products using this price list.
Click “Add Price” to create new pricing entries.
Click “Edit” to review configuration details such as roles and user IDs.
From the Product editing page
When creating or editing a product, scroll to the Price Lists section.
Click “Add Price” to enter the relevant details for the product.
Save your changes.
After saving, test as a logged-in member to ensure the correct pricing is displayed in the cart.
Once users begin purchasing products, you can manage their orders, track payments, and ensure all transactions sync correctly with CiviCRM.