Showio help

Showio makes PDF wholesale line sheets, catalogs and price lists from your Shopify products. These are the answers from the Help page inside Showio, and how to get started. To open Showio, go to Apps in your Shopify admin and select Showio.

Getting started

Home in Showio shows these three steps too.

1. Create your catalog. It's filled in from your store: all your active products as a line sheet, wholesale prices at 50% off retail, your store's details. Add your logo there too, and change anything you like.
2. Add your logo. Optional, in Settings or in the form. Every catalog uses it and is rebuilt with it; until then, your store's name is printed.
3. Send it to buyers. Download the PDF and send it, or copy its share link from the catalog's page. Pro and Business add an email-size version and update your catalogs every night.

Catalogs

How are catalogs counted?

Each catalog you keep in Showio counts, including line sheets and price lists. Products and pages don't count toward your plan. With Specific products, a catalog can have up to 500 products. With All active products or Collections, a catalog can be much larger.

Your plan includes a number of catalogs at a time. The Plan page shows how many you have.

At your limit, delete a catalog or choose a bigger plan to add another. If you have more catalogs than your plan includes, for example after a downgrade, none are removed, but you can't add new ones until you're within your plan.

While you're over your limit, every catalog stays downloadable. The ones you created last, past the limit, show Download only and aren't rebuilt; on Pro and Business, nightly updates pause for all your catalogs. On Free, a catalog past the limit loses its PDF after 60 days without use and can't be rebuilt until you're within your plan. Delete catalogs or upgrade, and everything works again at once.

Which products are in a catalog?

Active products only: drafts, archived products and gift cards are left out, even when you chose them. Pick all active products, one or more collections, or up to 500 specific products. A collection keeps its own sort order and becomes a section of the PDF; specific products print in the order of your list. A product deleted in Shopify is taken off the list, and the form says so.

How are out-of-stock products shown?

As you choose under Out-of-stock variants. Mark as sold out, the default, puts a small label on a product's photo (Sold out, Some sold out, On backorder or Some on backorder) and on each out-of-stock row of a price list. Hide leaves sold-out variants out, and a product with none left isn't printed; variants on backorder stay, marked. Show as normal prints them like the rest. On backorder means a variant is out of stock but can still be ordered (Continue selling when out of stock, in Shopify).

The PDF shows your stock as it was when it was built. When a variant sells out or is back in stock, Showio treats it like any other product change: on Pro and Business the catalog is rebuilt that night; on Free it shows Out of date until you rebuild it. With Show as normal, stock changes never make a catalog out of date.

How are photos placed?

As you choose under Template › Photos. Automatic, the default, decides photo by photo: a photo fills its tile when that keeps the product whole; otherwise its plain background is extended to the tile's edges, or the whole photo stands on light grey. Fill the tile crops every photo to fill its tile, edge to edge, keeping a model's head; it can cut feet or a product's edge. A photo too small to fill its tile sharply is placed as Automatic places it; this happens most in the email-size version, whose photos are smaller. With Show the whole photo, every photo stands whole on light grey; at most a thin edge is trimmed. Photos on a white background always show whole: their white blends into the grey. The setting is for the whole catalog, its cover included.

Can the line sheet show a short description?

Yes: turn on Short description under On each product. Each product gets one line under its title: the first sentence of its description, shortened with “…” when it doesn't fit. The catalog template prints up to three lines.

Where do the logo and brand color come from?

You upload your logo once, in Showio's Settings, and every catalog uses it, on the cover and at the top of every page. The brand color is picked from the logo and you can change it there. Saving rebuilds your catalogs with them. Without a logo, your store's name is printed instead.

Why does a catalog say Incomplete?

Shopify's image service didn't send some photos, even after several tries, so they show as “No image”. This usually clears up within minutes; then select Rebuild now. You can still download the incomplete PDF, but buyers who open the share link keep getting the previous complete PDF until a rebuild has every photo.

Why is my PDF in parts?

So every file is easy to open and send. Downloads come in parts of up to 60 MB (about 2,000 products each in a line sheet; fewer in a catalog, whose photos are larger); the email-size version in parts of up to 15 MB, which most email services accept. Free has no email-size version: send the catalog's share link instead, and buyers download each part from it (turn on its link first if another catalog's is on).

Prices and ordering

How are wholesale prices worked out?

Either a percentage off the retail price (50% to start with), or the prices of one of your Shopify B2B catalogs. RRP (recommended retail price; MSRP in the US and Canada) is the product's price, or its compare-at price when that's higher. Prices are in your store's currency. If you choose a B2B catalog priced in another currency, your catalog prints in that currency, with wholesale prices only: your RRPs are in your store's currency.

You make B2B catalogs in Shopify under Markets › Catalogs. On Shopify Plus you can assign one to a company location directly. On the other plans, you add it to a B2B market: a market whose condition is Company locations. Either way, it's listed under Prices in Showio.

Can the PDF say whether prices include VAT or tax?

Yes, under Prices. Until you choose, the PDF says nothing about VAT or tax. Pick whether your wholesale prices exclude or include it; the RRP follows your store's tax setting in Shopify (whether your prices include tax). The wording prints on the cover, beside the date, and a price list also prints it under the price columns' names. A catalog that prints only the RRP has one checkbox instead.

What should I put in the ordering terms?

What buyers look for first: your minimum order, payment terms, delivery time and VAT. Up to 4 short lines, printed beside your contact on the cover. Whether your prices include VAT has its own setting under Prices, so it needn't go here too. Write any amounts in the catalog's currency.

Can buyers write their order on the price list?

Yes, on a printed copy: turn on Qty column for a price list. Every row a buyer can order gets an empty box for the quantity; a sold-out row says Sold out instead. Buyers write in their quantities and send the page back to you; say where in your ordering terms, for example “Email orders to wholesale@…”. Showio doesn't take orders. The rows are a little taller, so the PDF has a few more pages.

Where do minimum quantity and case pack come from?

The minimum quantity is the fewest units of a variant a buyer can order; the case pack is the number they order in multiples of. When wholesale prices come from a B2B catalog, Showio uses its quantity rules (set them in Shopify under Markets › Catalogs: open the catalog, then Manage products and pricing). Products without a rule use the minimum quantity and case pack in the catalog's Prices section. They print only where a product has them: a line with the prices on the line sheet and catalog, two columns in the price list.

Updates and sharing

When does the PDF update?

On Pro and Business, Showio checks your products every night and rebuilds each catalog whose products changed. On Free, it checks every night and marks those catalogs Out of date; select Rebuild now to update them. Free rebuilds a catalog once every 10 minutes, or right away while you set up a new catalog (its first 30 minutes).

Rebuild now first reads your latest products from Shopify, so the PDF shows a change you just made. That adds a few seconds.

Who can open a share link?

Anyone who has it, and it shows wholesale prices, so send it only to buyers. It opens a page with the catalog's cover and its downloads: the latest complete PDF, and on paid plans the email-size version too. New link stops the old link at once and gives you a new one. For 30 days the old link shows your contact, so buyers can ask you for the new one. After that, or as soon as you make another new link, it shows “This page isn't available”. Turn off link stops a link too; turning it on again gives you a new link to send. Both are in the More link actions menu (⋯), beside Copy link on the catalog's page.

How many share links do I get?

Free includes one share link at a time, on the catalog you choose. Buyers get the PDF from your last rebuild, and the page carries a small “Made with Showio” line. To share another catalog instead, select Turn on this catalog's link on its page. That link works at once, so send it to your buyers; the first link pauses until you switch back. If you turn off that link or delete its catalog, no link is on until you turn one on: a paused link never turns on by itself.

On Pro and Business, every catalog has its own link, and its PDF is updated every night when your products change. If you move to Free, one link stays on: the one buyers used most recently, of the catalogs within your plan's limit (if none of them has a link, none is on). The others pause; you can turn on the link of any catalog within your plan instead.

How long are my PDFs kept?

On Free, your PDFs are removed after 60 days without use. Your visits to Showio, rebuilds and downloads count, and so do buyers' downloads from your share link, so while buyers download from your link, your PDFs stay. A removed PDF shows Expired; the catalog, its settings and its share link stay, and Rebuild now makes the PDF again in about a minute (for a catalog within your plan's limit). On Pro and Business, PDFs are kept as long as the catalog.

Languages and countries

Can the PDF be in another language?

Yes: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish or Lithuanian, and always your store's default language (the one your products are written in). A new catalog starts in your store's default language when Showio has it, otherwise English. The language sets the words Showio prints (Wholesale, RRP, Page…) and how dates and prices are written: 58,00 € in Polish. It doesn't change the currency (see Selling in several countries?).

Product titles, descriptions, options and collection titles come from your translations in Shopify. First add the language in Shopify, under Settings › Languages, and publish it when your translations are ready: Showio uses translations only for published languages. Anything without a translation prints as it is in your store; the language list shows how many of the catalog's products are translated, when Showio has read that language. Translation apps that save into Shopify work: Shopify's Translate & Adapt does, and Langify should too. Apps that keep translations on their own servers, such as Weglot, don't. The PDF prints Latin-script text only (Vietnamese included): letters from other scripts, such as Cyrillic, Greek or Japanese, may be left out, and so may a few rare Latin letters.

QR codes open each product's page in the catalog's language when that language is published on your online store (its /pl/ pages for Polish, for example). While it's unpublished, they open the product's usual page.

You can change any label. When you save, every catalog in that language is rebuilt with your changes. Option names you rename (Size, Color) change in that catalog only. If Showio has no labels for your store's default language, they start in English and you write them once. To ask for another language, contact us (showio@epicpilotlabs.com).

Selling in several countries?

Make one catalog for each language or country. On a catalog's page, or in its menu (⋯) on Home, select Duplicate in another language: the copy keeps every setting and prints Showio's labels and your product translations in the new language. On Pro and Business it gets its own share link; on Free your one link stays where it is: send the copy as a PDF, or turn on its link, which pauses the original's. Give the copy a title in the new language as you make it, then translate its subtitle, contact and ordering terms yourself: Showio copies them as you wrote them.

When a catalog's wholesale prices come from a B2B catalog, it prints in that B2B catalog's currency. Choose a B2B catalog priced in złoty (PLN) for a Polish copy, and it prints in PLN. It then shows wholesale prices only: a catalog has one currency, and your RRPs are in your store's currency. Prices you set for a market in Shopify, outside B2B, aren't used yet.

Labels are saved per language, so a change in one Polish catalog shows in all of them. Each copy counts as one of your plan's catalogs.

Plans and billing

How does billing work?

Shopify bills paid plans with your Shopify bill. We never ask for your card.

Choose a plan on the Plan page. Shopify shows the price and asks you to approve it. Paying yearly costs less than paying monthly.

How do I change or cancel my plan?

On the Plan page, select Change plan. Shopify opens its plan page, where you can choose another plan. Shopify shows when the change starts before you approve it. To stop paying, choose Free there, or uninstall the app.

Need more, or several stores?

Business includes 100 catalogs. For several stores, or anything else, contact us (showio@epicpilotlabs.com).

Get help

In Showio, select Get support in the menu at the top right of the page. Shopify sends your message to us. Or email showio@epicpilotlabs.com.

Missing something, or found a bug? Tell us. We aim to reply within two business days.

Review Showio on the Shopify App Store

Got a catalog made with Showio?

The store that sent it made it with Showio. For anything about its products, prices or orders, please contact that store: its details are on the catalog's cover, or on the page you downloaded it from. We don't sell the products and can't take orders.