Product Variants
The store allows for the creation of product variations such as color or sizes.
The first step in creating product variations is to define attributes and values, attributes are groups of values that the shopper can select e.g. Color and the values are the options within the attribute e.g. Red, Green etc.
To define an attribute and a set of values, click the Attributes icon on the Dashboard, then click Add Attribute/Value and enter a name for the attribute e.g. Color and select the type e.g. Radio Buttons.
Making sure that the Color attribute is selected click the Add Attribute/Value icon again, this time you can enter a value, add the values Red, Green and Blue. These will be the values that the shopper can select.
The order values and attributes are displayed in can be set by using the up down arrows, simply select the attribute or value to move then click the up or down arrow as appropriate.
Now that the attributes and possible values are defined the next step is to add the attribute to a product, return to the Dashboard and select Products, click edit next to the product to add the attribute to. Under Configurable Attributes select the attribute(s) to add to the product, tick Color.
Click the Variants button, a tree view will be presented to you showing all the combinations of the values from each of the attributes that you selected in the previous step. By working through the tree you can set the SKU and price for each combination.
To enable a combination of values click the value and enter a unique Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) for the combination. If the price fields are left blank then the store will use the pricing set within the product while if a price is set for the variant then when the shopper selects that combination the entered price will be used.
The Default product variant box should be checked for the default variant to ensure proper operation of the store.
Shoppers will not be shown attributes and values that are not included within a product variation, e.g. in the case of the color attribute there are three colors defined however if the product is only available in Red and Green then only those variations will be give SKUs and therefore only two options shown to the shopper.
From the Image tab a variant specific image can be selected, all the product images that have been uploaded to the product gallery are available in a drop down list. When the shopper selects a variant with a variant specific image then that image will replace the default product image.
Note: Changing the attributes assigned to a product will cause all variations to be removed and will require that they be entered again.