Adding option groups

Before you start defining any product options, a few words need to be said about product option groups.

You might already have guessed that individual product options like white, blue, S, M, L, XL, paperback or hardcover do not go into BuySellDirect.net unsorted. For a customer who decides to purchase a color t-shirt, it would be natural, firstly, to think, what properties of a t-shirt would be essential (for most people, these are likely to be size and color), and then to decide, how exactly these properties need to be expressed in the t-shirt being purchased (for example, XL and red). When defining options for products, you will want to adopt a similar approach, so your customers will find your options easy to understand and use. BuySellDirect.net's approach to creating product options stands in accord with this allowing you to proceed naturally from stating the product's property that needs to be defined (for example, size) to providing values by means of which the property can be defined (for example, S, M, L, XL). This means that any options that you create in your store are created not independently, but in groups (for example, a group of options defining size, a group of options defining color, etc). To add product options means to add a product option group and (in the case of price modifier and product variant option types) to define individual option values that will be available within this group. Note that, in the case of the custom text field type, you do not define any option values, as the value is to be defined by the customer.

To add a price modifier/product variant/custom text field product option group for a specific product:

If you have not yet defined any options for the product, you should be able to see a dialog box titled  'Add new option group':

If you have already added at least one option group, you should be able to see a dialog box 'Product option groups'. To access the 'Add new option group' dialog box from the 'Product option groups' list, click the Add new button.

Price modifier type:

Enter one option per line and press Enter after each option to create a new line.

For options that are not going to modify the product's price, simply enter option names. For options that will make the product's price cheaper or more expensive, describe how exactly the product's price is going to be changed if the option is selected. Use the symbols  = (equals), + (plus), - (minus) and % (percent).

For example, if you were selling color t-shirts:

'White' would mean 'Choosing the color white will not affect the price of the t-shirt'.

'Red=+3%' would mean 'A red t-shirt will be 3% more expensive than a white t-shirt'.

Product variant type:

Enter one option per line and press Enter after each option to create a new line.

As product variants' prices are defined on a separate page, you just need to define option names.

Custom text field type:

Now you can edit the details of the option group, add a translation for the option group, view the list of available option groups or add another option group.

To edit the option group details, scroll down to the bottom of the page, on which the Information box is displayed. Use the dialog box titled 'Update option group' to change any details that need to be changed and click the Update option group button to save the changes.

To add a translation for the option group, from the language selector located at the top right-hand corner of the 'Update option group' dialog box select a language in which you wish to add a translation, (if you can not find the language selector then the language is not added yet by BuySellDirect.net) replace the values displayed in the dialog box fields by values in the selected language and save the changes. For information on product option translations, see Multilingual product options further in this section.

To view the list of product option groups, click the link Back to option groups list at the top of the 'Update option group' dialog box.

To add another product option group, click the link Add new option group.

(If you created a Product variant option group) To set prices, weights and stock quantities for the individual product variants within the created option group, go to the 'Product variants' section (Click the link 'Product variants' in the 'Product Management' section menu). For information on managing product variants, refer to Managing Product Variants further in this section of this manual.

Managing product option groups and product option values

Previously created product option groups can be viewed in the 'Product option groups' dialog box, which is available in the 'Product Options' section:

The table columns provide the following information regarding each of the listed product option groups:

# - CLASSID number (a unique number generated automatically and assigned to a product option group for the purpose of identification).

OPTION CLASS - Name of the option group.

OPTION TYPE - Type of the option group (Price modifier, Product variant, Custom text field).

ORDERBY - Numeric value defining the position of the product option group relative to the other product option groups of the same product (affects the order of product option groups in the 'Product option groups' list and the order of option fields on the 'Product details' page of the product in the Customer zone.

AVAILABILITY - Check box defining the availability of the product option group to customers (Selecting the check box makes the corresponding product option group field visible in the Customer zone. Unselecting the check box hides the option group field from the Customer zone, but leaves it available for editing in your store back-end).

OPTIONS LIST - List of option values defined in the option group.

The controls of the 'Product option groups' dialog box allow you to perform certain operations on existing product option groups.

To change the order of the product option groups, edit the values in the ORDERBY column for all the groups whose position needs to be changed and click the Update button.

To change the availability status of a product option group, change the value of the AVAILABILITY check box opposite its name and click the Update button.

To delete a product option group, select the check box opposite its name and click the Delete selected button.

To modify an option group:

To change an existing option value in a group of the product variant type, adjust the fields in the following columns:

OPTION VALUE - Name of the option value.

ORDERBY - Number reflecting the position of the option value within the option group.

AVAILABILITY - Availability of the option value to customers.

For the price modifier type, in addition to the columns OPTION VALUE, ORDERBY and AVAILABILITY, which have the same meaning as in the Product variant type, also adjust the fields in these columns:

OPTION - Number defining the amount by which the product's price is modified. Can be positive (like "3.00") for mark-ups or negative (like "-3.00") for discounts.

SURCHARGE - Type of the surcharge (Absolute or Percent).

If you wish to remove one or more of the option values from the option group being edited, select the check boxes to the left of those option values that need to be removed and click the Delete selected button.

To add some more option values, first add the desired number of field rows in the 'Add option value' subsection using the Add row button, then complete these fields and save the changes using the Update option group button (Rows created on accident, which do not need to be added to the options list, can be removed by clicking the Remove row button in the respective rows).

After editing any values in the 'Options list' subsection, be sure to click the Update option group button to save the changes.

Multilingual product options

If your store supports more than one languages, you need to provide translations of your product option groups into all the languages supported by your store.

Translations for any option group can be added at any time after the creation of the option group is completed.

To add a translation for a product option group: