Products
Maintain products with variants, media and descriptions.
TradelinePro brings the ability to maintain product data with it. Although the ERP (merchandise management) or a PIM is typically connected via interfaces, this feature is covered extensively in this manual.
Understanding how products are structured in TradelinePro helps to align the requirements of the stakeholders in your organisation (product management, sales, marketing, etc.) with the technical requirements (e.g. for interfaces) and an ideal customer experience in the storefront.
The product management is bundled in the administration area under the menu item Catalogue → Products.
The first view shows a list of all products stored in the system. Via a filter or the search at the top of the page, specific products (e.g. by entering the article number) can be looked up and opened.
Clicking a row opens the product in the edit view. The upper part of the window shows the buttons for saving or cancelling the action (you return to the list; the record is not saved). Duplicating a product is also possible here via the arrow to the right of the "Save" button.
The tabs show different views with data fields.
For each product, certain mandatory fields must be filled in; the remaining fields are optional. The fields themselves are usually self-explanatory. If you have questions about specific fields, you can find further information in the Shopware documentation here: https://docs.shopware.com/de/shopware-6-de/kataloge/produkte?category=shopware-6-de/kataloge
XXX Note: You can add further fields via so-called custom fields. Please plan this implementation with your implementation partner so that a consistent data model is achieved. Please note that field values beyond the standard values do not appear automatically in the storefront and must be placed by the implementation team at suitable points.XXX
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All data fields on the product object are automatically provided for read and write access in the REST API.
Product types
Product types are used in the system to differentiate products with different data models and the technical or process-related properties associated with them.
The following sections describe the product types available in TradelinePro and highlight their particularities.
Simple products
"Simple products" are the most basic kind of product in online shop systems. They represent articles that have no variants.
Properties of simple products:
- No selection options: there are no different sizes, colours, materials or other options to choose from. The customer buys the product exactly as it is presented.
- Fixed properties: attributes such as price, weight, stock and SKU are assigned directly to the product and are not variable.
- Simple display: the product page shows the product with a description, images and the price. There are no selection fields or dropdown menus for variants.
Variant products
Variant products
A variant product in an online shop is a product offered in different versions. These versions differ by certain attributes, such as:
- Size: S, M, L, XL
- Colour: red, blue, green
A T-shirt available in different sizes and colours is a variant product.
This results in the following advantages for the product presentation:
- Flexibility for customers: customers can choose the variant that best suits their needs.
- Clear presentation: customers see all available variants at a glance.
TradelinePro includes several tools that help you present variant products efficiently.
Variant products can be displayed in different ways in the storefront (product detail page), depending on which approach suits your assortment.
The display is controlled via a so-called layout. How exactly this works can be read here.
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The choice of layout or the presentation of variants and the associated selection feature in the buying process should be designed carefully and implemented consistently in the shop. Please note that the data models or product data set in the system must correspond to the functionality. Please reach out to the implementation team for support.
Selection in the buybox (click areas or dropdown)
The typical presentation, as used in very many (usually B2C) shops, relies on selection in the buybox.
Either small buttons (with text and/or graphics or product images) are used, or classic select boxes.
The following illustrations show how this can look.
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Variant products technically require every selectable product combination to be unique. That is, you cannot have two products with identical features, such as the colour red and size XL, as part of one variant. Particularly in B2B, however, it can happen that such models exist in the ERP. This situation can be resolved in cooperation with the implementation team.
Selection via tabular presentation
Especially for the B2B context, TradelinePro enables a tabular presentation of products. This serves above all so that your customers can see different variants of a product at a glance and compare the differentiating features (mostly technical properties) with each other. Filters can quickly narrow down even an extensive assortment so that the right buying decision can be made. This presentation is often used when the data of the individual products grouped in the list is limited to other article numbers and technical data, and no further differentiation (e.g. different product images) is present.
The tabular presentation strongly relies on user-guided selection and ordering of attributes in the table.
The attributes or values in the table follow the data available in the product. You can choose all attributes that the system maintains under "Variants" or "Properties" as part of the table.
Digital products
Event & ticket products
With event products, you can sell events or tickets to these events. How this works is described in this manual in this chapter.