Products’ variants configuration in Shopware 6

Products’ variants configuration in Shopware 6

The product is the primary focus in a shop. As a result, one of the most significant objectives in building an online shop is to identify the product as accurately as possible. Every product should be presented in a detailed manner so that the customer obtains all the information necessary, before submitting a purchase from online shops.

Products’ Properties

Each product of any sector has its unique characteristics. Every component of the product derives from the properties that that product has. The components of the product can be weight, density, length, dimensions, material, colour, among others. Each of these product components might have a variety of values, which may or may not be entirely determined by the unit of measurement. E.g. length (1m, 2mm), weight (4kg, 2gr), density (3m3), dimensions (2x2m), material (wood, glass, silk, or plastic), colour (black, white, red, etc.).

What are Product Variants?

The product that has two or more values for each of its properties, or the product which can takes other forms from the combinations of different values of the different properties it possesses, can be determined as products’ variants. When a product’s property has more than one value, it should be assumed that the product is available in two or more variants.

Usually, when we go shopping, we are used to seeing the product with its variants on a shelf, or even next to a certain product we have at our disposal, a small catalog as a kind of book which we can browse to get more information about the variants the product’s availability.

To enable such a shopping procedure even in an online shop, Shopware 6 is a pretty sophisticated platform, providing a proper logic for creating, configuring, and utilizing the product with all its variants.

Variants configuration

We may begin the process of defining properties once we have all of the crucial information of the products, provided by the online shop we are developing.

Naming the property, determining the kind of property (property values displaying), and then specifying all possible values for a property are the few fundamentals that ought to be established. For example, if we are dealing with the color of the product, we create the property named: Color, property type: color, property values: white, black (or any other color that the product has available).

In Shopware 6, the creation of such products can be done in the administration panel in the Catalog section. The catalog contains the special section for properties, where there are listed in exact order all the properties that our shop has available, thus we can create, delete, edit our new properties.

Creating a new property requires entering information that will be used to identify that property, in any product or filter. Mandatory data are property name, description, selection of where to use properties, using in product’s filters or product page, value display type (text, color, dropdown, image), sorting, and positioning. Once we have created the property, we can proceed with the procedure of setting the possible values that the property has for our case.

For example, if the property is Size (product type value: text), the possible values are S, M, L, XL, XXL, etc. If the property is Color (product type value: color), the possible values are the names of the available colors. The dropdown can be used to display properties as a dropdown list and an image can be used when the property is best described through a specific image.

When we have registered all the necessary properties, we can start to configure their variants for the products. In the same Catalogue section, we select the Products, where we can see the list with all products that are registered in our shop.

We can create variants on an existing product (by editing it) or actually creating a product from scratch. Shopware 6 provides a convenient interface to navigate and interact with any characteristic element or information of the product that is expected to be displayed to the customer. Each product in the tab of variants has a reserved part for variants generation. It is worth noting that variants can be edited, supplemented, and even deleted after they are no longer available.

Variants generation is done by selecting the property with which the product differs from variant to variant, as well as the possible values that that property has for the product to which we are creating these variants.

This is accomplished with a convenient interface by selecting the properties and potential values they have for the given product. In case the product has two or more properties with x certain values, the variants will be generated with all possible combinations with the logic of multiplying the values of a matrix in n X n. Then after being generated n X n possible product variants, we can select which product variants are available and remove those that are not needed.

Each product variant is good to be identified from the other, for example through a unique number that we are usually used to hearing the product serial number, and it would also be better if we would specify an image for the product variant, so that whenever specific variants are filtered or selected can be visualized to consumers in the best possible way.

Variants generation is done by selecting the property where the product differs from variant to variant, as well as the possible values that that property has for the product to which we are creating these variants.

This is accomplished with a convenient interface by selecting the properties and potential values they have for the given product. In case the product has two or more properties with x certain values, the variants will be generated with all possible combinations with the logic of multiplying the values of a matrix in n X n. Then after being generated n X n possible product variants, we can select which product variants are available and remove those that are not required.

Each product variant is good to be identified from the other, for example through a unique number that we are usually used to hearing the product serial number, and it would also be better if we would specify an image for the product variant, so that whenever specific variants are filtered or selected can be visualized to consumers in the best possible way.

If you want to know more about e-commerce development platforms or apps, read our blog posts for Shopify and Shopware. Our dedicated outsourcing team can be your collaborator in ecommerce.