Products

Welcome

In this module, you will explore the intricacies of product management, from manual creation and image/document assignments to accessory integration and specification detailing in Optimizely Configured Commerce.

After completing this module, you should be able to:

• Create a product manually

• Assign images or documents to a product

• Assign accessories to a product

• Add specifications to products

How do I benefit from Products?

Here's how Products feature benefits different roles:

• Merchandiser/Product manager: As a merchandiser or product manager, products are central to your work. Ensuring your products are up-to-date, accurate and contain the information customers need to make purchasing decisions is key. Also accounting for how your products appear in search results is important.
• Researcher/Buyer: Products are the purpose for visiting an e-commerce website for researchers and buyers. Being able to easily find products and obtain all related information in one place saves time and money. Also trusting that products are accurate and up-to-date builds a reliable online business relationship.

Create a Product

Creating products manually would not be considered the standard procedure, as this is normally handled via an integration job. However, Optimizely Configured Commerce allows you to create products manually, in cases where manual product creation is necessary, such as adding a one-off product outside of an automated import.

Prior to creating a product, it is important to understand the underlying relationship between categories, websites and products. Products are assigned to categories, categories are assigned to websites, and websites then use these categories to display the products that are configured for the respective website. Because of this construct, all products are required to have at least one category assigned to them in order to be displayed on the website.

Visit the link below to see how to manually create a product in Optimizely Configured Commerce.

Storefront View

Products will appear in your site in a number of different ways, depending on how you have your site set up. The image below is an example of how a user might search for and view products in search results. All of these images will depend on how you have set up your products, categories, search, CMS, and any other customizations you have made with your implementation partner.

Add Images and Documents to Products

Displaying images to a Product provides buyers with a comprehensive view of what they are purchasing. To add images to Products, the image path for the Small, Medium, and Large images needs to be identified. This path is set at the Product level within the Admin Console.

Visit the link below to see how to add images to a product in Optimizely Configured Commerce.

Storefront View

These items will appear on the product page of your site.

Add Accessories to Products

Adding accessories to a Product encourages website users to purchase related items. For example, if the product is an air compressor, you could assign compatible hoses and fittings as accessories.

Visit the link below to see how to assign accessories to a product in Optimizely Configured Commerce.

Storefront View

To display accessories on the website, you will need to add the Related Products widget to the Product Detail page in the CMS. Select the Accessory Product Relationship to ensure the right products are displayed. See below for how this will display in your website, depending on where you place the Related Products widget.

Add Specifications to Products

Specifications are content sections that contain additional product information or data. These expandable and collapsible tabs appear on the website at the bottom of the product detail page where you can customize them to suit each product's needs.

ISC_ContentAdmins and ISC_ContentEditors can create product specifications. If a user with the Content Editor role is not also a Content Approver, another user must approve their specifications.

You can also import specifications and assign them to products, however, manually adding specifications allows for quick updates without waiting for an import process. For this example, we will manually add a single specification to a product.

Visit the link below to see how to add specifications to a product in Optimizely Configured Commerce.

Storefront View

Specifications will show on the Product Detail page. See the image below for how this will display in your website.

Each tab (Features, Warranty, Specifications) must be added as a separate specification to each product. The tab graphic will then display automatically.

Try it

It’s time to play in the Configured Commerce sandbox!

The following practice exercises take place in the Knowledge & Learning training site. Before jumping in, please log in to the Training site using the following credentials:

• Username: TrainingUser
• Password: Opticon1!#

After logging in, do the following:

1. Create a product.
2. Add relevant images and documents to the product.
3. Assign 4 product accessories
4. Add 3 specification tabs and populate them with content.
5. Delete the product you just created.

Wrap up

Congratulations! You have completed the Products module. You should now be able to:

• Create a product manually

• Assign images or documents to a product

• Assign accessories to a product

• Add specifications to products

Learn more

While we covered a lot, there's always more to learn about products and how to work with them!

Check out the link below for an up-to-date collection of helpful guides and technical documentation.