Products with buyer-selectable options

You can create products with dropdown menus for buyer-selectable options like size, color etc., and you can also provide text-input fields for buyers to enter details required for the product (e.g., t-shirt slogan, software machine code, etc.). We have two ways of going about this, which can even be combined and used together for even greater flexibility.

Variations which tell more about the product

This is the simplest method of setting up Options for the buyer to specify, but it cannot be used to alter the product's price, shipping weight, or inventory stock (if you need that, please see Variants below). Here's how to set up Variations:

1. Enable Variations which tell more about the product on the first screen of the product's settings;
2. Click Next until you reach the Define Variations... Screen;
3. Provide an Option Name for up to 3 categories (e.g., Color, Size, Style, etc., each up to 60 characters long);
4. Below that, do one of the following for each Option category that you named:
   • Provide a list of Values (e.g., colors, sizes, etc.) that the buyer can select from a dropdown menu;
     ...OR...
   • Leave the list blank if you want the buyer to type a Value into a text-entry field.
   If you need a combination of menu-based and text-field options, define the menu-based option(s) first and the text-field option(s) last. Option 1 Values can be up to 200 characters long; Option 2 & 3 Values can each be up to 98 characters.
5. Click Next until you can click Submit to save changes;
6. Copy the Add to Cart button code provided;
7. Paste the button code into your page's HTML, wherever you want it to appear among your own text, images and layout.

The button code we provide will automatically include the proper menus/text-entry fields according to what you set up in the Define Variations screen. If you edit your product to change any Values on that screen, you would want to recopy-paste fresh button codes into your page that would include those changes. However, you could also just change the Variations menu/field code in your page's HTML source manually; the Define Variations screen is only used to auto-generate the proper menus/fields in the button code, but the code in your page doesn't actually need to match what's in the Define Variations screen (note this flexibility does NOT apply to Variants, as described below).

Variants having individual price/weight/stock/SKU

This is a bit more complex to set up than Variations described above, but it allows you to define a different unit price, shipping weight, inventory stock and SKU (stock-keeping unit, aka sub-product ID) for every possible combination of Option Values. Here's how you set this up:

1. Enable Variants having individual price/weight/stock/sku on the first screen of the product's settings;
2. Click Next until you reach the Define Variants... Screen;
3. Provide an Option Name for up to 3 categories (e.g., Color, Size, Style, etc., each up to 60 characters long);
4. Below that, provide lines defining every possible combination of buyer-selectable Values for those Options, with each line giving settings in the order shown there:
   SKU,Price,Ounces,Stock,Option1Value,Option2Value,Option3Value

   Option Values can each be up to 60 characters long. If you're not using a given setting, you can just leave its position empty on every line, but keep the comma that separates each position from the next. For instance, if you have a product that comes in 2 sizes, 2 colors and 2 styles, each with a different price and inventory stock, but you're not using weight-based shipping calculation, your Variants lines might look like this example:

   Somename SRP,10.00,,23,Small,Red,Plain
Somename SRF,11.00,,12,Small,Red,Fancy
Somename SBP,10.00,,21,Small,Blue,Plain
Somename SBF,11.00,,11,Small,Blue,Fancy
Somename LRP,15.00,,9,Large,Red,Plain
Somename LRF,17.00,,5,Large,Red,Fancy
Somename LBP,15.00,,7,Large,Blue,Plain
Somename LBF,17.00,,6,Large,Blue,Fancy

5. Click Next until you can click Submit to save changes;
6. Copy the Add to Cart button code provided;
7. Paste the button code into your page's HTML, wherever you want it to appear among your own text, images and layout.

All of the Values you provided in the Option1Value positon for every line will appear in the first dropdown menu provided in your button code, all Option2Values given will appear in the second menu we provide, and Option3Values in the third menu. If you change these Values in your Variants configuration lines, you must recopy-paste fresh button code into your page for that product, as the Values listed in your page menus must match up to the Values in your Variants configuration.

NOTE: If your product has some Options that affect the product's price/weight/stock and other Options that don't, you would probably want to set up those that don't by using Variations, and only use Variants for those that do, which will keep your product settings simpler and easier to maintain.

Combining Variations with Variants

By setting up both Variations and Variants, this gives you a potential of up to 6 different Option categories: up to 3 Options for Variations, plus up to 3 Options for Variants. This would also give you the ability to combine the advantages of Variants (which can only show menus), together with a text-entry option using Variations (e.g., to sell a T-shirt with varying prices according to size/style/etc. but also let buyers enter a custom slogan to print on their shirt).

If your product has some Options that affect the product's price/weight/stock and other Options that don't, then you would want to set up those that don't by using Variations, and only use Variants for those that do, which will keep your product settings simpler and easier to maintain (vs. using Variants for all Options whether or not they affect the price/etc.).

Pages in E-junkie Help:

• Help for Sellers
• Help for Affiliates
• Help for Marketplace
• Help for Community Section
• Glossary of Terms

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