Difference between Variants, Cross Sell's and Attributes

Hi There,

I am new to both NopCommerce and the NopAdmin systems.

I have a question involving variants, cross sells and attributes and the difference between them and the best way to use them.

For example, in my old system I used (not the above ones) I used Cross Sells for colour options on a product and something called UpSells for when I wanted to push products that were complimentary - this is from a fashion environment.

Now I am in a difference sector but still have products that are the same but come in different colours, have products that are the same but come in difference sizes.

How it is best to have these connected given there are so many options in NopCommerce - i.e the variants, the cross sells and the attritubes.

What do they all mean and how should they be used?

Many Thanks

MK

[email protected] wrote:
Hi Maxine:

cross sells: accessories or complementary products which are suggested at cart page

variants: alike variations of the same product that may vary in material, colour, some characteristics, price, etc. and can be bought and displayed independently example

attributes: options of characteristics of a product (color, size, etc.), which define a single product. You have to specify or define them before buying the product. Example1   Example2. Sometimes color, material, etc.  can be handled as variants (as separate product) or attributes depending on store owner strategy

Hello Eduardo,

thank you for coming back to me. I have another question other than the examples within the NopCommerce example site you have given do you have any of live sites that use them these ways?

The reason I ask is i have been going through the example of the live stores and none of them so far seem to use variants in the way the examples have shown.

Many thanks

maxine

[email protected] wrote:
Hi Maxine:
Here are some in stores we have developed:
- Here variants are for different shoe size ranges with different prices. Each variant has product variant attributes to handle sizes within its range.
- Here variants are for different specifications of the same product.
- Here variants are for different sizes of the same painting (and same color)
- Here variants represent different payment options (monthly, quarterly, etc.) of regional radio services which have tier prices according to the number of radio units.

Hi Eduardo,

Thank you for sending these examples over. Just trying to get my head around it but I think I'm getting there.

On this shop link - http://www.izziwotnot.com/Category/60-izziwotnot-sleepsuits.aspx

you can see they have listed as two separate things the same sleep suit but for different ages, now do you know how this would have been done?

Because from my understanding on the variants you would have

the sleep suit as the main product
then under neath it's variants which would be 0-6 months and then 6-18 months.

I would like to know how I would do my products in the same way this shop has done them.

many thanks

Maxine

Not sure if this is going to be helpful or even relevant but while having a conversation with a client about how to structure Products/ Product Variants we came up with a general rule of thumb.

A product is a collection of productVariants that can have reviews logically pooled on the product level.

or If you want separate reviews written on each product variant you should split them into separate products.

e.g. you would not create a BMW 5 series product (with variants) if you would like reviews on each model in the 5 series.

I've had to deal with all sorts of ideas from clients on what is and is not a product variant. Going with the example above some would classify a spare wheel as a variant of a car and then complain when nop displays 'BMW 5 series from £200...' at the category leaf level.

I'm always minded to try to keep the productVariant as the SKU holder and leverage the product and category templates system to display these in a suitable manner.  

HTH

Hi ya,

thanks for this, but how do you split them into separate products when it wont let you add a price for a product unless you add a variamt?

The way I see it and have used on other systems is that you should be able to create the product - with its price, description etc. then if you have other colours available for this product for example you would create them as products in their own right but link them by using "Cross Sells". And for products that relate but aren't the same I would use Up-Sells.

Thanks

Maxine

Hi Maxine,

A product is a container for product variants.

It must contain at least one product variant (tho it may contain more).

Lets say you are selling 3 colour variants of your product.

You can structure that in a number of ways;-

1) 3 products - 3 product variants

2) 1 product - 3 product variants

3) 1 product - 1 product variant - 3 product variant attributes (with separate SKU tracking on attributes)

Option 3 is the obvious choice if you don't want to touch the code. However you can code up a product template to achieve the same effect as option 3.

However lets say you selling 3 material variants e.g. plastic, wood, metal and you feel that separate reviews of these variants are required. Then you would use option 1.

With the use of a category template you can make option 1 look exactly the same as option 2 or 3.

Besides what Dave explained, I can add that in Nop product/variants are handled in a slightly different way as in other carts. In v3.0 this is going to be revised. For practical purposes in Nop stores 99% of the products have just one variant, and when you create a product (example in demo store)automatically a default product variant is created whose data name (default is blank -no name) prices, weight, inventory, etc you can fill-in in the "Default product variant" tab.