With Markets Online you can enable your customers to choose product options at the time of placing an order. Let us try to imagine what kinds of options a product vendor may need to be able to use. For the most part it depends on the nature of product being sold and on the quantity of all the variants of this product available for sale.

Suppose, you sell colored T-shirts. For a person who wants to purchase a T-shirt from you, two features would be of relevance: color and size. You know that your T-shirts are available in three colors (red, blue, brown) and four sizes (S, M, L, XL). You need to enable your customers to choose the right combination of these features (for example, a red T-shirt of size XL). Markets Online options mechanism offers you two solutions, depending on the quantity of T-shirts available for sale:

1. The quantity is unlimited. In this case it does not matter much, which combination of size and
color a customer will choose - just let him choose any size and color. Modificator type options will
help you handle this situation: define 2 option classes ('Color' and 'Size') and the necessary number of available option variants within each of the classes (Red, Blue, Brown - within the class 'Color'; S, M, L, XL - within the class 'Size'). This type of options is called Modificator because it enables you to modify the price of your product by means of mark-ups and discounts depending on the option variants the customer selects (for example, you can enable your customers to buy red T-shirts for less - just define a flat or percent value by which the product price should be discounted if somebody chooses the option variant 'Red'). If some combination of option variants is unavailable (for example, blue T-shirts are not available in size XL), you can describe it in the form of exception, so your customers will not be able to choose this combination.

2. The quantity is limited. This makes you interested not so much in the number of T-shirts you
have in stock, as in the number of products within each of the available variants of the product 'Tshirt'. A variant is a set of products with the same combination of options (in our example, all red
T-shirts of size S make one variant, all red T-shirts of size XL make another variant, etc). As different product variants may have different weight and price, we believe, it is only natural that a
product vendor would like to have an ability to somehow track the quantity of products within each product variant separately - and thus, to have a separate SKU for each of the variants. These ideas refer us to another type of options called Variant. If you choose this type, you will be able to create option classes and option variants as well as in Modificator, but you will have more flexibility in setting the product variants' price, weight and quantity in stock.


Both Modificator and Variant option types enable your customers to choose from a pre-defined list of option variants. However, Markets Online provides a third type - Text field - that enables customers to provide custom information about what exactly they want to get. For example, if a product is being purchased as a gift, your customer might want a card to be sent along with it - so you can provide a text field into which the customer would be able to enter a message for this card.

Product options of any type can be added as follows:

1. Find the product for which you would like to add options. Open this product for modification in the 'Product Management' section.

2. Click the Product options link in the 'Product Management' section menu. The 'Product options'
and the 'Add/Update option' dialog boxes will appear.


Picture 1: 'Product options' and 'Add/Update option' dialog boxes (empty).

The 'Product options' box normally contains a list of all the options defined for the product being
edited. If no options have been defined so far, the list is empty. You can add new options using
the 'Add/Update option' dialog box.

Note. Clicking the Product options help link allows you to access quick help on product options.

3. Fill in the 'Add/Update option' dialog box fields:
• Enter the title of the option class into the 'Option class' field.
• Enter the description of the option that will be shown to your customer into the 'Option text' field.
• Use the 'Option type' drop-down box to select the option type (Modificator, Variant or Text field).
• If the product is going to have more than one option, you can define the order in which the options will be displayed to customers: enter the position number for the option into the 'OrderBy' field (the greater the position number is, the closer the product option will be to the end of the list).
• Select the 'Availability' check box to make the option available to customers.
• If you are creating a 'Modificator' or 'Variant' option, enter option values into the 'Option values
list' field.

For a 'Modificator' option the symbols "=", "+" or "-" and "%" can be used to describe how choosing this or that option affects the price of the product. For example, setting the options as is shown in the picture below, you can expect the product price to be discounted by 4% if a customer chooses the red color, and a $5 mark-up to be added to the price if he chooses blue.


Picture 2: 'Add/Update option' dialog box ('Modificator' option example).

For a 'Variant' option you only need to enter the names of your variants.


Picture 3: 'Add/Update option' dialog box ('Variant' option example).

There can be no variants if you selected Text field in the 'Option type' field.

4. Click on Add/Update options. The new option will be added to the list of options in the 'Product
options' dialog box. The created option class will be assigned a ClassID number (ClassID is
generated automatically and appears in the # column of the 'Product options' table). 'Exceptions'
and 'Validation script (Javascript)' boxes will appear below the 'Add/Update option' dialog box.


Picture 4: 'Product options' dialog box (New option has been added to the options list)

5. If needed, adjust the option settings in the 'Add/Update option' box. Click on Close. Repeat steps 2-5 to add more options.

6. (If you created Variant type options) Click on Product variants in the 'Product Management'
section menu and use the 'Product variants' form to set up the price, weight and quantity of the
defined product variants. Please refer to the 'Managing Product Variants' section of this manual
for more information on managing product variants.

You can change the order and availability of options: just change the values in the ORDERBY and AVAILABILITY columns in the 'Product options' dialog box and click on Update. To delete a product option, select the check box next to this option in the 'Product options' dialog box andclick on Delete selected.

To modify an option:

1. Click on the option name link in the 'Product options' dialog box.

2. Scroll down to the 'Add/Update option' dialog box. The contents of this dialog looks different for
'Modificator' and 'Variant' options.


Picture 5: 'Add/Update option' dialog box (Editing a 'Modificator' option).

Picture 6: 'Add/Update option' dialog box (Editing a 'Variant' option).

3. If the values of the 'Option class', 'Option text', 'Option type', 'OrderBy' and 'Availability' fields
need to be changed, edit them and click on Add/Update option. If you need to add an option value, fill in the OPTION VALUE, ORDERBY and AVAILABILITY fields (plus OPTION and SURCHARGE fields for a 'Modificator'), then click on Add/Update option. A surcharge value can be positive (for mark-ups) or negative (for discounts), absolute or percent.

If you need to delete an option value, select the check box next to the value you want to delete,
then click on Delete selected. After you have finished editing the option, click on Close.

If your store is multilingual, you will need to add options in other languages. To add options in another language, select the language from the drop-down box in the top right corner of the 'Add/Update option' dialog, fill in the necessary fields and click on Add/Update.

Sometimes, when you define multiple options for one product, some option combinations may be
unavailable. Setting up exceptions can help you deal with this problem. For example, you sell T-shirts available in 3 colours (red, blue and brown) and 4 sizes (S, M, L and XL). You define the following options for your product 'T-shirt':

Picture 7: 'Product options' dialog box (example).

Blue T-shirts are not available in size XL. You can set up an exception that will prevent your customers from putting blue XL T-shirts into the shopping cart.

To set up an exception:

1. Scroll down to the 'Exceptions' box.

Picture 8: 'Exceptions' dialog box.

2. Use the drop-down boxes to create the unavailable combination (in our example, it should be
Blue and XL).

3. Click on Add exception. The combination will be added to the list of unavailable option
combinations in the upper section of the 'Exceptions' dialog box.


Picture 9: 'Exceptions' dialog box (New exception has been added).

You can modify and delete exceptions.

To modify an exception:

1. Select other option values to change the necessary option combination.

2. Click on Modify.

To delete an exception:

1. Select the check box next to the options combination you want to delete.

2. Click on Delete selected.

If you set up any exceptions, a warning message will be displayed when a customer attempts to select an unavailable combination of options. If you want a Javascript warning to be displayed to your customers, you can use the 'Validation script (Javascript)' dialog box to create a JavaScript notification.

Picture 10: 'Validation' dialog box.

To create a validation script:

1. Enter the script code into the provided field.

2. Click on Update.

If you set up product options as in the picture below, and use the validation script from this example, your customers will get a Javascript warning when they select the options combination 'Blue + XL' and try to add the product to the shopping cart.

Picture 11: Product options validation (example).

In the example script above, 'po46' stands for "product option 46'", which corresponds to the option class"Color", 'po47' stands for "product option 47'" and corresponds to the option class "Size" (46 and 47 are their ClassID numbers, taken from the # column of the 'Product options' table). 1 and 3 are the position numbers of the option variants "Blue" and "XL" respectively (Option variants within one option class are numbered starting with zero. So, within the class "Color", the number of "Red" is 0, the number of "Blue" is 1, and the number of Brown is 2. Within the class "Size", S corresponds to 0, M - to 1, L - to 2, XL - to3). 'This product cannot be added to cart with the selected options' is the message that we want to be displayed as Javascript warning.


Picture 12: Javascript warning shown to the customer (example).

Note. Make sure you test your validation script before using it in a live store to avoid Javascript errors on the storefront.

Please note that if a customer attempts to add some product with defined product options to the shopping cart using the 'Buy Now' button, a product variant with the cheapest of the available combinations of options will be placed into the cart. If necessary, the customer then will be able to choose any other combination of options.

Related topics:

Advanced Product Management