Configure Products

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Describe the Salesforce B2C Commerce product types.
• Explain how product attributes relate to products and appear on the storefront.
• Describe how base and variation products relate.
• Explain how products relate to categories.

Products

A product is what merchandisers sell. Products can be physical objects or services, such as assembly, or options, such as service contracts. 

Here are the B2C Commerce product types.

• Standard: A one-off product or service
• Main: All the variations of a product
• Variation group: A group of products or services that share at least one attribute, such as color, and are assigned to a base product
• Variation: A specific instance of a base product
• Set: Multiple products or services that display together and can be ordered together or separately
• Bundle: Multiple products or services that sell only as a group
• Option: An add-on item, such as upgrades that come with a product or service, yet have a separate price and display name. They are not orderable or searchable.

Create a Base Product

While Cloud Kicks imports product data, Brandon Willson, its merchandiser, sometimes needs to configure a new product outside of the standard process. He creates them in the product catalog.

Brandon needs to configure a new product, Healthfit Sweatshirt. Here’s how to create a base product in the product catalog, which reflects all products. (Remember, a base product represents all the variations of a product such as sizes and colors.)

1. Open Business Manager.
2. Select site > Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Products.
3. On the product search page, click New.
   • Enter the ID: healthfit-sweatshirt
   • Select the catalog: cloud-kicks-usa-prod
   • Set Online and Searchable to Yes.
   • Enter the name: Healthfit Sweatshirt
   • Click Apply.
   • Click the Categories tab.
   • Select the category: Sportswear/Womens
   • Click Apply.

Product Grid View

Use the grid view to see how modifications to the display order of your product appear in your storefront. You can drag products to modify their order on the page. Each product tile links to the base product variant level product information associated with that product.

Here’s how to view products in the grid view.

1. Select Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Catalog.
2. Select the catalog category that you want to edit.
3. In the Product list, click the grid view icon .
4. Drag product tiles into the desired order. You can also enter a position number in the position field on the product tile.
   

Assign Products to Categories

A product must be assigned to a category for it to appear on the storefront. You can assign products to more than one category within and across catalogs. You can modify the product category storefront display order in Business Manager in site > Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Catalogs.

The breadcrumb at the top of the product detail page shows the category path that B2C Commerce took to get there, for example: Cloud Kicks > Sportswear > Kids.

B2C Commerce supports two types of product category assignments: classification and primary. You don’t have to select either.

• Classification category: Based on the product catalog and its attributes
• Primary category: Based on the storefront catalog and its attributes

B2C Commerce uses the primary category for breadcrumbs, but only if you select it. If you don’t select it, B2C Commerce uses the classification category. This setting is product-focused. It doesn’t matter in which category the shopper views the product.

Here’s how to assign a category to a base product.

1. Select Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Products.
2. Find and open the base product: healthfit-sweatshirt
3. Click the Categories tab and click Edit Categories.
4. Assign a category to the base product.
   1. Select the catalog: cloud-kicks-usa-prod
   2. Expand the Sportswear > Kids category.
   3. Select Kids.
      
      
   4. Click Apply.

Product Attributes

Product attributes are data such as description, size, and color, within the product system object. The product ID attribute identifies a distinct item for sale and relates to the stock keeping unit (SKU) in inventory management. You can find the product system object in Business Manager in Site > Administration > Site Development > System Objects Types > Product.

Products can share attributes or have different attributes. Take a look at the attributes of these Cloud Kicks products.

• Apparel attributes: Highlights, description, care, details, complete the look, how to style, available sizes
• Footwear attributes: Highlights, description, details, how to style, available sizes

You assign product attributes (created for a catalog) to a base product and give them values, such as red, green, and blue for the color attribute. These attributes are called variation attributes because they are how variation products are defined. B2C Commerce uses page-specific templates to display variation attributes in a common way on the product details, search results, and product compare pages.

Brandon wants to create a variation attribute and add it to an existing product. Here’s how he does it.

1. Create a variation attribute.
   • Select Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Variation Attributes > Catalog.
   • Create a variation attribute that uses the color attribute definition and at least one color value.
     
     
   • Create a size attribute with small, medium, and large values.
2. Use the variation attribute.
   • Select Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Products.
   • Select a base product: healthfit-sweatshirt
   • Click Lock to lock the product for changes. This also locks the associated variation products.
   • Click the Variations tab.
   • Select the shared attribute that you created and click Apply.

Attribute Groups

Brandon wants to create an attribute group to help manage product attributes. This is simply a grouping of attribute assignments that’s attached to a category. Attributes can belong to more than one attribute group. The attribute assignments display on the product details page and during some product comparisons. Here’s how he does it.

1. Select Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Catalogs.
2. Select the product catalog: cloud-kicks-usa-prod
3. Click Edit beside a category: Sportswear/Kids
4. Click the Product Attribute Definitions tab.
   • Enter an ID: personalization
   • Enter a name: Personalization
   • Click Add.
5. Click the Edit link in the Attributes column.
   • Click the ellipses (...).
   • Locate brand and styleNumber.
   • Click Add.
     
   • Click Back.
6. Click Apply.
7. Rebuild the product index for the changes to take effect.
   • Select Merchant Tools > Search > Search Indexes.
   • Select the product index.
   • Click Rebuild.
8. The product data about brand and style number now appears on the product details page for products categorized by Sportswear/Kids.

Variation Products

Brandon wants to add multiple variations to his new base product, Healthfit Sweatshirt. This sweatshirt comes in three colors: green, red, and blue. Here are its variations.

 Here’s how to create the variations.

1. Select Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Products.
2. Find and open the base product: healthfit-sweatshirt
3. Lock the product for editing.
4. Select the base product attributes.
   • Click the Variation Attributes tab.
   • In the Variation Attributes section, click the ellipses (...).
   • Select the attributes you want to include: color
   • Click Apply.
5. Create the first variation.
   • In the Variations Products section, enter the first product ID: healthfit-ss-90887
     If you don’t provide an ID, the variation product uses the ID of the base product and a suffix.
   • Click Add.
   • Scroll down to the same section and select the color: green
6. Enter the second variation: healthfit-ss-90888
   • Click Add.
   • Scroll down to the same section and select the color: red
7. Enter the third variation: healthfit-ss-90889
   • Click Add.
   • Scroll down to the same section and select the color: blue
   • Click Apply.
8. Select green as the default and click Apply. This variation shows up as the default on the storefront.
   

Brandon goes on to add the size attribute (small, medium, large) and assign this attribute to his variations.

Next Steps

In this unit, you learned about products and attributes and assigned products to categories. Next, learn how to configure variation groups and slicing.

Resources

• Trailhead: Salesforce B2C Commerce for Merchandisers
• Salesforce Help: Variation Slicing by Category
• Trailhead: Salesforce B2C Commerce Import & Export
• Salesforce Help: Products