Configure Product Sets, Bundles, and Options

Learning Objectives

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

• List strategies for using product sets and bundles.
• Explain the difference between a bundle and a product set.
• Describe how the searchable and online attributes work with product sets.
• Explain how bundles work with Salesforce B2C Commerce.
• Explain how options work with B2C Commerce.

Sets, Bundles, and Options

Combining several products into a package with a reduced price is a great way for shoppers to see those products in a different light, and hopefully spend more. Brandon Wilson, Cloud Kicks merchandiser, is all in. With B2C Commerce, he can configure product sets, bundles, and options to offer those different views.

With a product set, shoppers can also order the individual products separately. With bundles they can't. A bundle is a single orderable product. You can’t order options separately, either. They come with products to provide extras like a warranty, in-home set-up, or skate sharpening. 

Brandon wants to create appealing sets and bundles that make sense. He wants repeat shoppers to look for them as a fun way to shop. Here are his primary strategies.

• Combine products that are often purchased together. Make the combined price the draw.
• Pair products smartly. Make it shopper-focused. Provide content that gives shoppers a good reason why products are sold together.
• Use sets when you also want to sell items separately. Shoppers need to compare the price of the set versus separate products.
• Keep sets and bundles simple. Use bundles for multiple products that are less useful sold separately.

Brandon has some great ideas of how to use these configurations.

Create a Product Set

Product sets give Brandon a lot of flexibility. They:

• Have their own display attributes, such as name and images.
• Can be assigned to one or more categories.
• Have recommendations.
• Contain zero, one, or many products, and other product sets.

A specific catalog owns a product set. You can assign a product set to multiple categories, with a primary and classification category. You can position a product set within a category, along with other product sets and standard products. 

Searchable and Online

In product sets, the searchable and online settings work together. A product set appears in search results when it’s set to searchable and online. It’s considered online if the product set is online and at least one of its products is also online. The online/offline setting takes precedence over the searchable setting.

Search results return a product set regardless of the included products’ searchable settings. It’s the product set searchable setting that counts. If a product set’s searchable setting is off, the product set isn’t searchable.

Before you create a product set, create the base product plain-blue shorts, which has small, medium, and large variation products. After that, here’s how to create a product set.

1. Open Business Manager.
2. Select site > Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Product Sets.
3. Click New.
   On the General tab, specify the following:
   • Create an ID: outfit-01
   • Select the catalog: cloud-kicks-usa-prod
   • Select Online: Yes
   • Select Searchable: Yes
   • Enter the name: Running Outfit
     
4. Click Apply.
5. Click the Categories tab.
   • Click Edit Categories.
   • Select a catalog: cloud-kicks-usa
   • Expand the categories and select the Sportswear and Sales categories.
   • Click Apply.
   • Set the primary category: Sportswear
6. Click the Products tab. You want to add base products to a product set so that shoppers can select the color or size of each of them.
   • Click Add.
   • Find healthfit, click OK, and set as Online and Searchable.
   • Click Add.
   • Find: plain-blue-shorts, click OK, and set as Online and Searchable.
     

See Einstein Product Recommendations for Commerce Cloud to learn how to configure product recommendations.

Create a Product Bundle

Brandon uses product bundles as a way to group multiple products into one orderable product for shopper convenience. For example, he wants to bundle a tennis net and lines package with two basic tennis rackets for the beginner player, and call it “Tennis for Beginners.”

Before he starts, he wants to get a better understanding of how bundles work in Salesforce B2B commerce.

• Bundles are a separate product with its own SKU and price.
• Bundles are unaffected by the price of the individual products.
• Bundles contain specified products in specified numbers.
• Shoppers cannot purchase the individual products included in a bundle.
• You can create a bundle within a bundle.

He starts by creating the individual products, pair-of-tennis-rackets-101 and tennis-net-poles-lines, and makes them online and searchable.

Then he creates a product bundle using those products.

1. Select Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Products.
2. Click New.
   • Enter the ID: pair-of-tennis-rackets-101
   • Select the catalog: cloud-kicks-usa-prod
   • Select Online and Searchable: Yes
   • Enter the name: Pair of beginner tennis rackets
   • Click Apply.
3. Click New.
   • Enter the ID: tennis-net-pole-lines
   • Select the catalog: cloud-kicks-usa-prod
   • Select Online and Searchable: Yes
   • Enter the name: Basic tennis net, poles, and lines
   • Click Apply.
4. Click New.
   • Enter the ID: tennis-kit-101
   • Select the catalog: cloud-kicks-usa-prod
   • Select Online and Searchable: Yes
   • Enter the name: Basic tennis kit
   • Click Apply.
5. With tennis-kit-101 still open, click the Bundles tab.
   • Click New.
   • Search for the first product, select it and click OK.
     

Beginner tennis rackets combined with basic net, poles, and lines are now bundled in a tennis kit.

Create Product Options

Product options have their own price and display name, but do not have their own thumbnail images. A shopper can’t search for them, but they are visible on the product detail page. In B2C Commerce, you can:

• Create product system object attributes to define options.
• Create shared (global) product options.
• Assign global options to products.
• Create local options for products.

Brandon wants to add ice skates to his product offering, including these

• Figure skates
• Ice hockey skates
• Racing skates
• Double runner (for small children)

Ice skates come unsharpened (unless they’re custom-built). Many in-store retailers offer the first sharpening for free. You can’t skate on dull blades, and the first sharpening is the most important of all. The angle of sharpening depends on the skater’s weight. Brandon wants to provide a sharpening option for a nominal fee. His company will do the sharpening before shipping the skates.

He creates a double-runner base product, and adds three variation products with attribute values 9, 11, and 13, as shown here.

Brandon wants to creates a sharpen option and uses it for multiple skates. He’ll configure it as shared among multiple products. He also wants to create a childWeight option and test it for one variation product (size 9). While the sharpener can do a generic sharpening, they would be more accurate if they knew the child’s weight.

Create a Product System Object Attribute

There must be a product system object attribute for each option, local or shared. Here’s how Brandon creates the sharpen attribute definition.

1. Select Administration > Site Development > System Object Types.
2. Click the Product object.
3. Click the Attribute Definitions tab.
4. Click New.
5. Enter the ID: sharpen
6. Enter the name: Sharpen
7. Enter the description: Pre-ship sharpening service
8. Set the value type: String
   
   
9. Click Apply.

Now use these instructions to create a childWeight attribute definition.

Create a Shared Product Option

Here’s how Brandon creates a shared product option that multiple products can use.

1. Select Merchant Tools > Products and Catalogs > Product Options.
2. Select the catalog: cloud-kicks-usa
3. Click New.
   • Click the ellipses (...) to select a Product system object attribute definition: sharpen
   • Select the Currency: US Dollar
   • Enter the custom name: Pre-ship sharpening service
   • Select the sorting: By Option Price
   • Click Apply to save the new option.
4. Configure the option values.
   • Enter No for the ID, n for the SKU extension, and set it as the Default.
   • Enter Yes for the ID, y for the SKU extension, and enter 10 as the option price.
   • Click Apply.
     
   • Click Back to List.

Assign a Shared Option to a Product

Here’s how Brandon assigns the shared option to a base product.

1. Select Merchant Tools > Product and Catalogs > Products.
2. Find and select the base product: skates-double-runner
3. Click the Options tab.
4. Lock the product.
5. Click the ellipses (...) beside the ID field.
6. Search for and select a shared product option: sharpen
7. Click Add.
   

Create a Local Option

Local options apply to one product. Here’s how Brandon assigns the childWeight option to a specific (local) product.

1. Select Site > Product and Catalogs > Products.
2. Find and select a product: double-runner-9
3. Click the Options tab.
4. Click Lock and New.
5. Select the shared product option: childWeight
6. Click Apply.
   

Let’s Wrap It Up

In this unit, you learned about product bundles, sets, and options. Next, take the final quiz and earn an amazing badge.

Resources

• Trailhead: Salesforce B2C Commerce for Merchandisers
• Trailhead: Salesforce B2C Commerce Import & Export
• Trailhead: Einstein Product Recommendations for Commerce Cloud
• Salesforce Help: Products

Copyright

Rights of ALBERT EINSTEIN are used with permission of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Represented exclusively by Greenlight.