Product types

Product Types allow your customer to select variations on products. Most products can just be added to the shopping cart with no further information needed. Some products however require you to collect specific information about the attributes of a product such as size. The easiest way to explain this is with an example.

If we are selling music CDs on our web site then we do not need any attributes. A CD is sold by title and generally does not come in different variations. The customer just click Add to Cart and you have enough information to fulfill their order. In this case you do not need to worry about Product Types. We have set up a "default" type for you that can be used throughout your catalog.

If however we are selling shirts, we need to allow the customer to select a color and size before adding the shirt to the shopping cart. In this case we can create a product type called "Shirts" (the name can be anything meaningful to us).

Now lets say that we also want to sell shoes. Shoes require that the customer select color, size, and width. For this case we can create a new Product Type called "Shoes" which will automatically display selections for color, size, and width on the product page for the customer to select.

The following table displays these types of products, their attribute types and attribute values for each attribute type:

Product type	Product attribute types	Product attribute values

default	(none)
Shoes	Size	4, 5, 6, 6.5, .... 12
	Color	Black, White, Brown
	Width	Slim, Narrow, Medium, Wide

Shirts	Size	Small, Medium, Large, Extra large
Shirts	Color	Red, Beige, Grey, White

Here are a few rules about working with Product Types:

•	Verify that you need Product Types. If customers can purchase your product just by adding them to the cart without selecting options like color or size then you can just use the "default" Product Type. In this case you can just skip this section. You don't need to configure Product Types.

•	All products must be associated with a product type.

•	Products with no attributes must be associated to the "default" product type.

•	You must Add attribute types before creating product types that require attributes.

•	After adding a product type, they must be associated to their corresponding attribute types.

In this section you will learn how to:

•	Add a product type

•	Associating a product type to its attribute types

•	Editing a product type

•	Deleting a product type

•	Deleting an attribute type association

Note:

•	Important: After adding a product type, it must be associated to the corresponding attribute types.

•	Product types should be added first, before adding new products to the storefront.