Knowledgebase
Home » Item #798
Categories, Products, Versions
Question
I'm confused about the relationship with categories, products and versions. Can you explain how it's set up? And where do Related Products come in to this?
Answer
The best way to understand the relationship is to take a look at the example products on the CactuShop demo, the lite version and the full version.
Lets start with products and versions.
A 'product' represents one 'thing' that you are selling. It includes the name, a description and images of the product. You can also add in a strapline, a URL for more information, a specification table etc. Each product has it's own 'page' on your store, showing all this information to the customer.
A version is what is actually puchased by a customer. Note that a version is the only thing that has a price and weight field. A product can have multiple versions - for example, in the demo store, the 'Fire Resistant Cammo Boxers' product has 2 versions - 'size - large' and 'size - extra large'. These have their own version code, weight, price etc.
Many products you sell may not be applicable to multiple versions. However, each product must have at least one version. For example, see the 'Exodus Cajun Ketchup' product. This has one version - a 500ml bottle - that can be purchased. On your store, many or all your products will be set up like this.
Products exist in 'categories'. Categories simply give your customers an easy way to browse your store. You can have as many categories as you want, and the category hierachy can go as deep as you like. Also, a product can exist in multiple categories. This is useful in many occasions. For example, you may want to set up a category called 'Today's Top Deals'. Products can be added to this category whilst still existing in their normal category.
Also you may want to sell your products from different entry points - for example, your could set up three main categories - 'Browse by brand', 'Browse by type' and 'Browse by price' - each with subcategories for a different brand, type or price range. Each products can exist in the correct brand, type and price range category.
Related products are seperate to this category-product-version hierachy. They simply offer a way to 'cross-link' products. If the customer is viewing a remote controlled car, for example, it may be useful to cross-link to batteries. Setting up this related product will create a link at the bottom of the product informing the user that you can also purchase batteries. Clicking this will route the user to the batteries product page.
Note that this related-products relationship is one way. So if a customer views the batteries product, they will not see a link to the car (unless this relationship is exlicitly created).