Product Type Configuration in Magento ®: Increasing ROI

The store owners running their stores on Magento ® platforms often confuse the product variations and their purpose. Let us review what products in Magento ® are and what types they have.

General Product Type information

Here are following product types in Magento ®:

1. Simple products;

2. Configurable products;

3. Bundle products;

4. Grouped products;

5. Digital products.

Now let us review in details why there are so many product types.

Simple products are a standard basic product type.

Grouped products are groups of simple products which are combined by some specific principle.

Configurable products are a more complicated type. They allow users to choose necessary options for a product. They can be searched using specific filters. The configuration may be done for almost any kind of product: apparel, technical products, foods, etc.

Grouped products are often confused with bundle products. A bundled product is a product which consists of other products. For example, a computer consists of a system board, coolers, a hard disc drive, etc., this system cannot belong to apparel, toys or food, but a computer, loudspeakers and a monitor are considered grouped products because these products are different and united by a common principle.

There are many modules for Magento ® that work with these kinds of products in the eCommerce sphere.

Now let us get acquainted with a more detailed instruction of configuring such product types as Cross-sell, Upsell, and Related.

Upsells Products

Upsell Products are so-called ‘substitutes’. Ideally, this product type is supposed to replace the product chosen by a customer as it is more expensive and gives more profit to a seller. Upsell Products are better to increase the income but not for sales, as they create a strong product competition inside the web store. This product type is beneficial for well-developed and highly profitable stores.

Step-by-step instruction:

1. Go to Magento ® admin panel;
2. Move to Catalog -> Manage Products;
3. Find the product which you wish to combine with Upsells;
4. In the tab ‘Upsells’ check the necessary products that will be tied to the product you have chosen;
5. You can use a filter to choose several products;
6. Verify that all details are correct and then configure the output positions. This will determine the products sorting order;
7. Save the changes and make sure that they are present on the main page.

Cross-sell Products

Cross-Sell Products are such products that are visible to a customer only after they add a product to their cart. They are similar to impulse purchases in usual shops – chewing gum, magazines, candies, chocolate, keyrings, etc., that a customer sees at the cash-desk and suddenly decides to buy.

Cross-Sell Products increase both profit and sales, they can be used in new web stores as well as in the well-known and highly-attended ones.

1. Go to Magento ® admin panel;
2. Move to Catalog -> Manage Products;
3. Find the product you wish to use for Cross-sell;
4. Click ‘Edit’ for that product;
5. Move to the tab ‘Cross-sell’ in the product management section;
6. Use the filter or manual input to select the product groups that will be outputted on the shopping cart page;
7. Check the correctness of all data and save the settings;
8. Refresh the main page;
9. Try to add the product you have just configured into the cart to check that all Cross-sells will be shown there

Related Products

Related Products are the products that complete a customer’s purchase. They may be additional components, parts, mechanisms, and many others. For instance, an LCD monitor can be completed with some means of care, brushes, 3D glasses, etc. This is a very effective type of product relation for newly-created web stores as the associated sales are increased with the help of the products that are necessary and available for customers. This is a highly efficient clean marketing strategy.

Step-by-step instruction:

1. Go to Magento ® admin;
2. Go to Catalog -> Manage Products;
3. Find the product to which you wish to add related products;
4. Edit it;
5. Use the filter to choose the related products;
6. Complete configuration, save the settings and then reload the main page to check that all related products are there.

You can also search for the third party extensions for Magento ® which will show you’re related, cross-sell and Upsell products in the shopping cart or on the checkout page.

The product relations configuration is very important for increasing sales and profit. For a large web store, it is recommended to use all product types listed above. For a small store, it would be enough to use only one type, Related Products are the most efficient in this case.

If you have any additional questions please leave a comment to this article, and GoMage experts will assist you.