Nov 25, 2015

Associating the Simple Products

Associating the Simple Products to the Configurable Product
1. Select the Associated Products tab.
At the top of this page you will see secNons labeled Create Simple Associated Prod- uct and Quick simple product creaIon. If you had not created the Simple Products for this Configurable Product, you could use either of these to create a new Product. As you have already created all the needed Products, you can skip these secNons. When you need to create a new Simple Product for this Configurable Product, you will have three opNons:
Q      Duplicate a Product, as you did earlier.
 Q     Use Create Simple Associated Product
Q      Use Quick simple product creaIon.

2. Click on Reset Filter to show all products or to search for specific products, enter a search criterion and click on Search.
This causes the Products that use the same Atribute Set to be displayed in the list. The Products that cannot be associated will be shaded, while the ones that that can will not be shaded.

Looking at the previous screenshot, you can see that Breakfast Blend Whole Bean has a grind of wholebean. The first three Products in the list cannot be associated because they also have a grind of wholebean. Each Associated Product must have
a unique seNng for the configurable atributes. That is because when the customer selects a seNng for the configurable atribute, the customer should see only one Product. In our example, you can assign only one Associated Product for each of these seNngs:  wholebean, coarse, medium, and xtrafine.

3. To select a Product, click to place a check mark in the first column.

4. Click on Save And ConInue Edit. AGer saving, Magento takes you to the General
tab. Return to the Associated Products tab.

5. In the Super product a†ributes configuraIon secNon, you will see each Configurable Atribute listed.

6. In the A†ribute Name field, enter the text that you want the customer to see when they choose the seNng for this Atribute.
7. In the Price field for each seNng, enter a price modifier.
In our demo store, the result looks like this:

NoNce the base price, $10.95, in the lower leG corner. We entered this under the Prices tab. The label, How shall we grind it?, was entered under the Atribute Name. You can see the price modifiers for the Turkish and Whole Bean grinds, which we also entered earlier.

8. Finally, save the Product.


How to Creating the first Simple Product that will be associated to the Configurable Product

Creating the first Simple Product that will be associated to the Configurable Product
1.     Immediately aGer clicking the Create Product buton, the system displays a dialog box where you select the A†ribute Set and the Product Type.
2.     You must select an Atribute Set that has one or more configurable Atributes, such as the one that was set up in the previous secNon.
In our demo store, we selected coffee-by-pound because it contains the configurable Atribute, grind.
The Simple Products can differ in more than just the configurable atribute. For example, suppose you sell t-shirts. Maybe all the small shirts are available only in black, and all the medium-sized shirts are available in black and red. In that case, you would make both size and color as configurable atributes. When a customer selects the small size, (s)he would see only black in the color selecNon column. When (s)he selects the medium size, (s)he would see black and red in the color selecNon. Both Atributes must be configurable, even if you're using them both on only some of the Simple Products in this Configurable Product.
3.     For Product Type, select Simple Product. Remember, you are creaNng one of the Products that will be associated with the Configurable Product. You are creaNng the Configurable Product itself.
4.     AGer you click on the ConInue buton, the Product InformaNon page is displayed.
Fill out this page as you would for any Product.
Pay special atenNon to the seNng for the Configurable Atribute(s) that you set. In our demo store, we selected a value for grind.
 When we create the other Simple Products for this Configurable Product, we will choose a different grind for each of them.
5.     Make sure that every Product in your store needs a unique SKU.
6.     Set the Status of this Product to Enabled, or else it won't be available to your customers.
 7.     Unlike a normal Simple Product, set the Visibility to Nowhere. This prevents the Product from having its own lisNng in your store. If you forget to do this, the Product will show up as both a normal product with its own lisNng, and as a selecNon under
a Configurable Product. The following screenshot demonstrates that mistake. NoNce that all three Simple Products, which will be choices for the Configurable Product, appear by themselves.
When I set the Visibility to Nowhere, these Products will disappear from the page.
8.     Fill in the rest of the informaNon for this Product, just as you would for any other Simple Product. If you need complete instrucNons, refer to the instrucNons for creaNng a Simple Product enlisted in Chapter 5.
9.     Save the Product.

: Creating the first Simple Product

1.     Immediately aGer clicking the Create Product buton, the system displays a dialog box where you select the A†ribute Set and the Product Type.
2.     You must select an Atribute Set that has one or more configurable Atributes, such as the one that was set up in the previous secNon.
In our demo store, we selected coffee-by-pound because it contains the configurable Atribute, grind.
3.     For Product Type, select Simple Product. Remember, you are creaNng one of the Products that will be associated with the Configurable Product. You are creaNng the Configurable Product itself.
4.     AGer you click on the ConInue buton, the Product InformaNon page is displayed.
Fill out this page as you would for any Product.
Pay special atenNon to the seNng for the Configurable Atribute(s) that you set. In our demo store, we selected a value for grind.

Completing the Meta Information tab

 
Use Meta Keywords and Meta DescripIon as opportuniNes to opNmize the page for search engines.

1.     For Meta Title, enter the Ntle for this Product page. The Ntle should include search terms that customers will use when searching for this kind of a product.
2.     For Meta Keywords, enter keywords that describe this Product. The keywords should be the search terms that customers are likely to use when searching for this kind of product.
3.     For Meta DescripIon, enter a single sentence or phrase that describes the Product.
If a potenNal customer finds this Product through a search engine, such as Google
or ask.com, what descripNon would you like the customer to see? That is what you
should enter here.


What just happened?

The meta informaNon that you entered for this product will not make any visible dierence on the product's page. However, the meta informaNon will be used by search engines to categorize the product's page more accurately.

Creating a Blank Grouped Product in Magento

1. Make sure that you have created all of the individual Products that will be a part of the Grouped Product.
2. From the Admin interface, select Catalog | Manage Products.
3. Click on Add Product. The Create Product SeUngs page is displayed as shown in the following screenshot:
4. Select an A†ribute Set. You do not need to select the same Atribute Set as the individual Products that make up the Grouped Product. You can choose any Atribute Set.
5. For Product Type, select Grouped Product.
6. Click on ConInue. 
NoNce that there are no tabs for Weight and Price. As the Grouped Product is a collecNon of individual Products, its weight and price are the sum of the individual Products.

What is Related Products in Magento

 
You can display Related Products for any Product in your catalog. These will appear in the Related Products block. Related Products are meant to be purchased in addiNon to the Product the customer is viewing.



In our demonstraNon store, we sell several kinds of whole-bean coee. For each of these Products, we want to display a coee grinder as the Related Product:


By default, the RELATED PRODUCTS block appears in the upper right corner of the page. On web pages, this is considered a highly visible spot. The block appears only if you have designated at least one related Product.

This block will not appear if the customer is viewing a Configurable Product, even if one of its configuraNons has a Related Product. The block appears only for Simple Products.

NoNce the checkbox next to the Related Product. If a customer selects a Related Product and adds the main Product to the Shopping Cart, the Related Product will also be added. If (s)he doesn't add the main Product, the Related Product will not be added.

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Magento CE Frontend and Backend


The following sections provide an overview of the two visible interfaces of Magento CE: the frontend and the backend.

Frontend (The Web Store Front)

The frontend is the public view of your web store with which your customers can interact through a standard web browser. It presents your products, product categories, and promotions, and provides your customers with ordering, payment, and purchase tracking features.

Backend (The Back Office)

The backend is the password-protected view of the back office features that enable a web store administrator  to setup the products and purchasing options and to manage orders and all other store functionalities. You can navigate the Admin Panel using the menu on the top of the page (Magento top menu). A view of the backend is shown in


Customize the welcome message in Magento

 
From the Admin interface, select System | ConfiguraIon | General | Design.



This page enables you to customize several items. For now, let's look at the ones that are necessary.

The HTML Head section
Recall that we talked about metadata when creaNng a product. Metadata helps search engines to determine the content of a web page, and to categorize the page. The HTML Head secNon enables you to customize the metadata for your enNre store. The data you enter into the fields on this page will appear in the header of each page in your store. Your shoppers won't see this data, but search engines will.

Default Title
If a page in your site does not have a customized Ntle, then it will use the Ntle given here. For example, when you created products, each Product page used the name of the Product as its Ntle. All of Magento's built-in pages have their own Ntles, and so this field should not aect your system unless you create custom pages.



Default Description
This is your store's descripNon. Some search sites will display this to their searchers. Treat this like a one-sentence markeNng piece designed to enNce searchers to click through to your store.

Default Keywords
Enter keywords that will help search engines to classify your site.

The Header section
The fields in this secNon are used to customize the logo and the welcome message.

Logo Image Src and Alt Text
By default, Magento looks in \skin\frontend\default\default\images\logo.gif for the store's logo. The graphic is 157-by-47 pixels in size. The easiest way to customize your store's logo is to make a direcNon replacement, the same size and file name, and replace the exisNng one.

The field Logo Image Alt holds the alt text for the logo. This will be displayed if the graphic is not displayed.

Welcome Text

Enter your customized welcome message into this field.

Nov 24, 2015

Making best use of Categories

There are three things that Categories can accomplish. They can:

1.       Help the shoppers, who know exactly what they want, to find the product that they are looking for.
2.       Help the shoppers, who almost know what they want, to find a product that matches their desires.
3.       EnNce the shoppers, who have almost no idea of what they want, to explore your store.

We would like to organize our store so that our Categories accomplish all these goals.
However, these goals are oGen mutually exclusive.

For example, suppose you create an electronics store. In addiNon to many other products, your store sells MP3 players, including Apple iPods. A Category called iPods would help the shoppers who know that they want an iPod, as they can quickly find one. However, the iPods Category doesn't do much to help shoppers who know that they want an MP3 player, but don't know what kind.

On the Web, you usually search something when you know what you want. But when you're not sure about what you want, you usually browse. In an online store, you usually begin browsing by selecNng a Category. When you are creaNng Categories for your online store,
try to make them helpful for shoppers who almost know what they want.




However, what if a high percentage of your shoppers are looking for a narrow category of products? Consider creaNng a top-level Category to make those products easily accessible. Again, suppose you have an electronics store that sells a wide variety of items. If a high percentage of your customers want iPods, it might be worthwhile to create a Category just for those few products. The logs from the Search funcNon on your site are one way you can determine whether your shoppers are interested in a narrow Category of a Product. Are 30 percent of the searches on your site for leGhanded fishing reels? If so, you might want to create a top-level Category just for those Products.