Product Options

Salesforce B2C Commerce, product options enable you to sell configurable products that have optional accessories, upgrades, or extra services.

Options are always purchased with a product and can't be purchased separately. They have their own price and display name, but do not have their own thumbnail images. A customer can’t search for them, but they are visible on the product detail page.

For example, for a Computer product, you can define warranties of different time lengths or no warranty. You can also define different size hard drives as product options to give customers more configuration choices. Each option value defines a price that can be added to the product's price, when a customer selects the option. You can also include a certain option in the price by making it the default option.

Local and Shared Options

B2C Commerce enables you to manage product options for specific products (local or single-product options). You can also manage product option definitions that are created once and shared among multiple products (shared or global product options). Shared options are created in the scope of a catalog. A product-specific option can overwrite a shared option. Each option (both shared and local) has attributes. These system attributes are created in Business Manager: Administration > Site Development > System Object Types. When created, they are available from a product's Options tab. Shared options are not automatically assigned to products in the catalog. You associate these options with products in the product editor.

Missing or Invalid Product Attributes

At times, product attributes don’t exist or they have a type that is different from the original definition in the product option. These attributes are identified as missing and invalid, respectively. This status doesn't affect the storefront except that the attributes don’t appear; all functionality still works. You can investigate these attributes to determine the source of the problem.

Examples

Here are some examples of product options:

Configurable products:
  • Necklace with different metal types (silver or gold) and chain lengths (18", 20", 24", and 30")
  • Garden shed with different configuration options for door type, flooring, and interior shelving

Optional accessories or upgrades:

  • Warranties in 1, 2, and 7-year lengths.
  • Monogramming
  • Waterproofing
Other services:
  • Hold in store
  • Technical support
  • Installation