Why Would I Need to Use "Advanced Options" for my Products?

In some situations, your product's properties may change considerably when certain options are selected. In other cases, you may have a limited amount of product with a particular option available and you need to control/track inventory on the product with that option.

• Example 1:
  Let's say you have a shirt with a color option. One of the colors you offer is red, but your distributor only sent you 5 on the last shipment instead of the normal 20. You need to track the inventory for this specific color in order to avoid overselling the item.

• Example 2:
  Let's say you have a high-end video camera with lens options available. One of the lenses is a special telephoto lens that weighs an additional 2lbs. You need to specify this for shipping purposes to calculate the correct shipping costs.

Advanced Options will help address these types of issues by allowing you to configure unique data for each option.

Essentially, when a product has options assigned to it, the options are merely labels that are selected on the base product. Whereas when advanced options are enabled, the product and its applicable option are considered individual items and treated as such in the store.

To enable your Advanced Options

1. Go to Products > Product List.

2. Find the product you'd like to like to enable Advanced Options for and click on its name (or look to the far right of the product and click on its Action > Edit button).

3. Click on the Options tab to view your options.

4. Next, look towards the top right of the options page and click the Actions drop-down button.

5. Then click Advanced Options.

To specify changes for a particular Advanced Option, click on its respective Enable box to make it active. From there, you can edit the fields available in the page.

Here are the individual data fields that can be configured for each product Advanced Option:

• Code:
  This replaces the SKU and option part number and essentially allows you to make the Product/Option its own "Product."

• GTIN:
  This field will be used for the product's Global Trade Item Number used for various product search feeds

• Stock:
  This field will allow you to specify the inventory on this particular option.

• Weight:
  This field will add to the weight specified in the Information Tab of the product. Using our camera example above, if the camera itself is 8lbs and the lens is 2lbs, you would specify the additional 2lbs in this field and the product (with this option) would weigh 10lbs altogether.

• Cost:
  This field will replace the Cost listed in the Information Tab of the Product

At the farthest right of the Advanced Option, you will also see a + icon. Click this icon to expand these additional Advanced Option parameters:

• Dimensions
  The length, width and height dimensions of the product when a particular advanced option is selected.

• Custom Points
  If using Reward Points for your store, this parameter allows you to award custom reward points for the product when the advanced option is selected.