[caution]This Guide is intended for use with legacy Themes or EKM online shops in Custom Mode. If you are using the Aerial Theme, please click here for the correct Guide. [/caution]

[intro]When you have completed this Guide, you will know how to add Pattern Variants onto your Products, both manually within the Add/Edit Product window and using spreadsheets and the Import/Export System feature.[/intro]

[summary]

[/summary]

[remember] Before you begin, you need to prepare your images. For each Variant Choice, you will need at least one Product Image and one Pattern Image. A Product Image is the primary Product Image for the Variant Choice, whilst a Pattern Image is a close-up of the pattern or design of the Variant Choice.

Pattern Image
Product Image

Each image must be square and measure 1024 x 1024 pixels. You can upload images that are as large as 2000 x 2000 pixels or as small as 500 x 500 pixels as these will automatically be resized but we recommend 1024 x 1024 pixels for the very best results. [/remember]

Pattern Variants are very different to Colour Swatches, as they refer to an image of a Variant Combination instead of a solid colour. This makes them ideal for use with patterned Products such as fabric, wallpaper and cosmetics.

Before you begin, you need to have completed this Guide so you can understand the best way to display Products with Variants on your EKM online shop without affecting your customer's experience or page speed.

Manually adding Pattern Variants

1. Click the green Add Variant button:

2. Click the Create Variant button under the Colour header:

3. Give the Variant an appropriate name such as ‘Pattern’, ‘Colour’ or ‘Style’ and then click the green Save button:

4. Give the Pattern a Name and then click the circle in the Colour Column:

5. Clicking the circle will reveal a drop-down menu. Click the Upload File button:

6. This will open the File Explorer window, allowing you to locate and select the right image from your computer. Select the image and click Open:

7. This will apply the image to the circle symbol. Click the green + symbol to add the Variant Choice:

8. Repeat this process with the rest of your Patterns, until each has been added. When you have finished, click the green Save button:

9. You will then see all of the different Variant Choices listed within the Add Product window. Here you will be able to amend the Stock amount, Weight, RRP, Price and Product Code of each of the Variant Combinations if you need to, simply by clicking in the fields provided. Click Edit next to your first Variant Choice:

10. You will then need to click the Images & Photos tab to the left-hand side:

11. Click the Edit pencil symbol to upload your primary Product Image making sure it’s pattern coordinates with its Variant Choice Name, which will reveal two options. You can either Choose Existing - select a Product Image which has already been uploaded onto your File Manager - or Upload New - to add a new Product Image to your EKM online shop from your computer. Select the most appropriate to add your Product Image:

12. When you have added the first mage, aim to add more Product Images until the full row is completed to guarantee the best level of customer experience. Customers like to see the Product at different angles, with Images concentrating on specific Product Details. When you have completed this task, click the green Save button on the bottom right-hand corner and then click the ‘Return To Master Product’ tab on the top right-hand side of the window:

13. Click the Edit button on the next Variant Choice down, repeating the process steps 9-12 above, so that each of your Variant Choices has a primary Product Image:

14. When you have added primary Product Images to each of the Variant Choices, click the Save & Close button on the bottom right-hand side of the Add Product window:

15. When you view the Product on the Product Page, you’ll then see that you can click the Pattern samples to rotate through the different styles available:

Adding Pattern Variants using a Spreadsheet

1. Before you begin, you will need to upload all of the Product and Pattern Images to the File Manager of your EKM online shop. From the Dashboard, click the Design Tab:

2. Click File Manager on the far right-hand side:

3. On the File Manager, ensure that you’re viewing the Product & Category Images tab, and then open the file containing your images on your computer. Select all of the images you wish to upload and drag them into the grey box:

4. When you have uploaded all of your images, you need to open a blank spreadsheet and populate it with the details of your new Product and the Pattern Variants. Before you begin, you will need to work out how many Product Variant Choices you need to add. The quickest way to do this is to multiply the Variant Choices by each other:

4 Pattern Variants x 5 Size Variants = 20 Variant Choices (4x5=20)

Remember, there are limits as to how many Variant Combinations you can build onto a Product! You can read more about those limits in this Guide.

The following instructions are for a single Product with four Pattern Variant Choices and five possible Size Variant Choices. Ensure that you copy the exact same spreadsheet headers in this Guide, amending the data to fit that of your own Products.

5.

Column A is the ‘Action’ column. Here you need to add ‘Add Product’ and beneath that ‘Add Product Variant’ for each Variant Choice your Product has. It’s a good idea to colour the ‘Add Product’ row of your spreadsheet before you begin too so that you can easily differentiate this from your ‘Add Product Variant’ rows.

Column B is the ‘CategoryPath’ column where you can designate which Category on your EKM online shop this new Product will display within. ‘Home’ is obviously the homepage of the shop in my example, with ‘T-Shirts’ being a main Category. However, if there was a Subcategory within T-Shirts that I wanted to add my Product to, I would need to add:

Home > T-Shirts > Unisex T-Shirts

...to my CategoryPath column instead. If you have not yet made the Category on your EKM online shop for your Product to display within, add the path to it within this CategoryPath column and the Category will be created automatically when the spreadsheet has been uploaded.

The CategoryPath must be the same for the Add Product row and the Add Product Variant rows - as obviously a Product and it’s Variants all need to be located in the same place.

Column C needs to have the header ‘ID’ and this column should remain empty for a brand new Product to your EKM online shop. This is because when the Product and its Variants are uploaded to the system, they will automatically be given identifying numbers which populate this column when existing Products are downloaded onto a spreadsheet.

Column D is ‘Name’ - the Product Name, which needs to be identical for the Add Product and the Add Product Variant rows.

Column E is ‘Code’ - if you have installed the Product Attributes feature, you can add a Product Code to each Variant Choice that this Product has within the column. You can read more about adding Product Codes in this Guide.

Column F is ‘Description’ - which is your Product Description. Add your Product Description text to the Add Product row only, and be sure just to add plain text - with no code or formatting.

6.

Column G is the ‘Brand’ column - if you have a Brand value you want to add to this Product, you need to add it in this column, in the Add Product row only. Read more about adding Brands to your Products in this Guide.

Column H is the ‘Price’ column - add the price of your Product and it’s Variants into this column.

Column I is the ‘RRP’ column - this is where you can add a Recommended Retail Price to your Products. Read more about adding RRPs in this Guide.

You now need to go to the File Manager on your EKM online shop as you will need to copy the addresses for the Product Images to add to your spreadsheet. At this point, it’s a good idea to scroll to the right on your spreadsheet to the column VariantItem2 to work out which rows relate to which Variant Choices and colour them accordingly, so you can tell which Image URLs need to be pasted where:

7. When you have done this, scroll back to column J - ‘Image1’ and then begin to copy the URLs of the Product Images (not the Pattern Images) from your File Manager, by right-clicking them and selecting Copy, before pasting them onto your spreadsheet:

8. When you have finished, the Image1 column should look something like this:

Remember that the yellow ‘Add Product’ row needs to have the URL of the default Variant Choice. You can set the Default Variant further along the spreadsheet in column AP - ‘VariantDefault’.

9. Returning to your spreadsheet, columns K, L, M and N (‘Image2’, ‘Image3’, ‘Image4’ and ‘Image5’ respectively) can be populated if you have more than one primary Product Image for each Variant Choice, as you did with the ‘Image1’ column.

Columns O, P and Q - ‘MetaTitle’, ‘MetaDescription’ and ‘MetaKeywords’; you would populate these if you have specific metadata to add. You can read more about metadata in this Guide.

Column R - The ‘Stock’ column is where you add in how many units you have of each Variant Choice. You can read more about Stock Control in this Guide.

Column S - ‘Weight’ - Here you would add the weight of your Product, in kilos, which allows you to use a weight-based Delivery Method on your EKM online shop. Read more about setting this up in this Guide.

Column T - ‘TaxRateID’ - The digit in this column corresponds to the tax which is set on the Tax Settings page. The standard rate of 20% VAT is entered as ‘1’ - read more about Tax Settings in this Guide.

Column U - ‘Condition’ - You simply need to populate this column with ‘NotApplicable’ all the way down on the Add Product and Add Product Variant rows. This corresponds to the Condition Product Attribute, which can be applied to shops which sell antiques and secondhand goods. Read more about Condition in this Guide.

Column V - ‘SpecialOffer’ only needs populating on the Add Product row with either a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’, as to whether the Product is a Featured Product or not. You can read more about Featured Products in this Guide.

Column W - ‘OrderLocation’ - Only the Add Product row needs populating, and the number within it related to the position of the Product on the Category Page when it has been uploaded onto your EKM online shop. Simply enter ‘99999’ to enable the ability for you to select the position of the Product within the rest when it has been imported.

Column X - ‘OrderNote’ - Again this only needs completing for the Add Product row, and only if the Product has specific details to it, such as ‘this product is delivered on a pallet’, for example. The text added into this row will then be visible on the Order when the customer purchases the Product.

Column Y - ‘Hidden’ - Only the Add Product row needs populating here with either a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’. If you want the Product to be hidden when it is uploaded, add ‘Yes’, otherwise ‘No’ for the Product to be visible.

Column Z - ‘Image1Address’ - This column can remain blank as we are adding an entirely new Product to the system. On existing Products, this is where you’d see the Product Image URLs listed when existing Products are exported to a spreadsheet.

Column AA - ‘WebAddress’ -This column can remain blank as we are adding an entirely new Product to the system. On existing Products, this is where you’d see the Product Page URLs listed when existing Products are exported to a spreadsheet.

10.

Column AB - ‘CanBeAddedToCart’ - Only the Add Product row needs populating here with either a ‘TRUE’ or a ‘FALSE’. If you want the Product’s Add To Cart button to be hidden when it is uploaded, add ‘FALSE’, otherwise ‘TRUE’ for the Product to be visible.

Column AC - ‘PromoStickers’ - In this column, you need to populate the Add Product row with the name of the Promo Stickers you want to assign to the Product. You must have already installed the Promo Stickers feature on the Features tab first. To find out the names of the Promo Stickers, open any Edit Product window on your EKM online shop and click the Images & Photos tab.

Beneath the Promo Stickers header, scroll through the Promo Stickers on offer, and hover on each to see its name highlighted - it’s this name which needs adding to the Promostickers column of your spreadsheet.

11.

Column AD - ‘VariantNames’ - We only need to populate the Add Product Variant rows here. You need to add the Variant Names, separated by a colon with no spaces here, and this needs to be identical for each of the Add Product Variant rows.

Column AE - ‘VariantTypes’ - Copy the data from the previous column, but capitalise it, again separating the names of the Variants by colons with no spaces.

Column AF - ‘VariantItem1’ - We only need to populate the Add Product Variant rows here. As in the VariantNames column, ‘Size’ is the first Variant (before ‘Colour’), the VariantItem1 column needs to list all of the sizes that are available of this Product. You’ll need to add a set of Sizes for each Colour/Pattern that the Product is available in.

[warning]When adding Product Variants to the system, you need to ensure that they are all equal. If a t-shirt was produced in three sizes (small, medium and large) and three colours (red, blue and yellow), but a medium blue t-shirt was no longer available, you would still need to add this to your spreadsheet and ensure that in the Hidden column, the row for this particular Variant Choice was populated with Yes. This ensures that the Variants will be built correctly and once the spreadsheet has been imported onto the shop, the non-existent Product Variant would be hidden from front-end display.[/warning]

Column AG - ‘VariantItem1Data’ - We only need to populate the Add Product Variant rows here, and we add the abbreviated names of the Sizes from the previous column.

Column AH - ‘VariantItem2’ - Here you need to add the Colour/Pattern names, copying them so each Size in the previous column is also listed with a Colour/Pattern Name. We only need to populate the Add Product Variant rows here.

Column AI - ‘VariantItem2Data’ - We only need to populate the Add Product Variant rows here, and we need to paste in the URLs for the Pattern Images here from the File Manager, as we did before:

12.

Column AJ - ‘VariantDefault’ - When you have added your Pattern Image URLs to the VariantItemData2 column, you need to populate the Add Product Variant rows with ‘No’ for this column, apart from one ‘Yes’ which will designate which of the Variant Choices is the default Variant Choice that the customer sees when they click onto the Product Page.

When you have completed this final column, save your spreadsheet and open the Import/Export System feature on your EKM online shop. You will then be able to import the spreadsheet of new Products with Pattern Variants using this Guide.

[tips] If you already use drop-down style Variants on your existing Products and want to convert them to Pattern Variants instead, use this Guide. [/tips]

[more]

[/more]

[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Account Manager or Customer Support, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm on the weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions board. If you have a non-account specific question ask the EKM Team, join us in EKM Community.  [/contact]