This article is intended for vendors that wish to upload their product listings.
What are Variants?
Variants serve as a pivotal feature for vendors, enabling them to offer dynamic options within their product listings. These options typically include attributes like size, color, material, and other customizable characteristics, allowing customers to tailor their purchases to their specific preferences or needs. Moreover, variants are not limited to physical attributes; they can also be applied to variations related to a product's usage, such as age a range for different levels of service frequencies (internet services, therapies, tutoring, etc.)
How Does the Variants Template Function?
The variant template works by providing a structured framework within which vendors can define the various options available for a particular product. This framework allows for easy management and presentation of diverse product variations, streamlining the browsing and purchasing experience for customers.
How Do I Create Variants?
When a vendor is preparing to upload their offerings via a CSV, they will see two buttons that indicate "Download CSV Template" and "Download Variants CSV Template". If you plan to offer variants within your offerings, you need to download both.
Step one is uploading your products or services to the standard CSV template. This will act as the "parent" offering and is required in order to then utilize the variant feature. All columns in the CSV templates need to remain unchanged in order to correctly upload to our platform. Each column in the standard CSV template represents the following:
- marketplace_type: please indicate here if you are offering a product or a service.
- Mislabeling your item as a product rather than a service will have ramifications on how vendors are able to submit a tracking number versus a receipt. This distinction directly influences the timing of fulfillment and reimbursement processes, highlighting the importance of accurate classification.
- product_name: this will be the public title of your offering shown in the marketplace. Please be as detailed as possible (example: instead of "tutoring" please put "1 month of tutoring").
- product_sku: sku's are required, regardless of your offering being a product or service. These all need to be individual and unique codes for each product/service. If you have the same sku for more than one offering, this will impact the way your offerings are uploaded and thus reported back to you. These can be placed in any format you want - such as offeringname123. This is also a metric for vendors so you can personally keep track of and organize offerings.
- external_url: if you are offering a product or a service, you can add the URL to your website here or a page that takes you directly to the offering externally.
- category_1: this is required to correctly categorize your offering in the marketplace. The four core categories to choose from are Educational Products, Electronics, Services, or Online Based Media.
- category_2: this is a required field to further assist in categorizing your offering in the marketplace. If you are unsure of what to put here, please contact our support team to receive the best recommended category based on your offering.
- category_3: this is an optional field but is recommended to further assist in categorizing your offering in the marketplace. If you are unsure of what to put here, please contact our support team to receive the best recommended category based on your offering. If you do not wish to utilize this feature, you can leave this field blank.
- offering_details: this is a required section that allows you to provide customers with a detailed description of what they are purchasing. Whether it is a product or a service, the more details you include, the better. If you are describing a service, please be sure to outline the duration of the service and amount of sessions that are included in this offering.
- min_grade: this optional field allows you to set an age range for the target audience of your offering. You will be able to choose grades K-12.
- min_age: this optional field allows you to set an age range for the target audience of your offering. You will be able to choose ages 5-18.
- edu_level: this optional field allows you to specify the education level that is the target audience for your offering. You will be able to choose from Elementary-High School.
- max_grade: this optional field allows you to set an age range for the target audience of your offering. You will be able to choose grades K-12.
- max_age: this optional field allows you to set an age range for the target audience of your offering. You will be able to choose ages 5-18.
- price: this required field allows you to set the price for your offering. If you are offering a product, you are permitted to include shipping costs within this price.
- quantity: this required field allows you to indicate the stock quantity you have for your offering. This needs to be utilized regardless of your offering being a product or a service. If it is a service, the quantity will indicate session availability.
- status: this required field allows you to adjust the stock status for your offering. If you want this offering to show up on the Marketplace, it needs to be set as "In Stock". Vendors have the ability to set offerings to either "Out Of Stock" or "End of Life" if they wish to remove their offering from the public Marketplace.
- is_variable: if you wish to include variants in your offerings, this is one of the most important fields. If you want the product to be an individual stand-alone offering with no variants, you can set this field to "0". If you do wish to include variants and plan to utilize the Variant CSV (see instructions below), you need to set the field to "1". This creates the parent offering that is critical for a variant to be created.
- video_url: this optional field allows vendors to include a video URL if there is a video link that needs to be included for their offering.
- imgs: this required field allows vendors to add images to their offerings. If you do not have an individual image for a specific product or service, you can upload a photo of your company logo. We can support multiple image formats, including jpg, png, and more.
Once the above template is completed, you will be able to click Upload CSV to load your offerings on the platform. These offerings need to be created and uploaded before you add any variants because it creates the parent offering.
If you wish to add variants to your offerings and indicated is_variable (1) in the CSV upload above, the next step is to download and complete the Variant CSV template. All columns in the CSV templates need to remain unchanged in order to correctly upload to our platform. Each column in the variant CSV template represents the following:
- variant_sku: similar to the sku in the standard CSV template, sku's are required, regardless of your offering being a product or service. These all need to be individual and unique codes for each product/service. If you have the same sku for more than one offering, this will impact the way your offerings are uploaded and thus reported back to you. These can be placed in any format you want - such as offeringname123. For variants specifically, it is recommended to specify based on the variant. If you are offering a tablet with various colors, this sku could be called "pink-tablet-2024" or any variation of that.
- variant_cost: this required field will outline the cost of the specific variant. Whether it is the same as the parent offering or different, it needs to be identified and directly associated with this specific product or service. As a reminder, shipping for products can be added into the cost here.
- variant_availability: please set this column to "1" to allow an accurate upload on our platform.
- variant_quantity: similar to the quantity in the standard CSV template, this required field allows you to indicate the stock quantity you have for your offering. This needs to be utilized regardless of your offering being a product or a service. If it is a service, the quantity will indicate session availability.
- offer_sku: this needs to be the unique sku you chose for the parent offering that was uploaded in the first CSV. For example, if you are creating an offer for a tablet with variants, the parent offering sku could be "samsung-tablet-2024", and the variable offering would be "pink-tablet-2024". This section is where you would indicate what the parent offering is, which would be "samsung-tablet-2024".
- key_name: this required field allows you to indicate what your variant title is (example: color, size, subscription).
- key_value: this required field allows you to go a step further from the key_name and specify the details of your variant. (example: green, 512GB, 1 year)
Once the above template is completed, you can go through the same Upload CSV flow to add on variants to your offerings. If you run into any issues, please do not hesitate to reach out to Odyssey support for additional assistance.