Hi friends,
Nice to have you back with our Magento Open Course series. We have gone through 19 lessons with a lot of different topics so far.
Today our Magento tutorial will examine a new issue: Magento Product Types and how to add a custom product type.
As usual, we recommend you review lesson 19 – Entity Attribute Value in Magento before starting with this lesson.
1. Magento Product Types
Magento has six standard product types: Simple product, Grouped product, Configurable product, Virtual product, Bundle product and Downloadable product.
1.1. Simple product
Simple product is an instance of physical products which have a single configuration (one-size-fits-all). For example, a cell-phone, a monitor, etc.
1.2. Grouped product
Grouped product is a product type that allows you to create a new product using one or more existing products, such as Magento Red Furniture Set product in Magento’s sample data. This product group has three separated products, including Ottoman, Chair and Couch. Each one of them is available for purchase. When buying a grouped product, customers can choose each separated product to add to cart:
1.3. Configurable product
Configurable product is a product type providing many options and allowing customers to select the option that they want. For instance, Zolof The Rock And Roll Destroyer: LOL Cat T-shirt has various sizes and colors for customers to choose. Of course you can create many simple products with different colors and sizes to sell. However, configurable product type helps you create the product more convenient, faster, and easier to manage.
1.4. Virtual product
Virtual product type is used for products that don’t have a physical instance. It’s always used for service products or intellectual products (such as software). Those products don’t need to be shipped.
1.5. Bundle product
A bundle product is also known as a kit, which is a product in customer’s shopping cart but contains a number of other products. Magento’s sample data has Computer product which is bundled up from other products: Case, Processor, Memory, etc.
1.6. Downloadable product
Downloadable product is similar to the virtual product (like an instance of the virtual product). But these products have one or more digital files for downloading. This is great for software, digital music files and other electronic products. Otherwise, downloadable files can be used as a configuration for customers to choose when adding to cart.
It is the end of our Magento tutorial today. Now, you should know about six standard Magento Product Types and their characters. Next week, we will discuss how to add a custom product type.
See you soon! Enjoy coding and see you later. Follow us in Magento Open Course for Magento Tutorial.
