Zakeke allows you to offer product variants. This is a guide on how to set and manage them in your account.
Summary:
- Setting up variants
- How the variants are shown in the customizer
- How to edit variants
- Enabling customers to buy multiple variants for the same design
1. Setting up Variants
Zakeke automatically gets the variants from your store and this is the only way to set the variants within Zakeke. It means that you first need to set the variants of your product in your store and, once done, you'll be able to see them in the step-by-step wizard to create your customizable product.
DON'T YOU SEE YOUR VARIANTS?
Step 1/2 - Importing the attributes
When you are in the Variantions step, if variants are properly set in your store, you should be able to see the attributes and related options of the product.
In the example below, you see "Color" and "Size"
You decide what attributes/options to import in Zakeke. The attributes you import here will be visible in the Customizer and your customers will be able to switch them even in the Customizer.
PRO TIP
Our advice is to add product variations if they affect how your buyers personalize their order. If your print area, colors or settings don’t change on different variations, you don’t need to add them. Uh? Give you a couple of examples:
Example #1
You sell canvases in several sizes and you have those sizes as product variants. In this case, it makes sense to import the size variants in Zakeke as you'll need to define a different print area for each product size as it impacts the way customers personalize your product and the size of the print-ready files that Zakeke generates.
Example #2
You sell T-shirts in several colors and sizes but the print area dimensions do not change from variant to variant. In this case, it may be useless to import the size attribute because it does not affect the way your customers personalize the T-shirt, they choose the T-shirt size at the product page and that's it.
Step 2/2 - Uploading variant images and setting the print area
Once you have decided for the attributes and options to import, Zakeke generates the list of the variants that will be available to your customers in the Customizer.
By default, they get the same image and the same print area of the main product but you can change both the images and the print area for each variant.
Also, you can still change the name of the variant or delete it or even remove a single combination of variant/product sides. See How to edit variants for further details.
2. How the variants are shown in the customizer
Variants are shown as images if the attribute is only one (see example below where the attribute is "color").
If you import more than one attribute in Zakeke, then the variants will be shown with dropdown menus to allow the customer to select an option for each attribute (see example below where the attributes are "color" and "size").
You can't decide the way variants are shown, it goes automatically based on the number of attributes.
3. How to edit variants
Once a customizable product with variants has been published, you can still change the variants and their properties.
You should go to the Customizable Products list > click on the product menu on the right > select "Add or edit Variants" or go inside your Customizable Product and select the option Edit > Go to Variations
Successively you will see all variants, the operations that you can do on them are:
- Rename, move or delete the variant
- Change the image and edit the print area for a single variant and make personalization mandatory for a specific variant/side
- Add a new variant
IMPORTANT #1
Remember to save the changes before closing the page. In order to save, click on Go to Preview > Save
IMPORTANT #2
Once a product with variants in your store has been turned into a customizable product in Zakeke, you may need to change its variants and properties. Those changes don't always reproduce automatically in Zakeke and you may need to set the variants in Zakeke once again. Please refer to this article for details.
4. Enabling your customers to buy multiple variants at once
You can allow your customers to order more than one variant with the same design at once.