What is an Inventory Relationship?
Creating relationships allows you to organize your inventory and present it to shoppers in a more traditional e-commerce fashion. Setting up an inventory relationship allows the seller to offer a product with multiple attributes on one product page through the use of drop-down menus. In other words, a buyer will navigate to a product page to buy a shirt, for example, and be able to select the size and color of the shirt via two drop-down menus.
Steps to create an Inventory Relationship:
- You'll need to first create attributes in a classification. These attributes are what is used to relate the Parent SKU to the Child SKU. In this example I'll be using 'Men's Sneakers' as my classification:
*Note the attributes associated with this classification.
- Next you'll want to set up the Inventory Relationship.
- Go to Inventory > Inventory Relationships
- Select Create a New Classification
- Name your Classification and your attributes.
- Select the attributes from the classification you are working with. This will pull in the proper attribute information you want to display in your drop-down. You see in the picture below that I have (4) choices for the 'Size' attribute. This is because I have created (4) classifications in Inventory > Classifications that all have the word 'Size' somewhere in there. I want to pull into my drop-down menu all of the 'Men's Sneakers' size attributes that contain the attributes '9,9.5,10,10.5,11', so that's the one I'll select. If I chose the 'Jerseys' classification, my sizes would display as 'S,M,L,XL' as those are the attributes associated with that classification.
- You can change the order of what is in the drop-down menu on the next screen. By default, the attribute at the top will display first:
- The Item Detail Image Display section will allow you to display the image associated with the child SKU if that is the one selected from the drop-down. For example, if I had a black shoe displaying on the product page for this item and selected 'Brown' from the drop-down, the image displayed would swap to the image associated with my brown SKU.
- Now that the Inventory Relationship is created, you will need to create the Parent SKU.
- Go to Inventory > All Items
- Select Create New and then Variation Parent Item
Parent SKU
- Auction Title - You'll want to make this something simple without attribute information such as 'Color' or 'Size' as this is describing all children related to it regardless of attribute.
- SKU - Some people choose to make this simple like 'nike_shoe' so they can name all of their child SKU's something similar like 'nike_shoe_sz8_white'.
- Variation Relationship - Select the correct relationship that you just created
- Store Category - Be sure to select the proper category. If you don't have a category set up yet, you can do so in Store > Manage Categories
- Store Description - Add a store description
- Classification - Select the proper classification for the parent item. Once the screen refreshes, you do not need to fill in the attribute information as the parent SKU will not require this information.
- Select Images - Select the image you'd like to display as the parent SKU.
Next you'll need to associate a child SKU with the parent SKU, so go to the Inventory > All Items view and click Create New > Inventory Item.
Child SKU
- Auction Title - This should be more descriptive and can include the attribute details
- SKU - As stated before, you may want to incorporate the Parent SKU as part of your child SKU. For example, 'nike_shoe_sz8_white'.
- Store Category - Select the Store Category and include the item in the store
- Store Description - Add a store description if you'd like. PLEASE NOTE - The store description on the product page will always be pulled from the Parent SKU
- Channeladvisor Store Price - A store price is required for display in your Channeladvisor store.
- Classification - Select the same classification as the parent SKU. Once the screen refreshes, you should select / fill-in the appropriate attributes.
- Select Images - Select the image you'd like to display as the child SKU
- Click Save and Exit
Now you should see a screen with both of your new SKU's.
You'll now have to assign the child SKU to the parent SKU. This will create the relationship between the two.
- Select the Parent SKU
- Select the Select New Variation Child SKU's link
- From the following screen select the child SKU's you want to associate with the parent and click Save and Exit.
- Click Save and Exit on the following screen again.
The Channeladvisor Store
Now that the association of the parent and child SKU is complete, let's look at how this is displayed in the store:
Notice when I click on the newly-created 'Shoes' category it will display the Parent SKU. Also notice that the price says 'From: $24.99'. The Channeladvisor store will take the range of all values in the 'Channeladvisor Store Price' field in Merchant and display it at the category level. If I had multiple shoes to sell in this category with higher prices, it will display as 'From: $24.99 - 45.99'. Also notice that the image being displayed is the image for the Parent SKU.
When I click through the category title for 'Nike Shoes', it will bring me to the following screen:
This screen will display the Parent SKU image if I had multiple skus associated with this category. When I select from the drop-down menu the color 'White', notice how the image changes to my white shoe as that was the setting I had enabled when creating this association. Additionally, at the bottom of the screen you'll see the Store Description text displayed for the Parent SKU. This text will always be displayed at the bottom of this product page regardless of the options you have selected in the drop-down.
Parent / Child relationship via Bulk Upload
To maximize efficiency, Merchant allows for the ability to work with Parent / Child relationships via Bulk Upload as well. This is helpful to sellers with a large volume of inventory. When following this primer, it is assumed that you already have familiarity with doing a Bulk Upload. You can learn how to do this through the SSC HERE. It is also assumed that you have already created a Parent / Child relationship via the User Interface.
The image below shows the Bulk Upload spreadsheet. The first row will contain the Parent SKU. I have shaded this row in grey to call your attention to this SKU. All SKU's below that SKU will be the Child SKU's of the parent. Note that the Parent SKU has no quantity listed.
Further down the spreadsheet you'll need to fill in the Classifications and the Image URL's. Be sure to fill the same classification for both the Parent and the Child SKU. The Image URL field can contain multiple file names for images separated by a comma and a space. For example, if that SKU will have (2) images, the spreadsheet cell would look like 'image_1.jpg, image_2.jpg'. You would need to upload the images to the server prior to uploading the spreadsheet.
Add the Relationship Name for this variation in both the Parent and Child SKU's. The Variation Parent SKU column is where you will inform Merchant of your association between Parent SKU and Child SKU. Note how the Parent SKU name is titled 'Parent'. All Child SKU's underneath the Parent will have the Parent SKU name populated in that cell.
Fill in your attributes their values. Be sure the attributes are listed exactly as you have created them previously in your Inventory Relationship.
Next you'll add the Store Title. The Store Description field will all have the same information. If you recall, that product page will display only the information listed in the Parent SKU. Add the Store Price also. These can all be different as if you'll recall the Product page will display 'From: $X' depending on what you have listed in this field. Next add the Category ID number. If you're unsure of the number associated with this category, you can find that at Store > Manage Categories.
That's all there i:s to it! Be sure to save this as a text tab-delimited file and upload to Merchant.
Common issues to watch out for:
