Product Types in Symphony Commerce Manage

Overview

This article explains the five types of products you can create in Manage. 

Information

The five product types that can be created in Manage are:

• Simple Products

• Kit Products

• Subscription Products

• eGift Cards

• Gift Card Product

• Simple Products

You should always create simple products unless you need one of the following:

1. A product that you want to sell as a bundle (aka Kit).
2. A product that you want to sell exclusively as a subscription (aka, can't buy it as a 1-time purchase).

• Kit Products

Kits allow you to sell multiple SKUs at once with a single product, which creates a single add to cart event and creates a single line item in an order. But there are some limitations for Kit products:

1. Kits cannot contain products with variants.
2. Kits cannot have variant prices.
3. Kits will only ship when all products in the kit are in stock.
4. Kits will inherit tax information from the products that make up its components.

• Subscription Products

A subscription is a set of products sold to customers on a recurring basis. When using this feature, you can set the price of products if purchased as a subscription and you can set the frequency in which the subscriptions will be sent (i.e.: every 30 days, 60 days or 90 days). 

Subscription products should be created, if you:

1. Want to sell exclusively as a subscription (aka, can't buy it as a 1-time purchase).
2. Create an “x of the month club" or a monthly subscription.
3. Want to create a subscription with variants (not variant prices, just variants). All of this fits into components.
   • You take the simple product and add subscription with variants, which cannot be done via Manage. Please consult with your BE to implement. Your BE will need to know which products to add.

Note: As an incentive to subscribe to a product, brands can offer a lower price when subscribing vs when buying one time only. 

Limitations

1. Only customers in the Retail channel can purchase subscriptions.
2. Subscriptions cannot have variant prices.

• eCards

E-Gift Cards are digital gift cards that a customer purchases on the site.  The recipient will receive an email to redeem the value of the E-Gift Card. When the code is redeemed, the account is credited the full amount of the card. These purchases do not pass through fraud detection when purchased.  

 

We've found gift cards are exclusively used for fraud on a 10:1 ratio and we recommend setting up 'hold rules' for E-Gift Cards so they can be reviewed by Customer Service before processing. 

 

• Gift Cards

Physical Gift Cards are sourced by the brand and sent to the warehouse via ASN, like all other products to be fulfilled.  When an order is placed for a gift card, an actual order is placed via the website.  All codes will be stored in the database ahead of time.