This guide will walk you through the process of creating product options and how to apply them to your products.

Product options are unique identifiers that are used on all of your sales channels to define the difference between your products. They are used to create drop-downs and swatches, which allow customers to select different variations of your products, and define where in a webstore's navigation your product should display.

A product option is comprised of the option itself and a collection of values associated with that option. For example, if "Colour" was your product option, some of the values included could be red, blue and green etc. If "Size" was the product option, values might include small, medium, large or S, M and L etc.

There is no magic formula to suggest what product options and option values your products need as they are all so different. Instead, look to the product itself to inform you. If you have a range of products, ask yourself, what are the differences between each variation? In most cases it is those little differences that are exactly what you want as product options.

You can also watch our short video on Product Options to help you understand them a little more before you start working with them:

From the Admin Centre in Cloud Commerce Pro, click the "Product Options" button.

Your currently configured product options display here.

Click the arrow in front of any option to drill into it and see the various values attached to it.

Click the trash can button to delete any unwanted options.

The "Delete Empty" button brings a list of all product options with no values attached to them and gives you the opportunity to delete them.

To add a new Product Option, click the "Add Option" button to continue.

Here you can begin to create your new product option.

Add a name for your option in the boxes provided. If for any reason you want your options to have a different name on your webshop than in CCP, you can set it differently in the box provided. Under most circumstances you will set these two the same.

Think carefully when naming your options to ensure you don't have up with duplicates or multiple options with spelling variants. Don't make the mistake of having a product option for "Colour" and "Color" as they gets incredibly messy and makes things confusing further down the line.

Product options must always have a unique name. Duplicate options can cause errors and prevent products feeding out to your channels. If you want to ensure a product option doesn't already exist, simply go back to the main product options screen and press CTRL+F and search for the name.

Leave the "Option Type" set to basic.

Once you are happy with your setup, click the "Save" button to continue.

After saving your new option, you will be taken to it on the main product options screen. From here you can configure a few aspects of your new option.

Use the tick boxes beside "Channel Exclusions" if you don't want this product option using on a certain sales channel.

There are toggle buttons if you don't want the option showing on your tags or if you want this option always pre-selected on any new product ranges created. By default these are turned off.

Finally, click the "Add Option Value" button to begin adding values to your new product option.

Using the box provided, add a value to be included as part of your product option. These are the individual attributes of this option. For example, if your option is "Colour", then your values would be things like red, blue and yellow.

As with naming your option, try to be logical when naming your values. Try to avoid creating duplicates that are too similar. For example, if "Size" is your option, decide beforehand if you want the values to display as small, medium and large or S, M, L. Adding both only makes things more confusing further along.

Keep adding option values until you have all that you need. Values can be re-ordered by dragging and dropping as well as deleted using the trash can button.

Webstores like WooCommerce and Shopify require the creation of some special options that are used to control where in your stores navigation your product will display. Failure to include these will result in your product showing as listed, but it won't appear in any of your menus for the customer to find.

Much like normal product options, it's not possible to say exactly what these should be named as it will depend on how your webstore is configured.
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Each category of website navigation on your webstore will require an option with the names of the categories as the values for each layer of navigation.

For WooCommerce your navigation options must be created exactly as "WooCategory1", "WooCategory2", "WooCategory3" etc with no spaces and case sensitive.

Shopify options are very similar. These should be "ShopifyCategory1", "ShopifyCategory2", "ShopifyCategory3" etc.

Add values to your category options in the same way as you did with normal options. For example, imagine a website that sells clothing. If the top level of navigation is "Mens", "Womens" and "Juniors", then this is exactly what you add as your values for your WooCategory1 or ShopifyCategory1. Carry on like this until you have all levels of your navigation covered.

Once your product options and their values are created, they can be applied to any product in your inventory, so thankfully you won't have to do this often.

Head to the products screen in Cloud Commerce Pro and search for a product range you need to add options to.

From the product range screen, click the "Option Links" button.

All the product options you created in the previous steps will show in this list. Click the tick box beside any option you want to include for this range.

Category (Master) should always be selected for your products to list correctly. This should be enabled by default, but it is always worth checking.

If you want an option to be the drop down selection on your webstore, click the tick box next to "Show this as a drop down". Use this option sparingly as too many drop downs can be confusing for customers.

In this example, the range is a collection of office chairs that are all the same size, but a different colour. Therefore "Colour" has been selected as the drop down.

Similarly, if you want an option to be used as a filter, click the tick box beside "Show this as a filter".

You can active the options you created earlier for your WooCommerce or Shopify webstores in the exactly same way. Simply find them in your list of options and tick the check box.

There is no need to toggle these are drop downs or filters.

When you check the box beside any of your product options and that product range already exists on some sales channels, then you will be asked if you want the new option pushing out to those channels.

Deselect any you don't want to update and click the "Save" button.

On the product variation screen, click the small "Edit" button to make changes to your product details.

All of the product options you selected in the previous steps will appear here. Click one to add or change the value you require.

Clicking the empty Option Value box will bring up a short list of available and commonly used values for this option. If the one you need is not there, type it in to search for it.

If it still does not show, it means it doesn't currently exist. In this case, type the value as you want it to display to create it.

Once you are happy with everything, click the "Save" button to continue.

You will now be given the option of applying this value to any or all of the variations in this product range. While it won't always be appropriate to do so, some options like WooCategories will be the same for all products in the range, as you will always want every variation of a product range to display in the same place within your webstore's navigation.

Check the box of any variation you want to update with this value. By default, the variation you are currently working on will always be checked.

Click "Save" when you are ready to continue.

Finally, if you product already exists on any of your sales channels, you will be asked if you want the new information pushing out there too.

Select any channels you want to update using the check boxes provided.

Any channels you add this product to in the future will have these product options and their values pushed out with them.

Finish off by repeating the process and adding product option values to all variations in your range.