Asking for help to understand the difference between Items, Options, & Variations

[fighttobreathe]

The title of this thread has been edited by a Square Moderator from the original: "Newbie with severe ADHD struggling to figure out items/options/variations"

Hi everyone. 

I'm just starting out and having huge problems trying to wrestle through the setup/organization process. I have very severe ADHD and I’m finding it difficult to translate the examples given to my business. 

I make wearable goods. For this example I’ll just use my dresses. So the category would be dresses. Then one item would be my goddess gown. This is where I get confused bc I have three different types of gown, depending on type some come in different materials, and some come in different colors.

My least expensive gown costs (I’m making this up for the moment) $85.00. These $85 dresses come in three different types of materials. Each of these materials come in two different colors, white or natural. 

My next expensive gowns are hand dyed. These $125 Dresses come in multiple different materials, and each different material can be dyed five different colors, let’s say pink, orange, indigo, etc.

My most expensive dress is $150 and only comes in one material, but many different colors, none of them normal color names, such as Violet Storm, Saffron, Dusty Rose, etc. 

How in the hell should I organize this?

My brain is overheating from trying to figure this out since about 11am today. 

[maxpete]

@fighttobreathe Welcome to the Seller Community! 

Sorry to hear that you have been running into some issues with setup and organization of your products. I wanted to tag some members of the community here who I believe will be able to help offer some insights and share their own experience with getting set up in Square.

@DinaLRosenberg, @TCSlaguna, and @MudFire_Dex 

Thanks again for coming to the Seller Community, we're glad to have you here!

[MudFire_Dex]

Hi @fighttobreathe - if I am understanding you correctly - you are asking a philosophical question of how to organize? Or are you asking how to organize in Square?

Answering my first question - How you should organize anything comes down to a lot of decision making for how you want your variations to look and how many item listings you want and how detailed and granular you want to get or how general you want to be. For us, as makers, we are often evaluating is the customer coming to the site and searching "mug" and the picking from the images that come up and being overwhelmed - or did they see us out at a show - and they know what they are looking for but want to see size/color options. In that case they might be coming searching for a specific kind of mug "possum mug" and wanting to see different variations of color and pattern. It is helpful for me to draw the site out - like a diagram. Many of our artists work in "collections" so we use Square's category structure to help organize - but there are so many ways to do this I understand why it is frying your brain. I think it helps to actually draw out the diagram in the example below and decide how it is most helpful to your buyer to see the options they have.

I hope this helps 🙂 - I think actually thinking about how the person experiences the product is crucial. Taking the time to work it out on paper makes the Square options/variations part go faster when you are actually inputting the items.

There are some web tutorials like this one - that detail drawing out webflow: https://university.webflow.com/lesson/create-product-options-and-variants?topics=ecommerce-user-acco...

If I misconstrued above and you wanted specific Square help - this article explains this in an AMAZING amount of detail. There is a video and a Square specific help article - I think this one sums up the options available to you really well. https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6689-item-options 

[TCSlaguna]

Hi @fighttobreathe, 

We do not use modifiers, but I think what you want to do is a combination of Items, Variations and Modifiers. 

As @MudFire_Dex  mentioned, one consideration is if you are creating an online store, having more individual items (rather than variations/modifiers) will be more visual on the website. 

I may be wrong, but modifiers may not be the best solution. Based on the article here, "If you need customizable options for your items (like toppings, add-ons, or special requests), you can create modifiers. Unlike price points (used for sizes, colors, or SKUs), item modifiers don’t decrease inventory counts if inventory management is turned on." I think inventory management of color and fabric will be important to you. 

I think you variation will need to be a combination of fabric and color:

I know this makes the combination set larger when it's 5 colors and 5 fabrics, but we have an item with 100 variations and it is still manageable. 

I wonder if @ryanwanner has more experience with modifiers. 

Let me know if that helps, and let us know how things go! 

[ryanwanner]

Thank you for the ping @TCSlaguna !

@fighttobreathe, I am in agreement with the other commenters in this thread, but I think I'd segment it a little more to keep it organized on both your website and in your head:

With your example:

Category: Dresses

       Item 1: Goddess Gown $85

              Variations: the three different materials

              Modifier Group: colors

       Item 2: Goddess Gown Hand Dyed $125

               Variations: the multiple materials

               Modifier Group 2: Hand Dye Colors

       Item 3: Goddess Gown Fancy $150

               Modifier Group 3: Fancy Dress Colors

If you break it down like this, it'll be pretty easy to follow as an online shopper, and will let you see exactly what you have in your product line.

Hope this helps!

[Candlestore]

@fighttobreathe ;

I would suggest this:

Category :  Dresses

     Sub Category : Dress Materials

            Type 1  

            Type 2    Cotton

            Type 3   

Then Create an Item

Red Cotton Dress   Put this in the Sub Category Type 2 Then for this Item have the Sizes of the 5 different Sizes as Variations   So Red Cotton Dress would have variations of

X-Small     SKU ythh76              price - $48

Sm            SKU bhfyu45            price -$50

Medium     SKU  7565uu67       price - $60

Large        SKU 7665467           price -$65

X-large      SKU 7567gbf            price -$70

This way you can SCAN each item and the Associated Price for that size or Style.

The only problem with this is your Category you would need to decide which Category is your Report Category.... ie Dresses or Cotton Dresses or RED Cotton Dresses.   Which Ever you choose for this item as the Reporting Category will be on your reports and not as detailed.  Now you can use Options to create the 5 different Sizes for you.  Also instead of using SKU you could use GTIN numbers for the Variations if you use Square for Retail paid plan, or just put the GTIN in as the SKU in the free plan.

[TCSlaguna]

I really appreciate how each seller has their own style and preference for organization. 

Thanks @ryanwanner and @Candlestore 

[Candlestore]

@TCSlaguna ;

The thing I like is we all have different ways to do the samething.  No one is right and no one is wrong .... it all comes to preference how how to accomplish the task.  Which is one thing I like about Square, multiple ways to get the same outcome to fit your own needs on how well you want to be detailed and organized.