There are 6 different types of Magento products. Understanding the differences between them will help you maximize your sales goals and make it easier for you to manage your store. This will incentivize your customers to keep coming back.
So let’s take a moment and understand these differences.
- Simple Product – Learn how to add A simple product in Magento
- Configurable Product
- Grouped Product
- Bundled Product
- Virtual Product
- Downloadable Product
Simple Product
A Magento simple product is the most used product type for Magento stores. It’s a simple physical product that you ship which does not have options for the end product like size, color, etc. Let’s say you’re selling a brand new iPhone or a Samsung TV that doesn’t have many options. That’s a simple product.
UPDATE
The latest Magento versions let you add options however you are not able to manage inventory for the options with a simple product type.
Each simple product has a unique SKU (Stock Keeping Unit); inventory is handled at the simple product level.
Configurable Product
A Dress that comes in three colors (red, white, and blue) and three sizes (small, medium, large) is a configurable product.
A configurable product is made up of other simple products:
- Small, Red Dress
- Medium, Red Dress
- Large, Red Dress
In Magento, you would set up each of these options, above, as a simple product. You can set inventory levels for each simple product, as well as different images. Then, you create a configurable product that ties them all together, and gives the end-user the choice, usually from a drop-down menu:
- Size: (small, medium, large)
- Color: (red, white, blue)
If the inventory level of the small, blue Dresses is out of stock, then that will not show on your store (depending on your settings).
Configurable products allow you to charge more for specific options. Maybe you want to charge more for the Red Dress because the material might be more expensive.
Grouped Product
A Magento grouped product is a “group” of simple products that can be combined together. Think of an iPhone that is sold together with an iPhone Case + a car charger + a car stand. Each of those items would be simple products; you would group them together as a “grouped” product that you could offer on the site.
You can’t define a specific price for a Magento grouped product but you can define a discount amount. Grouped products can be used to incentivize a customer to buy different products that are in relation to each other.
Downloadable Product
A Magento downloadable product is just that: a product you can Download. Think about an eBook, a music file, or a piece of software that you sell. A downloadable product does not allow selecting a shipping method at checkout simply because there’s nothing to ship.
You can upload the specific files to your server and then set the price and other information. Magento then generates a secure, encrypted link that is personalized to each person making a purchase once payment is successful.
IMPORTANT
Once a product is downloaded it doesn’t prevent anyone from saving the PDF or mp3 file and then emailing it to a friend. That is a whole other issue not covered by Magento. It falls under digital rights management.
Virtual Product
A virtual product is different from a downloadable product. It’s not something you can download but rather a virtual product or service that you can offer to your customers
- Warranty services for different products, Website Design Services, House Cleaning services, SEO Consultations, and Business Audits are some simple examples of Virtual Products. Because these products are not tangible in the general sense.
Bundled Product
A grouped product doesn’t give the end-user any choice. Buy all three items together for a special price. As in the example on grouped products.. All items are sold together as a group for a special price. (iPhone + case + charger + car stand)A Magento bundled product allows you to build a bundled product, using simple (or virtual) products which are not to be sold separately.
Example
- a Camera where the customer can choose various items such as hard Lens type, memory card, etc.. Each of these items is a simple (or virtual) product but can only be sold within the bundle product.
Here is another example
- Desktop computer with 2,1 GHz Speed – $400
- Add RAM. Choose from: 2 GB ($50), 4GB(+$75), or 8GB(+$100)
- Add Graphic Card. Choose from: an 8 GB card (+$100), a 16 GB card (+$150), a 32 GB card (+$200) The final price of the purchase will then depend on what the end-user selects as options.
Note that to do a bundled product like this, you’d have to add in these simple products first:
- RAM 2GB : $50 | RAM 2GB : $75 | RAM 2GB : $100
- Graphics Card 8GB : $100 | Graphics Card 16GB : $150 |
