A key concept in Drupal Commerce is the Product Display vs Product model used to separate physical products from their display on the website. Depending on your point of view, this makes perfect sense or is a conceptual or practical nightmare. However you feel about it, understanding the reasoning behind the concept is essential when it comes to planning and implementing a Drupal Commerce project. http://nyccamp.org/sessions/drupal-commerce-product-vs-display-conundrum-and-how-explain-it-customer

1. DRUPAL COMMERCE
THE PRODUCT VS DISPLAY CONUNDRUM
(AND HOW TO EXPLAIN IT TO A CUSTOMER)
Richard Jones,
Technical Director, i-KOS
NYC Camp July 2012

2. HELLO!
• Richard Jones
• CTO i-KOS
• London-based Drupal
agency specialising in
Commerce
• @richardjones

3. QUICK INTRODUCTION TO
DRUPAL COMMERCE
• Built for Drupal 7
• "Small-core" philosophy
• 1.0
launch at DrupalCon
London 2011

4. A COMMERCE
FRAMEWORK
More than just a shopping cart

5. BASIC FEATURES
• Shopping cart
• Checkout
• Customer profiles
• Multiple product types
• Rules based pricing
• Payment API
• VAT and tax

6. 0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
May 2011
Jun 2011
Jul 2011
Aug 2011
Sep 2011
Oct 2011
Nov 2011
Dec 2011
Jan 2012
Feb 2012
Drupal Commerce Reported Installs
Mar 2012
Apr 2012
May 2012
June 2012
July 2012

7. WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT
POTENTIAL FOR CONFUSION

8. SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
• Drupal Commerce has
product entities and product
display nodes
• Probably
the single most
important concept to get
your head around
• Either
really obvious or really
confusing

9. WHY IS IT THIS WAY?
• Products often have multiple
variations
• Size, colour etc
• You need to know which one
of the variations the customer
wants
• Youneed don't want to display
multiples of similar things

10. THE UPSIDES
• Single
product display can
represent multiple products
• Fine
control of variables for
each variant
• Stock and pricing
• Alternativedisplays for
different contexts

11. THE DOWNSIDES
• Ifyour products are simple
you have to create 2 objects
to create 1 product
• Ifyour products are complex
you could end up with
thousands of variants
• Admin user experience

12. ELIMINATE THE DOWNSIDES
• Two main problems to solve
• Duplication
of effort when it
seems a waste of time
• Manual creation of hundred
of variations

13. PLANNING YOUR PRODUCT
STRUCTURE
• Consider when the product
display is used and when the
product is used
• Anythingproduct variant
specific goes in the product
(eg colour, image)
• Anythinggeneric about the
product goes in the display
(eg marketing description)

14. PLANNING YOUR PRODUCT
STRUCTURE
• Anything you need in the
following scenarios should
go in the product
• Confirmation email
• Order tracking

15. EXAMPLE STRUCTURE

16. PLANNING YOUR PRODUCT
STRUCTURE
• Canalso have multiple
product types
• Where products have
different descriptive
elements
• Or you need separation for
logic

17. PLACING YOUR TAXONOMY
• Ifyou need to have search
or navigation based on
taxonomy apply the
taxonomy to the product
displays
• You could have alternate
taxonomy for admin

18. ENOUGH PLANNING...
Let's see the implementation

19. BULK PRODUCT CREATION
• With the product display system
number of variants can multiply
quickly
•A product with 5 sizes, 3 colours
and 2 fits gives you 30 products for
1 product display
• Bulk product creation set them all
up
• Then delete the ones you don't
need

21. IMPROVING THE OWNER
EXPERIENCE
•A store admin doesn't want
to hear that they have to do
something twice no matter
how well you explain it
• Use inline edit module

23. EXPLAINING AND TRAINING
• Getting this message across
is the key to acceptance of
commerce

24. TERMINOLOGY
• Findthe terminology that fits
with the client product range
• Consensus seems to be
• Product display = Product
• Product entity = Variant

25. ANOTHER SIMPLE RULE
• Products(variants) are for
the back end
• Productdisplays are for the
front end

26. PUTTING IT ALL
TOGETHER
Some scenarios

27. WAYS TO USE MULTIPLE
DISPLAYS
• Youcan group products
together in any way you like
• Different product displays for
different contexts
• Promotionallanding pages
are a good example

28. LANDING PAGES
• Use an alternative product
display for promotional
landing pages
• Youcan change layout in
other ways (display suite)
• Best
use of alternative
product display when you
want to group different
products

29. SALES AND PROMOS
• Alternative product display
scenario
• Normal display shows all
products (variants)
• Sale
version shows only a
subset

30. MULTIPLE PRODUCT TYPES
• Products (variants) have
different data requirements
• Also different rules
• Egbooks - need a way to
identify different VAT
condition

31. RULES BASED PRICING
• Sales and promos
• Usealternative product
types for promo price rules

32. SUMMING UP

33. DRUPAL COMMERCE IS A
FRAMEWORK
• Just
like Drupal there is a great deal of power under the
hood
• Just like Drupal some UX work will help!

34. QUESTIONS?
Richard Jones,
Technical Director, i-KOS
NYC Camp July 2012