The complete magento 2 basic course - open your online shop from A to Z by Magestore

THE COMPLETE MAGENTO 2 BASIC COURSE

MAGESTORE

About the book It’s recommended for a newbie of Magento 2, or who doesn’t have enough time for a massive knowledge to build a Magento 2 eCommerce store. So in this book, we will give you a proper Magento 2 Basic Guide, help you install and set up a basic Magento 2 eCommerce Site as quick as possible with both detail article tutorials. In this book, you’ll learn: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

"How to build Magento 2 Site?" Series What is Magento 2? Magento 2 Installation on localhost via XAMPP Common Error when Installing Magento 2 on localhost Magento 2 General Configuration Magento 2 Products Magento 2 Product Categories Magento 2 Product Attributes Advanced Product Settings in Magento 2 Products Magento 2 CMS Magento 2 Sales Management Tax Rates, Payment Methods and Shipping Methods in Magento 2 Promotion in Magento 2 Magento 2 Customers Third Party Solution in Magento 2

This book may be gave away for educational, business, promotional use. For more information, contact our marketing department: [ +1-606-657-0768] or [ support@magestore.com] While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. 2

About the author Magestore started up in 2009, right after Magento was launched. From our starting point to the current position in top Magento Marketing Extension Providers for , we've never changed our mission to be innovative in marketing function of extension and supportive in customer care. We owe a huge thank to our customers and partners for their on-going companion and we hope that you'll soon take the first step with us for your thousand mile business. Visit Magestore Website: http://www.magestore.com Visit Magetore Magento extensions: http://www.magestore.com/magento-extensions.html Visit Magetore Magento 2 extensions: http://www.magestore.com/magento-2-extensions.html

The Complete Magento 2 Basic Course. How to Build a Magento 2 eCommerce Store? In Magento 2 Tutorial, we try as much as possible to make Magento 2 simple and friendly, however these tutorials are significant knowledge which can’t be acquired in a matter of one day or two. It’s recommended for a newbie of Magento 2, or who doesn’t have enough time for a massive knowledge to build a Magento 2 eCommerce store.

So in this book, we will give you a proper Magento 2 Basic Course, help you install and set up a basic Magento 2 eCommerce Site as quick as possible with both detail video and article tutorials. For a total overview, you can read in the posts below:

● What is Magento 2? First step to build a Magento 2 site. ● List of “Magento 2 Basic Guide” posts.

Prepare Host and Domain

To make a live site, you must prepare Host and Domain for your site. However if you skip using Host and Domain, you can still be able to create a Magento 2 Site. We suggest to build Magento 2 eCommerce site first, then prepare the host and domain for your site later. We will give you full instructions about these things in a near future:

● What is Domain? How to get Domain for Magento 2? ● What is Host? Why you need Magento 2 Hosting?

Okay, let’s head to Magento 2 installation. Read the content below.

Install Magento 2 site

Normally, for a quick test, or in case you want to research more about Host and Domain before purchasing, you can easily set up a Magento 2 site. There are many ways to do this, but we only give you one quickest and easiest method to install Magento 2. Know how to do it in:

● Magento 2 Installation on localhost via XAMPP.

Set up Magento 2 Store

After installation, you need to follow these steps to configure Magento 2 Store settings and manage all of these elements:

1, In Stores, you need to know about General Configuration in Magento 2.

2, In Products, you need to walk through these 4 steps:

● How to use Products Dashboard. ● Categories in Magento 2. ● Product Attributes in Magento 2.

● Advanced Product Settings in Magento 2.

3, In Content, you will know about Magento 2 CMS.

4, In Sales, you can manage your Sales with 2 parts:

● Magento 2 Sales Management. ● Tax Rate, Payment Methods and Shipping Methods in Magento 2.

5, In Marketing, you will have an overview of Promotion in Magento 2.

6, In Customers, remember how to add and manage Customers in Magento 2.

7, Finally, we will give you some essential third party solutions for your Magento 2 site. Moreover, you will understand how to use Magento 2 Themes and Extensions for your store.

In conclusion

Till now, you are having a proper Magento 2 Store. We hope you enjoy this guide and don’t forget to read more advanced tutorial in Magento 2 course. Thank you and see you again.

What is Magento 2? First step to build a Magento 2 site

You may somehow have visited my website for a purpose? And I believe I know the main reason why you are here, reading this post. Because you are trying to figure out, study, or research of Magento 2 – a successor of the former open source platform Magento. You are waiting for a help to answer one question: how to build ecommerce website.

In order to build ecommerce website with Magento 2, and still professionally, you should have tons of knowledge of Magento, as well as required conditions for building a proper site such as hosting, domain name. Problem is, you have zero knowledge. But don’t worry, if you want to build a Magento 2 website, just collect your desire to learn and ability to use computer, you can learn how to use Magento 2 quickly. This series is designed to guide you through 15+ lessons in the field of creating an own Magento 2 site, even for a newcomer.

Or, you are an expert in Magento 1, believing that your Magento store will stay the same forever. It’s time for you to think again. Since the release of Magento 2, Magento will update and support their latest platform better than the previous version. According to some sources, Magento CE 1.9 will stop in 2018, and then the store owners won’t receive latest update as well as security patches for their precious store.

What you could learn from this series?

A LOT, I can assure you that. During nearly one year, I have been asked many basic questions such as: How can I build a Magento 2 site?, Why following steps to install Magento 2 does not work?, Where can I find Magento log file? or even Why I need

Magento 2? All those questions urge me and my team to complete this series as soon as possible.

In this series, you will be guaranteed with the most basic things of Magento 2, which you can how to build ecommerce website. Even if you can’t install Magento 2, I will share you the easiest way to perform.

Who are the targets of this series?

This series will provide the most basic things in Magento 2, so any present and future shop owners will benefit the most. However, because this series will start with the basics and end with more advanced topics, web programmers who are familiar with PHP and want to start with Magento 2, or who have worked with Magento 1 will also need this tutorial to know how things work in Magento 2.

What is Magento 2?

History of Magento

Magento 2 is the latest upgrade of Magento, which was originally developed by Varien Inc, an US private company headquartered in Culver City, California, combining with the voluntary assistance. Started officially in 2007, which to be more certain, August 31 is the date of first public beta version release. Then Roy Rubin, CEO of Varien decided to sell a substantial of 49% share to eBay. Later, eBay acquired ownership 100% of Magento 2 on June 6, 2011, but spun out as an independent company by new owner Permira private equity fund on November 3, 2015.

On November 17, 2015, Magento 2 was officially released. Inherited lots of success factors of Magento, Magento 2 also present modern technologies and structure, as well as modified directory structure but more simplified customization. Now Magento 2 and Magento 1 are existing simultaneously.

Overview of Magento 2 Features

Like almost current platforms, Magento 2 consists of both frontend and backend (or Admin Panel), one for administration and one for customers of store. Now let’s take a close look.

a, Backend features

In comparison with Magento 1, Magento 2 Admin Panel is much more intuitive and friendly. In Magento 1, you enjoyed the horizontal menu on the top of Admin Panel, like this:

But the menu in Magento 2 is vertical on the left, and is designed with flat type.

In most review of new interface in Magento 2, the backend interface delivered both improved utilizing and be friendly with larger click and tap button. Clearly, Magento 2 aims directly at merchant targets, who are almost non-technical users.

_ â&#x20AC;&#x2039;Dashboard:

The dashboard emphasizes more at Lifetime Sales and Average Order, highlight both Lifetime sales and Revenue – 2 factors that store owners care most. You can also enable/disable chart to show revenue in a variety duration of time. The old 4 tabs is bigger, much easier to click.

_ Sales: Just like the Dashboard, all sub categories in Sales: Orders, Invoices, Shipments, Credit Memos, Transactions, Tax display bigger tables. However, Order View of Magento 2 is not just big but also long, making you scroll more and therefore, this Order View is more irritating. There is a new sub category Billing Agreements replaced Terms and Conditions.

_ Products: There is no category called Catalog anymore. The tables are bigger but not allow customize quantity of products per page like Sales category. Also, there are lots of default view.

Store view separates in basics settings and advanced settings for best User experiences.

_ â&#x20AC;&#x2039;Customers:

_ Marketing:

The old Promotion category in Magento 1 is now just one sub category in new Marketing category. There are more things for store owners to manage like Communications, SEO & Search and User content.

_ Content: This is where CMS old category place in, and with new Design sub category.

_ Report: New category and really this is one of a must have functions for store owners to manage their website. Report is not only for Marketing: Products in Cart, Search Terms, Abandoned Carts and Newsletter Problem Reports or for Sales Report; you can have wide overview of customers’ reviews. Now report is not a burden bit a powerful tool.

_ Store: This is where you put your Magento 2 extensions aimed to turn your tiny ecommerce store into a robust business site of online retail in order to manage 14

inventory, suppliers, purchase orders, enhance e-commerce user experience and help ensure a successful online shopping experience.

_ System: The last in Magento 2 backend menu, for customizing settings.

However, the Magento 2 default features may not be enough to satisfy your requirements, especially for complicated stores. So, you can consider to use the professional eCommerce solutions aimed at boost sales and maximize profit.

b, Frontend features

Okay, so you all agree that Admin Panel in Magento 2 has some nice improvements, but what about the frontend. Well, what I could tell you are:

_ The new default Magento 2 Luma Theme looks much better than default theme in Magento 1:

_ Now the responsive web design and faster performance is two new advantages of frontend theme of Magento 2. Your customers won’t need to suffer from waiting for whole page to load in order to see full content length.

_ New 2-step Checkout for Magento 2, it is now much easier than default 6-step checkout process of Magento 1. Allow your customers to sign up right in checkout page. The Order details are clear with all displaying products, their quantities and the images. But it is still far from being perfect. Chances are, another store owner already uses the One Step Checkout which boosts 40% faster than the default Magento checkout.

Pros and Cons of Magento 2

Now we will dig deep in the Pros and Cons of Magento 2, and see if Magento 2 is a necessary upgrade or not.

a, Pros

_ Non-technical store owners exactly want the New Backend Admin Panel:

You hate to call all your dev team to fix some images of products in your store. Well, the nightmare ends now, with highly – improved Admin Panel interface and optimized UX, Magento 2 help non-technical users accomplish more works than they could do in the past. This is also one of the competitive advantages to compete with Shopify Plus.

_ The speed is matchless by Magento 1:

Well, Magento 1 is infamous for its slow loading time compared with other platforms. Chance is, you may want to upgrade to Magento 2 because it is much faster. One of the reasons is how the caching is set up. Cache is temporary storage of data to reduce lag, server load and bandwidth usage. With the built-in Full Page Cache, you can reduce the loading time of Magento 2 by half.

In a nutshell, improving cache means your pages will load much quicker, allowing delivering your content quicker to your customer and also to your backend environment. Quicker load time means a better UX: optimization of cache in Magento 2 can help improve your overall customer user experience, meaning a higher conversion rate.

_ Magento 2 integrates with almost Popular Payment Gateways:

Although Magento 1 has released several updates to integrate with more popular payment gateways, Magento 2 is supported to do that from the beginning. Easier integration with more popular payment gateways is one key factor to better overall checkout UX. New popular payment gateways have been included in Magento 2:

+ PayPal

+ Braintree

+ Authorize.net

+ WorldPay (Enterprise Edition)

+ CyberSource (Enterprise Edition)

b, Cons

_ Magento 1 Themes canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be ported:

Well, even if the default theme of Magento 2 is better than Magento 1, you may still want to keep the old themes so your customers wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel strange. Though you can try to

migrate data using some Migration tool to Magento 2, Magento 1 themes still can’t be transferred properly. So it’s better you should think about new themes of Magento 2.

Today, Magento 2 presents lots of great themes which you can bring a new face to your store.

_ Not all Extensions are available for Magento 2:

There are many trusted research confirmed that Magento 1 extensions can’t be ported to Magento 2, either. You should wait for your provider to upgrade their extensions to Magento 2 so you can download it again, or eventually repurchase this extension with higher cost.

This con, in particular, is one that creates a hesitancy in many merchants considering upgrading to Magento 2. It will take time for the development community to dig into Magento 2 and build extensions compatible with the new release. Also, these extensions will need to be verified by the Magento community before making them publicly available.

However, Magestore policies allow our customers to free update to Magento 2 once they purchased Magento 1 in the past. Interesting, isn’t it?

_ Magento 2 Enterprise Edition costs more:

Magento 2 Community Edition will continue to be free, but the Enterprise Edition requires much more money in the price tag. Despite of the increase in its cost, there are many benefits in the Enterprise Edition of Magento 2 such as:

+ Enhanced site management

+ Enhanced catalog management

+ Dynamic marketing & management features

+ Customer loyalty programs

+ Dedicated 24/7 support

Summarized features of Magento 2

_ Powered by an entirely new, next-generation architecture, Magento 2 provides unparalleled flexibility so your ecommerce website will be much more beautiful.

_ Magento 2 empowers all store merchants with Enhanced speed and so does productivity. Featuring over 50% faster page load speeds across catalog and checkout

pages, performance lies at the heart to enhance the customer experience and improve conversion rates.

_ Magento 2 offers more secured payments. And since security is one of the key elements to success, you should think about upgrading to Magento 2.

_ Not only the frontend UX is good, but Magento 2 Admin Panel is also described by one word: “amazing”. Lots of new features help even non-technical store owners manage Magento 2 easily.

Moreover, Magento has easy maintenance and update, which bring the unsurpassed flexibility. And so do Magento 2

Trivia

_ Due to aheadworks research, Magento’s market share is about 30%, being the most popular ecommerce platforms.

_ Builtwith shows trend of Magento among ecommerce platform: about 5%.

How to install Magento 2 on localhost via XAMPP After these 10 steps, I guarantee you will create a Magento 2 site on localhost with XAMPP.

Step 1 First, you need to know the requirements to install Magento 2. When you download one version of Magento 2, there will be a line below to tell you which Web server, database and php configuration you need for this version. You should download Magento 2 from Magento website: https://magento.com/tech-resources/downloads/magento/.

In this guide, we use Magento Community Edition 2.0.10, which requires at least php 5.5.22. For more information of prerequisites of Magento 2, read in http://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.0/install-gde/system-requirements-2.0-tech.html.

If you choose version 2.1, you can read in http://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.1/install-gde/system-requirements-2.1-tech.html.

Step 2 Supposed that you don’t have XAMPP, you can download XAMPP from here: https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html.

In this guide we use Magento Community Edition 2.0.10 with XAMPP version 5.6.24, but you can try other versions of XAMPP which meets the requirements of your version of Magento 2.

After finishing the set up of XAMPP, open it and start both Apache and MySQL web server.

When both modules have a green background, you know they have been already ready.

Actually, the most often hindrance to start Apache is when a program also takes port 443 or 444 like this

You should turn off the program using same port with Apache in order to continue.

Step 3 Now, go to the default folder of XAMPP: C:\xampp\htdocs. Create a new folder, for example named “magento2″. Move and extract the downloaded file of Magento 2 in this new folder.

Step 4 Open your web browser, type in search bar: localhost/name-of-new-folder/. In this example, it is localhost/magento2/. Welcome you to the Magento 2 installation on localhost with XAMPP.

Time to hit Agree and Setup Magento button.

Step 5 Now you need to go through 6-step-installation of Magento 2. So watch it closely.

Click Readiness Check button. If you pass all the checks, you can continue. Have you not, you must fix the error to continue. The 2 most often errors are p hp Settings Check and php Extensions Check.

PHP Settings Check: always_populate_raw_post_data error. To resolve this error, you need to access php.ini file. Using XAMPP, open this file like that:

Search this line: always_populate_raw_post_data = -1

Make sure the number is -1, then remove the semicolon “;” at the beginning of the lines.

PHP Extensions Check: The usual missing extensions are xsl and intl. To resolve this, search extension=php_intl.dll as well as extension=php_xsl.dll, then both remove the beginning semicolon “;”.

Now you need to stop both Apache and MySQL in XAMPP, then restart them again for new effects to be activated and resolved. Click Try Again in localhost for new result, after checking, hit Next.

Step 6 Add necessary database, like Database Server Host, Database Server Username and Database Name.

Switch to localhost/phpmyadmin in web browser, create a new database name exactly the same with your previous Database Name when adding necessary database.

Step 7 Web Configuration. Insert your Store Address here, also remember the Admin Address.

*Note: use your IP server instead of “localhost”. You can shorten the latter to just be “admin”.

Find your IP in â&#x20AC;&#x2039;localhost/phpmyadmin â&#x20AC;&#x2039;like that:

Step 8 Customize your Store. Change Default Time Zone, Currency as well as Language here.

Step 9 Create Admin Account. This is your Admin Panel account.

Step 10 Install. Hit the Install Now button and wait for 2-3 minutes. It’s really simple.

Fix Magento 2 layout crashing installing localhost with XAMPP

when

When you finished 10 steps to install Magento 2 localhost with XAMPP, though having a successful notification, you still have a chance to face some errors, especially the layout crashing. According to our experiment, 70% Windows PCs can take the risk of encountering this error but mainly focus on Windows 10. The previous Windows versions such as Windows 7 and Windows 8 has a slightly chance to have layout crashing but it still worth to consider the solution.

It seems to look normal but it’s not

Magento logo is missing in backend interface

The menu slide bar is not responding

The problem is due to unsuccessful symlink process when Magento 2 cannot use symlink to connect its modules and make them work. You can find more documents about the error by google these keywords “symbolic symlink in magento 2” or “Magento 2 cannot create symlink”.

These are 5 simple steps from Magestore to fix it. Hope this will help you!

Step 1 Download and install Notepad++

Step 2 Go to your Xampp folder > htdocs > mageto2 > app > etc and find “di.xml” file

access C:\xampp\htdocs\magento2\app\etc and find di.xml

Step 3 Click right mouse button at “di.xml” file and choose “edit with notepad++”

Step 4 On Notepad++ window, scroll to the line “584” :

<item name="view_preprocessed" xsi:type="object">Magento\Framework\App\View\Asset\MaterializationStrategy\Sym link</item>

On the line 584, modify the word “Symlink” into “Copy” and save the file

Step 5 Restart Apache and MySQL on XAMPP then access your localhost of Magento 2 website again and problem will be solved.

General Configuration in Magento 2 Today we will introduce to you the General Configuration of your Magento 2 web store. You need to configure the General Settings right after you successfully installed Magento 2.

In Admin Panel, navigate to Stores -> Configuration:

General

In General, you need to notice these fields:

1, Country Options:

_ Default Country: Choose your Default Country, in our case is United States.

_ Allow Countries: Default is All Countries Allowed, but in case you want to remove any countries out of this list, HOLD Ctrl and click on this country, then remove one by one.

_ Zip/Postal Code, European Union Countries and Top Destinations: Same as above.

2, State Options:

_ Stated is Required for: Default is All the countries dividing into States. You can remove one or more countries with “Ctrl“.

_ Allow to Choose State if It is Optional for Country: Choose Yes or No.

3, Locale Options:

_ Timezone: The Timezone of your Store.

_ Locale: The default Language.

_ Weight Unit: The weight unit will be used in your store, as well as shipping process.

_ First Day of Week: Setup your Calendar.

_ Weekend Days: Choose the Weekend Days.

4, Store Information:

Simply Add all your current information about your Store here.

5, Single-Store Mode:

Remember: This setting will not be taken into account if system has more than one store view.

Web

In Web, you must notice these fields:

1, Search Engine Optimization:

If you want Search Engines to crawl and index your website, you must enable this option.

In “Use Web Server Rewrites”, choose Yes.

2, Base URL (Secure):

This field will qualify the URL using Secure Base URL. You should notice this field because of these two options:

_ Use Secure URLs on Storefront: In case you wish your store frontend to open only via HTTPS, set this option to Yes.

_ Use Secure URLs in Admin: It’s similar to the frontend, to secure the Admin of your store with SSL, you set this option to Yes.

3, Default Pages:

Generally, you should just leave these options as default. However, you should notice these options to avoid related problems.

_ Default Web URL: The default Web URL of your store.

_ CMS Home page: Default is the Home page.

_ Default No-route URL: The default No-route URL.

_ CMS No Route Page: Default is 404 Not Found.

_ CMS No Cookies Page: Default is Enable Cookies.

_ Show Breadcrumbs for CMS Pages: Default is Yes.

Design Theme

To design your web store, you need to know about these fields:

1, Design Theme:

_ Design Theme: If no value is specified, the system default will be used. The system default may be modified by third party extensions.

_ User-Agent Exceptions: Normally you don’t want to make any exception, but you can add any search strings to be excluded.

2, HTML Head:

This field contains lots of search engine options:

_ Favicon Icon: Choose your own Favicon Icon.

_ Default Title: Create your Meta Title.

_ Title Prefix or Suffix: Can leave them alone, or create it, just depend on you.

_ Default Description: Create your Meta Description.

_ Default Keywords: Create your Meta Keywords.

_ Miscellaneous Scripts: This will be included before head closing tag in page HTML. You can put your Scripts here.

3, Search Engine Robots:

_ Default Robots: You want to be certain that the options is INDEX, FOLLOW.

And you can add your robots.txt for more exclusion to other kind of bots.

4, Header and Footer:

You can customize your Header with these options: Logo Image, Width and Height of Logo Image, Logo Image Alt and Welcome Text.

Then you could change the Copyright in Footer. Miscellaneous HTML will be displayed just before body closing tag.

5, Pagination:

Pagination control is important in an ecommerce store. You can manage the settings of pagination easily in Magento 2.

Contacts

1, Contact Us:

Enable Contact Us to Yes so your customer can contact you easily.

2, Email Options:

Input your Email here, choose the Email Sender as well as Email Template.

Currency Setup

In Currency Options, you just need to notice these fields:

_ Base Currency: You chose the base while you was installing Magento 2. Base currency is used for all online payment transactions. If you have more than one store view, the base currency scope is defined by the catalog price scope.

_ Default Display Currency: The Currency will be displayed in your store. Choose it as the same with Base Currency.

_ Allowed Currency: The currency which will be allowed in payment of your store.

You can watch this video or read the tutorial below to understand more about Products Dashboard in Magento 2. Contents [hide] ● ●

●

1 Introduce Magento 2 Products Dashboard 2 Six default product types in Magento 2 ○ 2.1 Simple Product ○ 2.2 Configurable Product ○ 2.3 Grouped Product ○ 2.4 Virtual Product ○ 2.5 Bundle Product ○ 2.6 Downloadable Product 3 How to set up other product types ○ 3.1 Create a Simple Product ○ 3.2 Create a Configurable Product ○ 3.3 Create a Grouped Product ○ 3.4 Create a Virtual Product ○ 3.5 Create a Bundle Product ○ 3.6 Create a Downloadable Product

Introduce Magento 2 Products Dashboard Product is the most important thing in any E-commerce websites. Before selling online with Magento 2, we will have a quick look at the dashboard of Magento 2 which can manage all of your products. You have to follow this path to open Magento 2 Product Dashboard: Product >> Catalog.

On the image below, you can see that Magento 2 product dashboard includes these functions for you to manage products:

There are 4 main function panels: 1 Products Table: a place that contains all of your products information such as images, name, price, quantity, identification code (SKU) …etc. 2 Action Box: Where you can edit, change, update products in bulk easily. 3 Filter and View modes: ● Filter: you can select product with specific information such as: price, quantity .. ( you can see the products that cheaper than $100, or available quantity is under 10 … with this function) 57

● Number of products view in the first page: Choose to see 20 or 50 … products in 1 views from dashboard. ● Product listing page: Go to next and previous pages of products. ● View shortcut: Want to quickly access some special view such as : Filter Number of products that have quantity under 10 to purchase more from suppliers, you can save this view as a shortcut to quickly access in the next time in 1 click without using filter again. ● Column display setting in the table: Choose which information will be shown in the table by tick on it.

4 Add Product button: You can start to add a new product by click on this button.

Six default product types in Magento 2 You can create any different kind of product types that you want with Magento 2. However, in default mode, Magento 2 has the same 6 product types but it has some improvements in detail of each type in comparison with Magento 1: ● ● ● ● ● ●

Simple Products Grouped Products Bundled Products Configurable Products Virtual Products Downloadable Products

It is really important to understand about â&#x20AC;&#x2039;6 default product types because each one of them has its specific type and attributes.

Simple Product

As itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s named, a simple product is a physical item with a single SKU. This type of products has a variety of pricing and of input controls which make it possible to sell variations of the product. Simple products can be used in association with grouped, bundle, and configurable products.

Configurable Product

A configurable product looks like a single product with drop-down lists of options for each variation. Each option is actually a separate simple product with a unique SKU, which makes it possible to track inventory for each product variation. You could achieve a similar effect by using a simple product with custom options, but without the ability to track inventory for each variation.

Grouped Product

Different with 2 types above, grouped product is made up of simple standalone products that are presented as a group. You can offer variations of a single product, or group them by season or theme to create a set of different products. Each product can be purchased separately or as part of the group. In the shopping cart, each item is listed separately.

Virtual Product

Virtual products are not tangible products and are typically used for products such as services, memberships, warranties, and subscriptions. Virtual products can be sold individually, or included as part of the following product types: Grouped Product and Bundle Product.

Bundle Product

A bundled product let customers â&#x20AC;&#x153;build their ownâ&#x20AC;? from an assortment of options. The bundle could be a gift basket, computer, or anything else that can be customized. Each item in a bundle can be based on one of the following product types: Simple Product and Virtual Product.

Downloadable Product

A downloadable product can be anything that you can deliver as a file, such as an eBook, music, video, software application, or update. You can offer an album for sale, and sell each song individually. You can also use a downloadable product to deliver an electronic version of your product catalog. Because the actual download doesn’t become available until after the purchase, you can provide samples, such as an excerpt from a book, a clip from an audio file, or a trailer from a video that the customer can try before purchasing the product. The files that you make available for download can be either uploaded to your server, or from a different server.

How to set up other product types Create a Simple Product Step 1Click on “Add product” button then choose “Simple product”. On the administrator backend, you need to follow this path: Product >> Catalog. There is an “Add Product” button on the top right of admin menu, you click on the dropdown menu and choose “Simple product”:

Step 2Fill in Product Details. Now you need to fill in the detail of each product that you want to sell like the image below:

You need to fill in: Product name

Fill in your product name

SKU

This is an identification code for each product, you can find exactly any product by searching for this code.

Price

The price of your product

Tax class

Choose this box to Taxable Goods

Images Video

Upload your images or videos of product here

Quantity

The number of products that you have in store, choose the status to in stock or out of stock

Weight

Fill in the weight of product if needed

Categories

Place this product in suitable categories, in this example, I place it in category Camera that I have just created by click New category

Description

The description of product that you want to sell to help customers understand more about it as well as persuade them to purchase

Downloadabl e Information

For downloadable product or configurable product type only, you can skip them.

Configuratio ns Remember to choose categories for your product. Read more about â&#x20AC;&#x2039;Product Category in Magento 2â&#x20AC;&#x2039;.

Don’t forget to select your product attribute also. Read more about Product Attributes in Magento 2.

* About other tabs: _ Image and Video: You can choose to upload more images. or videos here _ Search engine optimization: You can optimize your product for SEO. We will talk about this later in Magento 2 SEO series if you are serious about SEO. _ Website: Keep it in default, there is nothing to change here _ Advance setting tab: These setting will be beneficial for your store if it’s big enough, however, with small online store, you can skip these settings. Step 3Save product.

Choose status of product to “Product Online” and then click “Save” to publish the product.

Done, you have finished creating a new simple product in Magento 2.

Create a Configurable Product To create a configurable product, you do the same step 1 and step 2 in previous topic about how to create a simple product: Step 1 Click on Add Product >> Configurable Product.

Step 2 Fill the information in blank spaces: Product name; SKU; Price, Store view, Quantiy, …etc Step 3 (Important) Adding Configurations for your products

Choose your product attribute or create new. One again, read about Magento 2 Product Attributes.

For example, choose â&#x20AC;&#x153;color attributeâ&#x20AC;? when you go to attribute value step, tick all colors of product that you had.

Then you need to configure the Product Images, Price, and Quantity. This step determines the images, pricing and quantity of each configuration. The available options are the same for each, and you can choose only one. You can apply the same setting to all SKUs, apply a unique setting to each SKU, or skip the settings for now.

In the next stage, you can see the preview about your created configurable products. Hit “Generate Product” to finish process.

Step 4After successfully create configurations for your product, Save Product.

Choose status of product to “Product Online” and then click “Save” to publish the product

Create a Grouped Product Following these 4 steps to set up a grouped product Step 1 and Step 2 Do the same as simple product Step 3Scroll down and tap on “Add Products To Group” button

In the list, mark the checkbox of each item that you want to include in the group then tap “Add Selected Products” to add them to the group.

Step 4Save Product.

Create a Virtual Product Virtual products are used to represent non-tangible items such as memberships, services, warranties, or subscriptions. Aside from the absence of the Weight field, the process of creating a virtual product and a simple product is the same.

Create a Bundle Product The selection of options appears when the customer taps either the Customize and Add to Cart button. Because the products that are included in the bundle vary, the SKU, Price, and Weight can be set to either a dynamic or fixed value. Following these step to create bundle product: Step 1 and Step 2 Do the same as mentioned above. Notice that there are some change in option of SKU, price, weight … between dynamic and fixed.

Step 3Scroll down to the Bundle Items section. Then, set Ship Bundle Items to one of the following: Separately or Together.

Tap “Create New Option”. Then, mark the checkbox of each product that you want to include in this option.

If there are many products, use the list filters and pagination controls to find the products you need. Then tap “Add Selected Products”.

In the Default Quantity column, enter the quantity of each item that is to be added to the bundle when a customer chooses the item. To allow customers to change the quantity of any bundle item, mark the User Defined checkbox of any item that you do not want changed. Repeat these steps for each item you want to add to the bundle. To remove any item from the bundle, tap the Delete icon. Step 4Save Product.

Create a Downloadable Product Following these step to create downloadable product: Step 1 and Step 2 Do the same as mentioned above. Step 3Complete Downloadable Information Scroll down to Downloadable Information, and expand the section. Then, mark the “Is this downloadable product?” Checkbox.

The Downloadable Information section has two parts. The first part describes each download link, and the second part describes each sample file. Click on Add new link and complete the links.

Click on â&#x20AC;&#x153;Add new linkâ&#x20AC;? and complete the sample if you want to provide a sample to customer.

Step 4â&#x20AC;&#x2039;Save Product.

Magento 2 Categories Introduce Magento 2 Categories

Product categories are the bone of every online store. If you are a store owner, you have to spend every time to research, plan and create excellent categories to effectively manage your store products. Not only do good categories help you to manage your products, but they can also help the customer to easily find the products on your online store website.

Content Management System (CMS) Magento 2 gives you a lot of support in creating new categories. It is very simple to create product categories in Magento 2. Today, I will show you the way to create a category. But first, you need to know some basic knowledge about root-category and sub-category.

The differences between root-category and sub-category

In some Magento forums, many Magento 2 users have several questions about root category. It’s easier to be familiar with subcategories than root category. Store product will normally be organized as sub-categories and under a root category.

The category structure is like an upside-down tree, with the root on top. All categories in your catalog are nested below the root. Because the root category is the highest level of the catalog, your online store can have only one root-category active at a time. However, you can create additional root categories for alternate catalog structures, different stores, and views. Unlike sub-category, root-category is not visible to your customers and does not have an URL key.

When you start to build category structure for a new Magento 2 website, in category dashboard, there is only one root category which is named as “Default Category”. You can change the name and organize the position of any root-category or sub-category by using left click and drag them.

Set up store category in Magento 2

One of the key features of Magento 2 CMS is its support for multiple stores. You can host and manage several entirely different online stores and this can be done with a single Magento 2 installation. Each store pulls its products from a Root Category.

● If you have only one online store, you just need only one root category. ● If you are running several different online stores, but all them are selling same products, you can assign the same root category to all of them. ● If you want to have different stores carry different products, you will want to create a Root Category for each store.

Once the Root Categories are set up, you can add more sub categories and organize your product line. These categories need to be set before you set up your stores.

How to create a Root Category?

Creating a root category is really easy, you can follow 3 simple steps below:

Step 1Navigate to Product >> Categories. Then click on “Add Root Category” button located on the left-hand side of the page.

Step 2Fill in the information in blank spaces. There are four tabs which you can use to set options for this root category.

● General Information – General options for the category including its name, active setting, thumbnail image, category page title, and keyword(s). ● Display Settings – Determines how your products are displayed on the category page. 80

● Custom Design – Adds your custom design options to a category. ● Category Products – This is where you assign products to a given category. If you have one site/store being hosted from your Magento install, this would likely include all of your active products.

In the basic level, you should focus and fill the information in only 2 tabs which are General Information tab and Display Setting tab.

1 In General Information tab:

Name

Enter the name of the root category.

Is active

If you want to active this root category, choose Yes.

URL key

The URL leading to this directory

Description

Fill the Description about this category.

Image

You can upload an image for this category and it will be set as thumbnail image

Page Title

The title of the page that will show on your browser’s tab

Meta Keywords

Used by search engines to index the category’s page

Meta Description

This description will help search engines to better understand the content of the category

Include in Navigation Menu

If you have more than 1 root categories you will need to set this to “Yes”.

2 In Display Setting tab:

Display Mode

You can select the way that your category show up in front end. There are 3 options: “Product only”, “Static Block”, “Static Block and Product”

Is Anchor

If you want this category page to display the “Filter by Attribute” section of layered navigation, choose “Yes”

Available Product

Skip it or clear the check box to edit

Listing By

Default Product Listing By

Sort

Layered Navigation Price Step

Step 3Hit the “Save Category” button.

How to Create a Sub Category?

Step 1Click on the category that you want to create a sub category then hit the button: “Add sub category”.

For example: If you want to create a sub category named “B” under a category named “A”. First you need to click on category A.

Then hit the “Add sub category” button.

Step 2and Step 3Do the same way to create a root category as mentioned above.

Fill the information and press Save, now we have sub category B under category A.

How to apply a New Root Category to your Store?

Step 1On Admin slide bar menu, choose “Stores >> All Stores”.

Step 2In All Stores dashboard, tap on Main Website Store.

Step 3Choose the root category that you want to assign then press the “Save” button.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about how you can create a category and configure it in Magento 2. Hope this will help you.

Magento 2 Product Attributes Introduce Magento 2 Product Attributes

In this tutorial, we will illustrate how you can setup your products’ attributes. Attributes are an important part of your product catalog because each of them can help potential customers with choosing a certain product that corresponds to their needs. Users will also be able to search and compare products based on their attributes.

Your Magento 2 store includes predefined attributes such as Name, Price, and Description, that can be used for any product. In addition to these, you can create new custom attributes to improve your product information and help your clients with their choice. These are 4 simple steps to set up your product’s attribute.

How to add a Product Attributes

Step 1Login to your website administrator back-end dashboard. On the left menu slide bar, navigate to Stores >> Products.

Step 2On the Product Attributes dashboard, press “Add New Attribute” button.

Step 3Fill the necessary information in blank spaces.

There are 3 main tabs for you to set up your Product Attribute information: Properties; Manage Labels; Storefront Properties.

+ Properties: The Properties section includes both basic and advanced attribute properties.

+ Manage Labels: The label identifies an attribute in the Admin and also in the storefront of each store view. If your store is available in multiple languages, you can enter a different translated label for each language.

+ Storefront Properties: The Storefront Properties determine how an attribute can be used in your store, its appearance, and behavior. You can specify if attributes are available for search, layered navigation, product comparisons, price rules, and sorting.

For text attributes, you can enable the WYSIWYG editor, and determine if HTML tags can be used to format the values.

1â&#x20AC;&#x2039;Guide for Properties Tab:

ATTRIBUTE PROPERTIES

Default Label

The label that identifies the attribute during data entry.

Catalog Input Type for Store Owner

Determines the data type and input control that is used to manage the product from the store Admin.

Options include: Text Field; Text Area; Date; Yes/No; Multiple select; Dropdown; Price;â&#x20AC;Ś

Values Required

To require that a value to be entered in this field before the record can be saved, set Values Required to “Yes.”

ADVANCED ATTRIBUTE PROPERTIES

Attribute Code (Required)

A unique identifier for internal use. The Attribute Code must begin with a letter, but can include a combination of lowercase letters (a-z) and numbers (0-9).

Scope

Limits the use of an attribute to a specific store view or website. Options include: Store View; Website, Global.

Default Value

Assigns a starting value to the attribute to help during data entry. To assign a default value for Multiple Select or Dropdown input types, see: Creating Attributes.

(A default value cannot be set for Multiple Select, Dropdown, or Fixed Product Tax input types).

Unique Value

Set this to Yes, if you want the data saved in this attribute to be unique for each product. If you have different products made of the same material or having the same feature, leave this to No.

Input Validation for Store Owner

Performs a validation check of the data entered in the field, based on the following options: “None; Decimal Number; Integer Number; Email, URL, Letter …”

Add Column Options

Use in Filter Options

Determines if the column appears in the product grid.

Determines if the attribute is used as a filter control at the top of columns in the grid.

2Guide for Storefront Properties Tab:

Use in Search

Comparable on Storefront

Select “Yes” if you want people to be able to search the catalog based on the value of this attribute. The following attributes appear when Search is enabled:

[Search Weight]

To weight the search results, set Search Weight to a number from 1 to 5.

[Visible in Advanced Search]

Gives shoppers the ability to enter search criteria through a form. Options include: Yes / No.

Select “Yes” to include this attribute as a row in the Compare Products report. Options include: Yes/No.

Use In Layered Navigation

Includes the attribute as a filter in the “Shop By” section of layered navigation. Options include:

[No]

The attribute is not available to be used as a filter in layered navigation.

[Filterable (with results)]

Layered navigation includes only those filters for which matching products can be found. Any attribute value that already applies to all products shown in the list does not appear as an available filter.

The filtered list of products includes only those that match the filter. The products list is updated only if the selected filter(s) change what is currently shown.

[Filterable (no results)]

Use In Search Results

Layered navigation includes filters for all available attribute values and their product counts, including those with zero (0) product matches. If the attribute value is a swatch, the value appears as a filter, but is crossed out.

To include the attribute in the layered navigation for search results, select “Yes”.

Layered Navigation

Position

Determines the position of the attribute in layered navigation in relation to other filterable attributes.

Use for Promo Rule Conditions

To make the attribute available for use in price rules, select “Yes”.

Allow HTML Tags on Storefront

(Text Field and Text Area input types only) To be able to format the attribute value with HTML tags, select “Yes”.

Visible on Catalog Pages on Storefront

(Simple and virtual products only) To include the attribute on the Additional Information tab of the product page, select “Yes”.

Used in Product Listing

Depends on the theme. To include the attribute in product summaries that appear in catalog listings, select “Yes”.

Used for Sorting in Product Listing

Depending on theme, includes the attribute as a “Sort By” option for catalog listings.

Step 4Hit “Save Attribute” button.

Attribute Sets

One of the first steps when creating a product is to choose the attribute set that is used as a template for the product record. The attribute set determines the fields that are available during data entry, and the values that appear to the customer.

The attributes are organized into groups that determine where they appear in the product record. Your store comes with an initial attribute set called “default” which includes a set of commonly-used attributes. If you would like to add only a small number of attributes, you can add them to the default attribute set. However, if you sell products that require specific types of information, such as cameras, it might be better to create a dedicated attribute set that includes the specific attributes that are needed to describe the product.

To Create An Attribute Set

Step 1On the Admin sidebar, tap Store > Attribute Set.

Step 2Click on “Add Attribute Set” then do the following:

1Enter a Name for the attribute set.

2Set Based On to an existing attribute set to be used as a template.

3Tap Save. The next page displays the following:

● The left column shows the name of the attribute set. The name is for internal reference, and can be changed as needed. ● The center of the page lists the current selection of attribute groups. ● The right column lists the selection of attributes that are currently not assigned to the attribute set.

4To add a new attribute to the set, drag the attribute from the Unassigned Attributes list to the appropriate folder in the Groups column.

Step 3When complete, tap Save.

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To Create A New Attribute Group

1In the Groups column the attribute set, tap Add New.

2Enter a Name for the new group, and tap OK.

3Do either of the following:

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+ Drag Unassigned Attributes to the new group.

+ Drag attributes from any other group to the new group.

-> The new group becomes a section of attributes in any product that is based on the attribute set.

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Advanced Product Settings in Magento 2 Products In previous lesson, we provide some basic knowledge about using product dashboard. Today we are going to higher level of using product dashboard with â&#x20AC;&#x2039;Advanced Product Settingsâ&#x20AC;&#x2039;. To access Advanced Product Settings, click on your product or create a new one, a drop-down Advanced Settings menu will appear on the left.

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Advanced Pricing

The â&#x20AC;&#x2039;Advanced Pricing settings are used to define the conditions for special pricing based on customer group and website, and for quantity discount tier pricing.

Special Price

Offer a discounted price during the time period defined by the From/To dates.

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In the storefront when a special price is available, the retail price is crossed out and the special price appears below in large, bold text.

Special Price From Date

Set the first date the Special Price is available. You can either enter the date or select it from the calendar.

Special Price To Date

Set the last date the Special Price is available. You can either enter the date or select it from the calendar.

Cost

The actual cost of the item.

Tier Price

Offer a quantity discount to members of a specific customer group and website. Options include:

Website

Identify a specific website where the tier price rule applies.

Customer Group

Identify a specific customer group that qualifies to receive the tier price discount.

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Quantity

(Required) The quantity that must be purchased to receive the tier price.

Item Price

(Required) The discounted product price for the quantity purchased.

Action

Deletes the current tier price rule.

Special Price

To offer a special price, enter the discounted price and the dates when the special price is in effect. The special price appears instead of the regular price, followed by “was” (previous price).

To apply special price:

Step 1Go to Advanced Pricing.

Step 2Enter the amount of the Special Price. To establish when the special price is in effect, use the Calendar button to the right of each field to enter the Special Price From and Special Price To dates.

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Step 3Tap Done. Then, tap Save.

Tier Price

Tier pricing lets you offer a quantity discount from the catalog list and product detail pages. The discount can be applied to a specific store view or customer group.

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For example, in the picture above, the regular price of product is $7. The product page calculates the quantity discount and displays a message such as: “Buy 3 for $5.00 each and save 29%”.

To set up a tier price:

Step 1Go to Advanced Pricing.

Step 2In the Tier Price section, tap Add. Then, do the following:

1, If your store has multiple websites, choose the Website where the tier pricing applies.

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2, If applicable, choose the Customer Group to receive the discount.

3, In the Quantity field, enter the quantity that must be ordered to receive the tier price.

4, In the Item Price field, enter the adjusted price of the item.

To apply the same tier to more than one group, create a separate tier for each group, but with the same quantity and Price information. To add another group price, tap Add and repeat the previous steps.

Step 3Tap Done. Then, tap Save.

Manufacturer’s suggested retail price (Minimum Advertised Price)

Merchants are sometimes prohibited from displaying a price that is lower than the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP). Magento’s Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) gives you the ability to remain in compliance with the manufacturer’s requirements while offering your customers a better price. Because requirements differ from one manufacturer to another, you can configure your store to prevent the display of your actual price on pages where it is not allowed to appear according to the terms of the manufacture.

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To apply Minimum Advertised Price:

Step 1In menu sidebar, go to Stores > Configuration > Sales > Sales > Minimum Advertised Price > Enable MAP > Yes.

Step 2Go to Advanced Pricing.

Step 3Set a value for the “Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price” field.

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Step 4Tap Done. Then, tap Save.

Advanced Inventory

Each product in your catalog has both a short and long version of the Advanced Inventory options, depending on whether you want to manage stock for the product. The long form appears when Manage Stock is set to “Yes”.

Without Stock Management

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FIELD

SCOP E

DESCRIPTION

Manage Stock

Global

Determine if inventory control is used to manage this product in your catalog. Option: Yes/No.

Minimum Quantity Allowed in Shopping Cart

Global

Determine the minimum number of the product that can be purchased in a single order.

Maximum Quantity Allowed in Shopping Cart

Global

Determine the maximum number of the product that can be purchased in a single order.

Enable Quantity Increments

Global

Determine if the product can be sold in quantity increments. Option: Yes/No.

Quantity Increments

Global

Enter the number of products that must be purchased at the same time. For example, if set to 6, the customer must purchase a quantity of 6, 12, 18, and so on.

When a product is sold in quantity increments, the number appears in the upper-right corner, next to the shopping cart link. If the customer tries to purchase the

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product in any other quantity, a message will appear in the shopping cart.

With Stock Management

FIELD

SCOP E

DESCRIPTION

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Manage Stock

Global

Determine if Inventory control is used to manage this product in your catalog. There are 2 Options:

Yes

Display the long form with all stock management options.

Display the short form without stock management options.

Quantity

Global

The quantity of the item that is currently in stock.

Quantity for Itemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Status to Become Out of Stock

Global

Determine the stock level at which a product is considered to be out of stock.

Minimum Quantity Allowed in Shopping Cart

Global

Determine the minimum number of the product that can be purchased in a single order.

Maximum Quantity

Global

Determine the maximum number of the product that can be purchased in a single order.

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Allowed in Shopping Cart

Quantity Uses Decimals

Global

Determine if customers can use a decimal value rather than a whole number when entering the quantity ordered. Options:

Yes

Permit values to be entered as decimals, rather than whole numbers, which is suitable for products sold by weight, volume or length.

Require quantity values to be entered as whole numbers.

Can be Divided into Multiple Boxes for Shipping

Global

Determine if parts of the product can be shipped separately. Options: Yes / No

Backorders

Global

Determine how backorders are managed. Backorders do not change the processing status of the order. Funds are still authorized or captured immediately when the order is placed, regardless of whether the

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product is in stock. Products are shipped as they become available. Options:

No Backorders

Do not accept backorders when product is out of stock.

Allow Quantity Below 0

Accept backorders when the quantity falls below zero.

Allow Quantity Below 0 and Notify Customer

Accept backorders when the quantity falls below zero, but notifies customers that orders can still be placed.

Notify for Quantity Below

Global

Determine the stock level at which notification is sent that the inventory has fallen below the threshold.

Enable Quantity Increments

Global

Determine if the product can be sold in quantity increments. Options: Yes / No

Stock Availability

Global

Determine the current availability of the product. Options:

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In Stock

Make the purchase.

product

available

for

Out of Stock

Unless Backorders are activated, prevent the product from being available for purchase and remove the listing from the catalog.