TB.One > Product and Article Data > FAQ - Product and Article Data > What are Components?
Components are structured properties of products or articles. They always have a meaningful and intelligible property name, which you can freely define, and an associated value. At the product level, a component always refers to a property that applies to all of the product's articles. At the article level, components are used either to define variant dimensions (e.g. color and/or size) or to display further article properties that differ for each of the product's articles but are not variant-forming. These non-variant-forming article components are supported by only a few channels.
TIP: You sell a jacket in various sizes and colors. The outer jacket is made of Gore-Tex, the inner lining of cotton. Here, the distinguishing features are size and color. They are not maintained as product components but as variant dimensions. As product properties, you create the components "Inner material" or "Lining" and "Outer material" or "Upper". At the article level, you could now add additional article components such as arm length, shoulder width, and overall length. |
Before you can use components, you first need to create them in the system manually, or have them created automatically during the product data import.
ATTENTION: If a component is variant-forming it must not be used as a regular product component. |
COMPONENTS AT CHANNELS
At most channels, some components are mandatory for each product category. These components are listed on the respective channel sheet.
The components can be freely defined and then assigned to the channel's values via the mapping table. For example, the component "pea green" could be mapped to "green" or "color" to "search color" if that information is required by the channel.
If you do not explicitly exclude a component from export to a specific channel, it will be transferred to that channel and directly promote your wares. The more properties you provide for your articles/products, the higher the chance that customers will find them in a shop search. If/how transferred components are displayed in the shop depends on the channel.
For products without variants (so-called simple products), you assign all the necessary components but then do not define variant properties when creating the related article. Many channels expect at least two articles with different variant dimension values when you define a variant article.
ATTENTION: Always contact Tradebyte Support (Support@Tradebyte.com) if you want to change variant dimensions after the first export, since this may lead to technical problems and/or cause additional costs. |
For further information, see also:
•Creating component basic data
•Assigning components to products manually
•Assigning product components and article components via CSV
•Assigning product components and article components via XML
•Translating component designators