What is a product group?

A product group in Zentail is a set of products that are the same except for one or more pivot attributes. For example, a set of T-Shirts that have the same design but are available in different sizes and colors. For the group of T-Shirts, we say this group pivots on Size and Color.

Product groups in Zentail can be sent to sales channels as variation listing. Each channel has a different name for this concept, see the table below:

Sales Channel	Variation Listing Name
Amazon	Variation Listing / Parent Child Listing
Walmart	Product Variant Groups
Target	VAP (variation parent) / VC (variation child) listing
eBay	Listing with Variations
Shopify	Product with Variants Listing
BigCommerce	Product Options

How to create product groups

Please refer to this article for more on this: How to Create and Manage Product Groups

Glossary of Grouping Terms in Zentail

There are some terms that are helpful to know when talking about groups in Zentail.

Term	Definition	Notes
Group	A collection of SKUs in Zentail	SKUs need to be grouped in Zentail in order to send to a channel as a variation listing
Pivot Attributes	A collection of one or more attributes that define the main way each SKU in a group is unique, for example size and/or color. We say a group "varies" by their pivot attributes	Some channels have limited attributes that are valid to vary by, and this could change per product type. All SKUs in a group must have a unique value for each combination of pivot attributes, otherwise you will get a "duplicate variant error"
Master SKU	This is a SKU in Zentail that defines the collection of SKUs. All SKUs in a group have the same Master SKU	The Master SKU is one of the SKUs in the group, and is a sellable SKU. You must use the Master SKU column when adding or removing a SKU from a group via import
Group Label	This is another way of seeing the group relationship in Zentail	The group label is not what you use to add SKUs to a group or remove SKUs from a group. It is generally autogenerated from the Master SKU in the format "GROUP_<Master SKU>" It can be sent to channels. You can change this value in import, QuickEdit or Bulk Actions via the Group Label field.

How grouping information is sent to channels

Channel	Channel grouping attribute	Attribute in Zentail	Override	Note
Amazon	Parent SKU	Group Label	Amazon Parent SKU Override	Default sent as "Group_<Master SKU>+P+"
Walmart	Variant Group ID	Product ID of Master SKU	N/A	Currently uneditable, might change with omnispec
Target	VAP	Group Label	N/A
eBay	Listing SKU	Group ID	N/A	This is a long alpha-numeric string not available to see on the UI
Shopify	Product SKU	Master SKU	N/A	Sent as "Master SKU--listing"
BigCommerce	Product SKU	Master SKU	N/A	Sent as "Master SKU--listing"

How to manage specific variant overrides, title, bullet points

The ability to have unique values for bullet points, description, etc depends on the channel. Also the ability to override the different values varies by the channel as well. See the tables below for more information.

Title, Variant Title

Channel	Zentail Attribute	Channel Attribute	Override Attribute	Notes
Amazon	Title	item_name.value (on parent SKU)	N/A	This is the parent title, it will always use the title or override on the Master SKU
Amazon	Variant Title	item_name.value	Amazon Title Override	This is the child title
Walmart	Variant Title	Product Name	Walmart Title Override	There is no parent title, only children titles
Target	Title	Parent Title	Target Plus Parent Title Override	This is the VAP title
Target	Title	Product Name	Target Plus Product Name Override	This is the VAP title
Target	Variant Title	Product Title	Target Plus Product Title Override	This is the VC/child title
eBay	Title	Title	eBay Title Override	There is no child titles, only a parent title
Shopify	Title	Title	Shopify Title Override	This is the parent title, the variant titles will always have the pivot attributes added to the end*
BigCommerce	Title	Title	BigCommerce Title Override	This is the parent title, the variant titles will always have the pivot attributes added to the end*

*see section on our Listing Splits feature for more information

Description

Channel	Zentail Attribute	Channel Attribute	Override Attribute	Notes
Amazon	Description	Description	Amazon Description Override	This will override the variant descriptions, parent description uses the Master SKU description override
Walmart	Description	Description	Walmart Description Override	Only variant descriptions
Target	Description	Description	Target Description Override	Can only override variant descriptions
eBay	Description	Description	eBay Description Override	Cannot have unique descriptions per variant
Shopify	Description	Description	Shopify Description Override	Cannot have unique descriptions per variant*
BigCommerce	Description	Description	BigCommerce Description Override	Cannot have unique descriptions per variant*

*see section on our Listing Splits feature for more information

Bullet Points

Channel	Zentail Attribute	Channel Attribute	Override Attribute	Notes
Amazon	Bullet Point1, Bullet Point2, etc	Bullet Points	Bullet Override 1 / Amazon Bullet Points Value Override	Cannot override group bullet points separately, only variant bullet points, unclear if Bullet Override 1 is available in QE/import? Unclear how to properly set Bullet Points Value Override for new stuff, maybe old stuff works for new stuff
Walmart	Bullet Point1, Bullet Point2, etc to Bullet Point5	Key Features	Bullet Override 1 / unsure	Only variant bullet points, unclear if Bullet Override 1 is available in QE/import? Unclear how to properly set Key Features Override for new stuff, maybe old stuff works for new stuff
Target	Bullet Point1, Bullet Point2, etc	Bullet Feature 1, Bullet Feature 2, etc to Bullet Feature 15	Target Plus Bullet Feature 1 Override, etc to 15	Cannot be unique per child, if you want to add more than 5 bullet points use overrides
eBay	Bullet Point1, Bullet Point2, etc	Description	N/A	Bullet points are added to the description and cannot be unique per variant
Shopify	Bullet Point1, Bullet Point2, etc	Description	N/A	Bullet points are added to the description and cannot be unique per variant*
BigCommerce	Bullet Point1, Bullet Point2, etc	Description	N/A	Bullet points are added to the description and cannot be unique per variant*

How to manage swatch images

https://help.zentail.com/en/articles/1610844-how-to-use-swatch-images

some things important to know

You cannot set Target swatch attributes, Target automatically sets them and you need to open a case with Target to change them
Zentail automatically creates a swatch image from the primary image for each variant

Adding and removing shared attributes

What are Shared Attributes

When you have a product group there are two levels of attributes:

shared listing quality attributes
- these are the set of attributes that are the same for all the SKUs in the group
variant listing quality attributes
- these are the attributes that may be different across variation (or SKU) within the group

When you add a pivot attribute to a group, Zentail will automatically detect similar listing quality attributes to that pivot attribute and remove those from the shared listing quality attributes. For instance if a set of tables is varying by size then Zentail will allow the display length to be set uniquely on each variant. However sometimes there are additional attributes you want to set uniquely on each variant that are not automatically added to the variant listing quality attributes. This is when you would want to use the feature to 'Remove Shared Attributes'.

Here is a step by step directions using Import and adding a new shared attribute.

Column A should have the SKU value. Column B should have “Add Shared Attribute”. For this screenshot, this has multiple columns dedicated to adding features. If you are only adding one attribute, the import will only need Column A and Column B.

How to move attributes from a group level to a variant level

Adding and removing a shared attribute can be done via QuickEdit, Import, and Bulk Action. The two most important things to know when working with this feature are:

The name of the attributes on Zentail are:
1. Add Shared Attribute
2. Remove Shared Attribute
The value for this attribute should be the 'database name' for the attribute. That means, it should be all lowercase and use underscores (_) instead of spaces.
1. ie color instead of Color and active ingredients instead of Active Ingredients

Attribute	Good Example	Bad Example
Size	size	Size
Display Height	display_height	Display_Height
Active Ingredients	active_ingredients	ACTIVE INGREDIENTS

Import

Here's an example of what an import might look like when moving an attribute to the group shared level:

And for moving an attribute to the variant level (not shared):

Bulk Action

When doing this by Bulk Action, some key things to keep in mind. Filtering for the respective SKUs are HALF of the task. It may be helpful to do this by adding a label and removing it when finished. Another method of filtering is sorting by the Master SKU.

Once filtered, the attribute you are looking to set will be “Add Shared Attribute” OR “Remove Shared Attribute”. The value that we are looking to update should be wrapped in quotes.

For examples, please see the table above under “Good Example”.