Option sets

An option set is a reusable list of choices. You define it once on the Option Sets page and attach it to as many products as you like. Edit the set later and every product that uses it updates at once. A choice already in a customer’s cart keeps the name and price it was added with.

Three kinds of set

When you create a set, the first thing you pick is what kind it is:

• A list of choices. Named options, each with its own price: colours, finishes, or set sizes like Small, Medium, Large. The customer picks one, or several where you allow it.
• A measured size. Priced by dimensions and a rate, for anything sold by the metre or the square metre: cut-to-size banners, fabric, rope, worktops. The customer types a size, or picks a ready-made one.
• A price table. Priced from a grid you already have, widths down one side and drops across the other, the way a blind maker or a glazier works.

Most shops only ever need the first. The other two have their own guides at sell by measured size and price from a look-up table.

Create a list of choices

1. Go to Option Sets and press New set. Pick the closest ready-made starting point (garment colours, sizes S to 4XL, UK shoe sizes, paper and board sizes, bag weights, finishes, charged add-ons like gift wrap) or Start from scratch. A starting point opens the editor filled in, as your own copy to rename, prune or reprice, and nothing saves until you press Save set.
2. Leave This set is on a list of choices. Add your options. Each has a name and, for colours, a swatch. Leave the swatch blank and AddOnBoss fills it in from the name for common colours; see colour swatches.
3. Give any option a price where it costs more, say +2.00 for 4XL. Blank means the same as the rest.
4. Save.

The Option Sets library: build a set once, reuse it across every product.

Let customers pick more than one

A set usually asks for one answer, a size is a size. Some sets are naturally several answers: toppings, fixings, extras. In the set editor, under Customers choose, switch the set from One to Several and the customer ticks as many as apply, each pick adding its own charge.

• Set the bounds if you need them. At least and Up to hold the number of picks; leave a box empty for no bound. The rule shows beside the choices in plain words, “Choose up to 3.”, and a pick past the bound is refused with the same sentence, on the page and at the till. An optional set left entirely alone is simply no answer; the bounds apply once the customer starts picking.
• Charges simply add up. Each picked option contributes its own price, and the sum joins the line for every item bought. On the page a several-of set always states each option as a surcharge, “+£4.50”, never as a whole price, because several whole prices on one line would each be promising a different total.
• Every pick lands on its own row. The cart line and the order list each pick under the set’s name, “Fixings: Drilled holes (+£4.50)”, “Fixings: Standoff kit (+£9.00)”, so nothing hides inside a comma.

A long several-of set, past a dozen options, swaps the row of buttons for a tidy tick-box list, one option per row, so twenty extras read as a list rather than a wall of chips. (A long pick-one set becomes a dropdown in the same way.) If you would rather keep the buttons however long the set grows, tick Keep the buttons for long lists on the set.

Organise a large library

As the library grows you can group sets into folders and search across them. Make a folder, drag sets into it, and rename or remove folders as your range changes. The live search filters the whole library as you type, so a set is one keystroke away however many you keep. Everything saves as you go and holds its place next time you open the screen.

Attach a set to a whole category

To put the same set on many products at once, open a set and use Attach to products: pick a category and AddOnBoss attaches the set to every simple product in it, skipping any that already offer it. Handy for rolling a colour or size set across a whole range in one go.

Reorder and rename

Options within a set drag into any order, and that order is what the customer sees. Rename a set or an option at any time; because products reference the set rather than copying it, the change reaches every product that uses it. Prices already committed to a cart are untouched.

Move sets between stores

Sets live on the store, not on a single product. On the Option Sets page, Export all sets downloads the library as one file, and Import sets on another store recreates them with their identity intact, so any product already attached lines up. Handy for staging sites and agency work. See import & export sets.

Where a set is used

A set is shared, so the same Colour set can sit on a hundred products and on bundles in BundleBoss at the same time. Editing the set updates them all. To offer only part of a set on one product, override its options on that product’s Product Options panel rather than editing the shared set.