Variants n models
Apparel, Variants or Models (color, size and variants)
When integrating with Hii Retail to support apparel or fashion items, it requires a bit more work. To support the additional complexity of different sizes, colors and models, we need to introduce another entity to link the items together.
This is done with the Item Link entity.
Let's first dive deeper into the complexity surrounding this retail domain. The concept of a fashion item, or apparel item, is that it mostly is the same item, but with different characteristics.
An Acme Sports Trainer shoe is basically the same item, and has the same information if it is a size 38 or 45, and if it is in blue or green. HOWEVER it may not be the same if it is a women's style or a men's style shoe of the same model.
So already we see the complexity that might arise when dealing with items of this type.
If you add the concept of patterns, style and seasons to the mix, it really puts requirements on the data model and the system processing the information.
See more in our Use Case documentation
To accommodate for this complexity Hii Retail offers a diverse model that allows items to be connected to each other according to customer needs, and the possibility of Additional Properties on all relevant entities allows for information to be present where it is needed.
Extenda Retail do recommend to follow a best practice when dealing with apparel, and sporting goods. Let's explore this further.
Extenda Retail recommends that you follow a best practice of defining one "master item", or Model for each apparel item, and then regular Stock Items for all variants of this Model.
This means that you define an item with all the descriptions and information according to your integration use case as described in the sections above. It is important that you set the ItemType to Model on this item.
Next you need to define all the variants of this item. They must be created with ItemType set to StockItem. These items must also be created as defined in the sections above.
Following this structure allows you to manage your Item by editing the Model item, and Hii Retail can propagate the data onto all the variants. It also allows you to easily visualize and manage the variants. For example to visualize the available stock for all variants, a UI could use the Model Item as the master information for the page, and all the variants could be listed to show stock information on each of the variants.
