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Configuring grouped variants for AliExpress

Do you want to learn interactively all basics related to the creation of an API export, or how to make an advanced setup for an API in Channable? Learn how to create a Channacademy account in the Channable app through this Help Center article and start with the Basic APIs or Expert APIs course.
Important: This article assumes you have already setup the rest of the AliExpress API. If you haven't done this yet, use this guide to do so.

Step 1: Configuring the Build step for grouped variants

If you want to group your variants into one 'parent' product on AliExpress, you need to configure a few things in the Build and Attributes step of your AliExpress API.There are two things you can configure in the Build step to group your products:

  1. The Item group ID. This must contain an ID that is identical for all variant products within one group. The field you can use for this is often called 'item_group_id' or 'parent_id': 
    AliExpress_variants_-_EN_1.png
  2. If you have variant-specific images (i.e. if your variants have different colors, and each variant product has images in its color), you also need to connect your image fields to the Variant Images under the Images tab:
    AliExpress_variants_-_EN_2.png

 

Step 2 : Configuring the Attributes step for grouped variants

Next, in the Attributes step, you can configure specific attributes as Variant attribute. The variant attribute together with the Item group ID will be used to create the variants on AliExpress:

AliExpress_variants_-_EN_3.png

For example, if you have variants in different colors, you need to select the 'Color' attribute as variant attribute. In AliExpress, your products will then be grouped on the Item Group ID (so all variant products with the same Item Group ID will be grouped as one product in AliExpress) with the possibility to choose different Colors (these are then the Variant products within the grouped products).

You can also configure multiple attributes as Variant attributes, for example if you have both color and size variants. To do this, simply check the 'Variant attribute' box for multiple attributes.

Note: If you have selected an Item Group ID to group your variants, you have to select at least one attribute as the Variant Attribute. Otherwise, the variants will not show properly in AliExpress.

 

As soon as you select an attribute in the Attributes step as Variant attribute, a new checkbox will appear with Variant images. If you check this box, the Variant images you added in the Build step will also be grouped on this attribute. For example, if you have grouped your products on both 'size' and 'color' and the images you configured as Variant images show the variant product in its color, you need to check the 'Variant images' box for the Color attribute.

 

Step 3: Send your grouped products to AliExpress

After you have configured the above, activate and run the API and check in your AliExpress account if your variants are now grouped and show the correct variant attributes and images. The example below shows a t-shirt with color and size variants on AliExpress:

AliExpress_variants_-_EN_4.png