For developers: Product types

The product types allow you to group your products by different criteria. The type can define specific characteristics that are shared among the products of this type. A product can belong to only one product type.

The product type is represented by the ProductType class. Additionally, for each product type you create a dynamic type. The dynamic type allows you to create custom fields for each product type, which are applied to each of the products of the respective type. For more information see the Custom fields section in this topic.

To manage departments, products,  product types and product attributes, you use the Telerik.Sitefinity.Modules.Ecommerce.Catalog.CatalogManager class.

The ProductType class has the following specific properties:

• ClrType
  Gets or sets the name of the dynamic type created for the product type. For more information, see For developers: Create product types.
• ProductDeliveryType
  Gets or sets the type of distribution of the product. The enumeration has the following values:
• Downloadable
  The product is distributed digitally via download.
• Shippable
  The product is shipped to the customer.
• Services
  The product is delivered as a service.
• TitleSingular
  Gets or sets the singular value of the display name of the product type, e.g Book.
• TitlePlural
  Gets or sets the plural value of the display name of the product type, e.g. Books.

The ProductType class allows you to group products. The dynamic type created together with the ProductType instance, allows you to extend the product type. To do this, you create dynamic fields for the dynamic type. You use these fields to define product specific properties. These fields are translated to the products of the type. This allows you to customize the information provided by each product type.