PrestaShop 1.5/1.6 Product Features Tutorial

How to add and manage product features in PrestaShop 1.5-1.6

Features are used to characterize products. A feature can be anything that gives more information and details about the product. For example, it can be related to the dimensions of the product (e.g. height, width, etc.), the material from which the product is made (e.g. cotton, wool), some technical specification (e.g. battery life-time). They are optional and can be specified per product when adding/editing that product. Note that attributes are also used to characterize products. The difference is that attributes are used to create product combinations while features are not. If you add a feature to a product, the feature applies to all the combinations of that product. Features are used when customers compare products. The features are in fact what's compared. If a product includes features, these features and their values are shown on the product page on the frontend.

You can create as many features as you want, and when you add/edit a product you can choose which features to add to that product. To be more precise, you add values for some (or all) of the available features and these values are shown on the product page on the frontend. Features can be created and manage from Catalog menu>Product Features sub-menu. You can then add features to a product from the form for adding/editing products; there's a separate tab labeled Features. In this tutorial we'll go over all these things.

We'll show you:

For basic information on how to add and edit products check the tutorial on how to add and manage products in PrestaShop.

In this tutorial we've used as a basic example PrestaShop 1.6. The screenshots are also from that PrestaShop version. Although the design of the admin panel is different than that of PrestaShop 1.5 the options related to adding and managing product features are practically the same in both versions. If there are some differences we'll make notes about that in the tutorial.

Create and Manage Product Features and Feature Values

To create and manage product features and feature values, log into the admin panel and go to Catalog menu>Product Features sub-menu (in PrestaShop 1.5 the sub-menu is labeled just Features):

Accessing the Options for Managing Product Features and Feature Values

On the page that opens there's a table with the existing product features. These are the features for which you can choose values when you add/edit products. PrestaShop comes preconfigured with some example features.

To create a new product feature, click on the button Add new feature that's in the top right corner of the page:

Button for Adding Product Features

This will open the form for adding product features (it's the same as the form for editing):

Form for Adding Product Features

The only thing that you're required to do to be able to save the feature is to type a name for it in the Name field. If you have other languages, you can specify a different name in each language. To do this select the language from the option that's on the right side of the field.

The rest of the settings are optional. If you want to, in the field for URL you can specify the part in the URL address that corresponds to the feature. By default, features and their values are shown in the Layered Navigation block on the frontend so that customers can use them to filter the products based on the particular feature value. When they click in the block on a feature value, there's a corresponding URL address which includes the name of the feature and the value. If you don't type a specific name in the URL fields of the feature and the value, the names of the feature and the value are used by default. So, for example, if the name of the feature is Compositions and of the value Cotton and friendly URLs are enabled, then the corresponding URL will have the form yourdomain.com/product-name#compositions-cotton. If, for instance, you put fabric in the URL field of the Compositions feature, then the URL will become yourdomain.com/product-name#fabric-cotton. To change the URL part of the feature value you need to edit the particular value and configure it's URL setting.

Note that the options URL, Meta title and Indexable are available only if the Layered Navigation module is installed and enabled. In PrestaShop 1.6 it's enabled by default. It comes prepackaged with PrestaShop 1.5 but it's not installed.

After you're done with the settings click on the Save button. This will create the feature and will bring you back to the page that lists the existing features.

You can optionally add values to the feature. To do this click on the button Add new feature value that's above the table with the features:

Button for Adding Feature Values

This will open the form for adding feature values (the same as the one for editing values):

Form for Adding Feature Values

From the Feature drop-down menu select the feature (e.g. Fabric) to which you want the value to belong and type the value (e.g. Cotton) in the Value field. The rest of the options are not required (they are not available in PrestaShop 1.5). The same things apply to the URL option as when adding a feature. In this case, however, it's the part of the URL that corresponds to the value (e.g. cotton in yourdomain.com/product-name#fabric-cotton). For some more information check the description of the feature URL option a few paragraphs up in this tutorial. The options URL and Meta title are available if the Layered Navigation module is installed and enabled. After you're done with the options click on the button Save then add another value if you want to add more values, or on the Save button to add the value and go back.

You don't have to add any values to a feature. When you add features to a product you can choose from the values that you have added (if any) for each feature, or you can type a custom value on the spot. Whether it's better to add values depends on the particular feature. With some it's more convenient to specify custom values each time, while with others it might be better to have preconfigured values. For example, if the feature is Height, it doesn't really make much sense to specify preconfigured values. You can type the exact height of each product when you configure its features. If the feature is, for example, Fabric, it may be convenient to add values such as Cotton, Wool, etc. from which you can choose when configuring the features of products. Even if there are preconfigured values you can still type a custom one.

You can edit and delete any of the features that you have added. As we mentioned, when you go to Catalog menu>Product Features sub-menu there's a table that lists the existing features. To edit the options of a feature, click on its Edit button in the table:

Editing the Options of a Feature

To delete a feature click on the arrow next to its edit button and from the drop-down menu select Delete. This will delete the feature together with its values (if there are any). In the same drop-down menu there's also a View button; it will display a list of the values associated with the feature.

Deleting and Viewing a Feature

You can also view the the values of a feature by clicking on its name in the table. This shows a table with the values. You can edit and delete them using the respective buttons.

In PrestaShop 1.5 in the table with the existing features the buttons for editing and deleting are not labeled. They are in the last column of the table and look respectively like a pencil and a trash can. To view the values of a feature there you have to click on the plus symbol in the last column of the table. This will expand a panel that lists the values associated with the particular feature.

Add Features to Products

You can add features to a product from the form for adding/editing products. After you go to Catalog menu>Products sub-menu and you open the form for the particular product, click on the Features tab on the left:

Form for Adding/Editing Products-Features Tab

This will display a table with all the features created from Catalog menu>Product Features sub-menu.

Note that if you're adding a new product the options displayed by the Features tab of the product form can only be configured after you save the product.

The first column of the table shows the name of each feature. If you have added any values to a feature from Catalog menu>Product Features sub-menu, then you can choose from one of these predefined values using the drop-down menus in the second column:

Form for Adding/Editing Products-Menus with Predefined Feature Values

On our example screenshot three of the features have predefined values and so for them there are drop-down menus from which these values can be selected.

The third column in the table is for custom values. For each feature there's a blank text field in which you can type a value:

Form for Adding/Editing Products-Options for Custom Feature Values

If you have installed more than one language, you can specify a translated value in each language. To do this, select the language from the option on the right side of the text field. Even if a feature has predefined values you can still type a custom value.

Only those features for which you select a predefined value or you type a custom one will be shown on the product page on the frontend. The others will not be visible.

After you're done with the features click on the Save and stay or on the Save button.

Links to Tutorials and Articles on Managing Products

You may find useful the other detailed tutorials that we have related to managing products:

In our knowledgebase there are some separate articles on various things related to managing products: