The following information will be of interest mostly to new Zencart shopowners who are trying to figure out the easiest way to add gift wrapping as a product option for their store.

In your admin screen, do the following:

1. Go to Catalog->Option Name Manager. Add the option name "Gift Wrapping" as a checkbox.
2. Press the Option Values button. In the dropdown box, select option name "Gift Wrapping," which you just added. Use the value "Yes."
3. Go to Catalog->Attributes Controller, and pull up the category you wish to do gift wrapping for. For each product in that category for which you wish to allow gift wrapping, scroll down to "Adding New Attributes" and select Option Name "Gift Wrapping" and Option Value "Yes." Then below on the left under "Price", enter the price of your wrapping (say 2.00 for two dollars).
4. Repeat the previous step for every category for which gift wrapping is offered.



Some Notes:

* The strings "Gift Wrapping" and "Yes" have no particular significance; use other verbage if you prefer.
* "Gift Wrapping" was specified as a checkbox rather than two radio buttons to save time. If you use a pair of radio buttons, then additional actions must be done in step three.
* It would seem that using the "Add ALL Option Values to ONE Category of products for Option Name" command in the Options Name screen would be a timesaver - but it's not unless your giftwrapping is free. If it's not free, you will still need to go into the Attributes Controller and set the price for the attribute for every product which uses it. And remember that the "Add Option Values" functions only work with products that already have one option value.
* Another common approach is to have a "Gift Wrap" product that can be added to the cart, with a text box in which the user specifies which items from the cart should be wrapped. While this is faster than the attribute approach, it suffers from two drawbacks. Firstly, instructions typed into a text field are often ambiguous or confusing. Secondly, this approach does not allow pricing to reflect the number of wrapped items.

Best of luck with your business this holiday season,
That Software Guy