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Magento support different product types by default. But sometimes, in order to meet customer’s requirements, you may ask yourself “Do I have to create a new dedicated product type to handle this?”
It is of course possible to define new product types in order to customize the logic of your product. For example, different price rules or cart logic, product view detail page, etc…
Here are some clues, to make sure you won’t forget any important step.

1. what are the critical steps to not forget:
a. First, define the differences between the new product’s type compare to simple product’s type (in order to not code something that Magento already handles, we are not here to re-invent the wheel!)
b. Define the new type (app/code/local///etc/config.xml)
c. Custom product model inherited from abstract product model
d. Custom price model inherited from abstract product price model

2. Problems you might meet:
a. Don’t forget to define the model of catalog data index, else the products that come from this new type won’t be indexed (searchable)
b. Sometimes you may have to modify the mage_catalog module comparing the product type code (some logic can’t be defined at the module level).

3. Is Magento really “module oriented” to implement such a modification:
a. You must always put all the code into one module because the modifications might affect the standard product types (be carefull while rewriting mage_catalog..) (Rewrite the blocks and model of mage_catalog module in the custom module).

Finally, here are some important tips:
a. Make sure the customer really needs a new product type. Usually they want to keep the standard catalog functionalities on front and backend, and still wants some specific behavior. If the specific part can not be handled with attributes system (or slight modifications..), then developing your own product type may be the solution.

b. Create new product type is not that complex. But you will have to customize a lot of logic in new product’s model according to the differences between the different product types.

c. There is not that much documentation about product type on Magento wiki. Having a deep look at the bundle module (Magento core module) is a really good start to understand what you ll have to face. Also, have a look at the really usefull example on Inchoo blog: http://inchoo.net/ecommerce/magento/how-to-create-a-new-product-type-in-magento/.