Hi,
I am needing some functionality which I can best describe by “Product combinations”. This will allow me to upload a picture in the admin section and select 4 or 5 products that are featured in this picture and then the customer should be able to see this image and the products associated with it (maybe on a product combinations page or something like that) and be able to add all the products to their cart by clicking a single “Add combination to cart” button.
Is this something that is built in by default or an addon that I could buy?
Thanks
Nathan
I think you would refer to your scenario as “Product Bundling” of which there is not an outta the box feature for this within CS-Cart.
Have you experimented with the “Required Products” option, probably the closest you will get without custom coding?
Look into the 'buy_together' addon to bundle products. But note that bundled products in cs-cart are associated with a single product and are not general objects that can be placed anywhere.
I'm also looking into this. The two add-ons, buy together and required products almost do what we want. It would be best if we could:
- Make a new product and give it a price (for example: Gift Pack 1)
- Use buy together or req. products to add the products to the package.
When someone buys the gift pack, all products should be added to the cart, customer should get discount as stated in the package, and inventory should go down for all products.
Anybody interested in having product bundles (a product consisting of multiple individual products) added as a feature to cs-cart? I got quoted 500 to 550 dollar. If we are with 2 or 3 I think we already have it down to a very acceptable amount.
I think this feature is pretty important. We make bundles now but have to update inventory ourselves, which sucks and is prone to errors.
What are the detailed requirements? Can't this be done with option matrix or product configurator with qty feature?
For me it's very simple. I'd like to add a product, that consists of multiple other products. For example:
Product name: Tennis starter kit.
Consists of: yellow balls, a wilson x100 racket, and a pair of shoes.
Now when the tennis starter kit is being bought, inventory for the other products should update.
Total price should be calculated (list price) after which we can give it a new “bundle” price.
Actually, I kinda forgot alt-team has this a mod for this. I wouldn't mind buying it from them (I will probably) but I think this is a feature cs-cart should have out of the box. That's why I am trying to get cs-cart custom dev. to make it.
It really is for the most part about inventory management in the presentation wouldn't you agree?
I would like the option of taking an existing item sold individually and creating multiple Bundles of this same item and price them with a discount. For example you could purchase this same item either individually, in a 10 Pack, or a 50 Pack, all options from a single product page description. For shipping calculations, the bundle weights would need to by multiplied by the individual item weight x the pack quantity. Inventory items would need to broken out & listed down to the smallest unit of measure for inventory tracking.
So, from a single product description page you could offer this same product individually, as a 10 pack, or as a 50 pack with inventory counts, package weights and pricing adjustments calculated on the fly.
With Flow's description of different unique items grouped as a kit, then in that scenario you would most likely want the option to create a unique product sku consisting of several individual item skus broken out for inventory control.
As a wholesaler, the definitions of these two different presentation types as I understand them would be as follows:
Bundling = Selling multiples of a single item (As in different package counts)
Kitting = Selling multiple “unique” items in a single package (As in Flow's example)
Struck, thanks for putting that down so clearly. Indeed, once a shop grows, it's all about inventory management.
I'm looking into solutions like unleashed (with Xero) as well, but I like keeping things simple and might just go with 2 cs-cart shops in 1 ultimate installation (1 for wholesale and 1 for end-customers). I may even make a purchase order add-on.
Struck, I'm wondering, what you want to do with a 10 and 50 pack, isn't that possible with quantity discounts? I'm not speaking out of experience here but the way you describe it seems like how I assumed cs-cart handles this.
Flowster,
[quote]Struck, I'm wondering, what you want to do with a 10 and 50 pack, isn't that possible with quantity discounts? I'm not speaking out of experience here but the way you describe it seems like how I assumed cs-cart handles this.[/quote]
The difference would be in pre-determining these bundled package sizes, pricing them accordingly, and then forcing your customers to purchase your products in the package sizes your company offers. For example, if your standard package size for Neon Widgets is 50 per carton, then you want your customers to only have the option to order in multiples of 50 (you really would not want customers to order 41 pieces, as you would now end up breaking down cartons to custom package their orders).
It is also about presenting these product bundles in a logical, non-confusing way on your site, so with a proper bundling mod ths displayed price would be based on the 50 piece package, rather than confusing non-sense like “Choose 50 Pack” “Add $350.00”. Essentially you are just increasing your unit of measure to a greater size which is logical when dealing with larger package sizes, or in higher volume transactions.
The ideal situation would be to have your Neon Widgets product page without a specific price initially displayed, and have the ability to sell this same product individually, as well as in multiple package sizes, 10 Pc Carton, 25 Pc Carton, 50 Pc Carton, etc. all from this same “single” product page with bundled carton weights and pricing calculated by multiplying the number of pieces per bundle.
Without a proper way of displaying bundles, most businesses will end up creating several similar items with the “only” difference being the package sizes this same item is sold in and creating additional “dummy sku's” in an attempt to track inventory. Then of course you end up with many duplicated product content pages as well, so this is a really poor option in the end!
When I was doing this, we thought of the group of bundled products as a “kit”. Like a dining set consists of 1ea xyz table and 4ea abc chairs. Table priced alone is $200 and each chair is $50 but when purchased as a “kit” it is $300. This gives you the option of purchasing 1ea dining set and 1ea chair. You can apply the same logic to “cases” where it's all one product but you want the flexibility to put any quantity of any number of products into a single “kit” with a single SKU.
I'm also interested in something similar to this.
I see supplements as 1 month, 2 month, 3 month packages, etc. It's all the same item just 1 bottle for 1 month, 2 bottles for 2 months and so on. I want to be able to put in inventory for the product itself, like 3,000 units and when people buy the 3 month package, it subtracts 3 bottles, and 2 month will take away 2, etc.
ckad79, Looking at Volume Discounts instead of Options, and create banners for the 2 or 3 bottle discount offer might help.
[color=#000000][font=Arial][size=4]Dear friends![/size][/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=Arial][size=4]Please have a look at one of our latest modifications - [/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=Arial][size=4]“[/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=Arial][size=4]Product packages[/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=Arial][size=4]” [/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=Arial][size=4]modification. This mod allows the administrator to create packages with certain products available in a store. Packages are sold as separate products. It may be a convenient modification for many CS-Cart owners because, actually, it is a good way to sell off products by including them in an attractive package.[/size][/font][/color]
[url=“"Product packages" modification”][color=#1155cc][font=Arial][size=4][u]http://www.alt-team.com/product-packages-modification.html[/u][/size][/font][/color][/url]
[color=#000000][font=Arial][size=4]If you think you need this mod just contact us and we will implement it for you. [/size][/font][/color]
Dear friends!
We have some new information about the Product packages modification.
We have decided to release the Product packages add-on. The release is planned in the end of March, 2013. The functionality will be similar to our Product packages modification.
The approximate add-on price will be $89.
Best regards, Alt-team
Hey Alt-Team, I would be very interested in this add-on when it is ready, please let us know a.s.a.p! 
Thanks,
Scott.
Hi Alt-Team, I would also be interested in this add-on. I have a situation where we have some items that are delivered in boxes of 10pcs and 50pcs. We sell them individually, but also want to create new “wholesale” products that are these boxes with multiple items. Ordering one of these “wholesale” products must also update inventory for individual product. Using quantity discount does not work. I want a new product. This has the advantage:
- Custom can only buy in multiples of this qty, for example multiples of 50pcs (full box)
- I can send customer links to this product, for example www.myshop.com/products-box50pcs.html
Sounds like the Alt-Team Product packages add-on will be able to do this.
[quote name='Alt-team' timestamp='1361950668' post='156487']
Dear friends!
We have some new information about the Product packages modification.
We have decided to release the Product packages add-on. The release is planned in the end of March, 2013. The functionality will be similar to our Product packages modification.
The approximate add-on price will be $89.
Best regards, Alt-team
[/quote]
Nice, sounds as if it should cover the majority of different scenarios mentioned in above posts, I will certainly be taking a closer look at this once it has been officially released!
Just to add my two pennies worth…
This is, hopefully, exactly the functionality that I have been looking for in a cart system 'out of the box'. It should be there and I rejected 3 other good cart systems prior to going with CS-Cart Pro simply because they didn't have his feature. I was tempted by the 'Product Configurator' which turned out NOT to answer my needs but hey, CS-Cart had 95% of everything else I needed so I went for it.
Quite simply, ALL carts should be able to present a bundle or grouping of individually available items as a 'single' product with each individual product making up the group having its own options, quantity, and SKU.
Some of these individual products could be hidden for individual sale i.e. only available in one or more 'bundles'.
The grouped 'single' product should be able to have a 'zero' price. On the order and invoice, the individual products that make up the 'group' product should be on their own line showing options, quantity, unit price / line price.
And of course, all items will then be tracked for inventory whether 'real' or just a count for analysis.
I have come up with ways to kind of do this with CS-Cart using options and have had to make some mods to various parts of the system to achieve this. But it's messy and not how I want it to be.
I am really keen to see the Alt-Team's add-on when it becomes available… fingers crossed that it will do the above and more!
[quote][color=#282828][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]The grouped 'single' product should be able to have a 'zero' price. On the order and invoice, the individual products that make up the 'group' product should be on their own line showing options, quantity, unit price / line price.[/font][/color][/quote]
I agree with you Wilko,
Quite simply put, a Product should never be considered as an actual sell-able product until a final attribute has been assigned to it. If this thought process was applied a whole new level of control in product presentation could be achieved!