Products with Options and Volume Discounts

Good Afternoon,



I am working with a client who is moving from Volusion to a CS-Cart based site. He owns and operates an industrial sign making company. They sell signs based on size and material. The pricing structure attached.







I was able to utilize the Product Options to create global options for the size/material combinations and I initially set the product price to 0.00 and allowed the option price to set the purchase price.



Now the client has gone and thrown a wrench in my plans and wants to add volume discounts on top of the variable products.



I know CS-Cart performs wonderfully at both of these separately, does anyone know how I can make them work together?



I tried setting the Quantity Discount in the products tab to a percentage off, but it bases this off of the product price (which is $0.00) and so know volume discount is applied to the shopping cart at checkout.



Also, how would I remove the “+” sign in the options dropdown for these products. The client fills the “+5.25” would be confusing to his customers and only wants “5.25” to be shown.



This is a great community and I am always grateful for the assistance provided.



Thanks

Attachment is xsls. Won't allow me to upload it.

Use .csv



John

Hi John,



Here is the attached file in a PDF.



Does anyone know if you can track inventory on variable products? I know you can reduce the inventory of the base product based on the purchase of the product variation, but what would be the easiest way to track the total inventory if they have, for instance,



Confined Space Sign 3 In Stock 5 x 7

Confined Space Sign 7 In Stock 7x 10

Confined Space Sign 6 In Stock 10 x 14

Copy of right away signs pricinging safety signs.pdf

Hello, i've got the same problem with options… I think that missing the option modifier with fixed price is the big disadvantage of CS-Cart. Setting price to “0” and adding the different prices to options - works on product, but unfortunately don't work in blocks( price appears as 0 there), and also i mentioned that the price filter “reads” the price value as 0 as well. probably it affects the sorting by price as well. i'm using the test version of cs-cart, and that is the only one problem that stops me to buy the pro-version…

Hello farushko,



I have placed a request for custom development of this very thing from 2 sources (Alt-Team and CS Custom Dev team) I will let you know the pricing and progress.

[quote name='ticeholdings' timestamp='1351569496' post='147960']

Hello farushko,



I have placed a request for custom development of this very thing from 2 sources (Alt-Team and CS Custom Dev team) I will let you know the pricing and progress.

[/quote]



Thanks. If i get a conclusion meanwhile, i'll write you back.

The problem of setting the base price to 0 and manage final prices with options is not that simple.

Imagine that you have two options for product like size and color.



If you set the final price for the both for instance XL: 200 and red: 50 what price should be displayed then?

So actually setting the final prices with options will work well solely in case if you have only one option that influence the final price.



The real solution to that would be in my opinion introducing the prices for combinations. Then you could put the final price for each combination separately, but to be honest I can’t imagine managing it without good import/export feature.

Imagine how many combinations it would be if you have 5 sizes, 7 colors and 4 types



The good solution to manage the product options could be also a slightly different approach to the problem and mainly grouped or master/slave products like in other carts. Then you create separate product for each option and group them into one “grouped product”.



It could be also very good in case if you want to sync the cart with your other, for instance sales software, because each option has then all the fields of the normal product i.e. code, weight, dimension, minimum order quantity etc). Today if I have a product that has options of 50cm and 100cm this is not possible to set the different dimension for that as dimension applies to product only and can't be assigned to option or combinations. The same applies to minimum and maximum order quantity and order quantity step.



In this scenario % discount problem would disappear itself, because you will have always only the base price for the product assigned.



Does anybody have more experience with grouped products?

I'm thinking about this approach: When you make an Option for a product, to be able to select the option modifier type from : “add as percent”, “add value” and “fixed price”… and the fixed price is to be the full price for the evry option variant… So in case if you have 2 different options that can affect the price, for example Size and Color, you can choose Size->fixed price 100, and Color:Red → “add value”=20, and the final price to be 120…

I guess my product line is more straight-forward. We have 4 sizes and 3 materials.



The problem arises when you have to track inventory and try to offer volume discounts based on product options.

FWIW $600 USD is what CS-Cart Custom Dev wants to do this modification.

[quote name='ticeholdings' timestamp='1351881310' post='148206']

FWIW $600 USD is what CS-Cart Custom Dev wants to do this modification.

[/quote]



Only $600?? Muaahahahhha…

I wonder if this will work with CSC v3.0.3:



[url=“CS-Cart Mix Order Quantity Discount”]http://www.cscartrocks.com/cs-cart-mix-order-quantity-discount.html[/url]

[url=“The store is temporarily closed for maintenance”]The store is temporarily closed for maintenance



It looks like it might suit my purposes at a much more attractive price

[quote name=‘ticeholdings’ timestamp=‘1351881310’ post=‘148206’]

FWIW $600 USD is what CS-Cart Custom Dev wants to do this modification.

[/quote]



Get used to it, I also had asked some custom developments and quotes that I received were always far beyond any expectations. Every single, even small modification is more expensive then the cart itself !



Actually, one day I submitted the problem of disounting only the base price as a bug in a bug tracker, because I think this is a bug indeed. Where is the logic behind discountig the base price only ??? I claimed that this should not be called even “% discount”, because this is against basic rules of mathematics. Guess what feedback I received … “Working as designed” :-)



Please see my post:

http://forum.cs-cart…2659#entry12659



Maybe, if more of us complain about this issue, they would consider fixing the bug instead of charging each of us 600 USD for alleged “custom development”.



Regards,



Chris

Quantity discount by percentage is a feature that I've been wanting for ages and the one reason that I was going to upgrade to V3 for - until I read recently that only the base price is discounted - I agree where's the logic in that, all you're getting is an absolute discount without having to work it out/amend it when your price changes!



Chances are your base product will be the cheapest option, so the customer would expect to get more discount off the higher priced item, not the cheapest one, and we sellers want them to buy the most expensive option.

I purchased this add-on from CS Cart Rocks - [url=“CS-Cart Mix Order Quantity Discount”]http://www.cscartrocks.com/cs-cart-mix-order-quantity-discount.html[/url] for $35 and it seems to do what we're asking (except for the inventory concerns).



There are some issues with the discounting that are being ironed out, but they are working harder for the $35 than I'm sure the CS Custom Dev Team would for $600+

I don't get it. I absolutely agree It is essential. Being common logic to calculate the ENTIRE cart or the products in the cart makes sense, but the whole point of customising products allows for clients to receive a discount on those changes too! (or at least have a Global Option and Per Product option to apply them accordingly)



So many other open source shopping cart systems already do this!



Perhaps we should be looking at the $35 product and see what has changed between 2.2.5 and 3.0x? Comparing the differences in these files would help, plus looking at the available hooks that can also be used.



For $600 I would expect a HUGE array of modifications. Simbirsk (CS-Cart) is located in Russia and I would have thought the hourly rate would indeed be lower than somewhere like the UK or USA… Unless of course 60 hours at $10/hr is required???



Keen to learn more…





Everyone - Please visit here and click YES (green) on the right hand side column!

@ [url=“http://forum.cs-cart.com/tracker/issue-3248-percentage-quantity-disounts-with-options”]http://forum.cs-cart.com/tracker/issue-3248-percentage-quantity-disounts-with-options[/url]

I've authorized them to do it. It's a cost that will ultimately be passed on to my client.



I'm almost certain that since the agreement they sent to me says I can only use this custom modification on the site license in question that after I pay them to do the custom work that this change will, in all likelihood appear in a future release of the CS-Cart core functionality.



That will be unfortunate but not unexpected.



It makes me wonder how others have been asking to pool resources together to achieve other add-on's or modifications since they almost certainly have received the same license restrictions.

[quote name='ticeholdings' timestamp='1351959269' post='148246']

I wonder if this will work with CSC v3.0.3:



http://www.cscartroc…y-discount.html

http://demo.cscartro…style-5180.html



It looks like it might suit my purposes at a much more attractive price

[/quote]



This, too, only discounts the base price.



Although CSCartRocks has said he is willing to complete the modification as well. I haven't been able to get a response or quote on the work to see if it is more reasonable than that of the CS Cart Development Team.



I've also found a reasonably price freelancer on Elance who seems to know CSC inside and out.

[quote name=‘ticeholdings’ timestamp=‘1352524608’ post=‘148849’]

I’ve authorized them to do it. It’s a cost that will ultimately be passed on to my client.



I’m almost certain that since the agreement they sent to me says I can only use this custom modification on the site license in question that after I pay them to do the custom work that this change will, in all likelihood appear in a future release of the CS-Cart core functionality.



That will be unfortunate but not unexpected.



It makes me wonder how others have been asking to pool resources together to achieve other add-on’s or modifications since they almost certainly have received the same license restrictions.

[/quote]



What was the price of cs dev. really $600

Waht was the price of alt-team, because their quotation got also really very expensive lately.

Taking into consideration that the avarage salary in Russia is app. $4,5/hr it $600 would mean 133 hr = 17 days …



I acually thouht that any custom development belongs you and you can do with it whatever you want. You do not buy any product or licence, but the service. This is the information that I received from one developer (not cs dev):

[color=#000000]“You can do everything you want with the add-on that you buy from us.”[/color]



[color=#000000]Maybe cs-dev wanted $600 and they made it for you $60 and that is why they introduced that restriction :-)[/color]



[color=#000000]The sad thing is, however, that actually it should be done for free as there is no question that this is a bug :-([/color]

[color=#000000]So please cs-cart team admit the bug, appologize and intruduce the fix in the comming release and please do not make it at the cost of Jeremy. I can assure you that burying your head in the sand in not a good long term strategy. Listen to you customers. You should be really verrrrry happy that we point out such a bugs and thereby are improving your product. I wish I had such customers …[/color]