Product Catalog Design - "One to Many"?

[ForwardGear]

Hi all,

 

I recently signed up for a Magento Go store and it's not working out as I hoped it would. I'd like to share what I was looking for to see if PrestaShop is a better option. Thank you in advance for any help...

 

The products I sell can either be sold individually or in kits, the individual products having their own SKU's and the kits having also their own SKU's. As such, I'd like to have a product catalog that is filled with the individual products and also with "grouped" products representing the kits. The kits would not have any inventory tracking but the individual items would. When a kit is purchased, the relative individual items would be removed from inventory. What seems to throw a wrench in the design is that one individual product might be associated with more than one kit, for example Products A, B, and C, and Kits X and Y:

 

A + B = X

 

and

 

A + C = Y

 

For every Kit X that is sold, Products A and B should reduce on hand inventory, and for every Kit Y that is sold, Products A and C should be reduced.

 

From what I am gathering thus far, this is not possible in Magento, because although "Configurable" products are possible as combinations of "Simple" products, those Simple products can only be associated with one (1) Configurable product. So as per the above example, once Products A and B are associated with Kit X, they can no longer be associated with any other Kit, so Kit Y is impossible.

 

I have a few other related questions, but let's start here and branch if needed.

 

Thanks,

 

Chris

[Dh42]

Prestashop actually has a pack option that works exactly like you want. It does not keep stock of the packs, it keeps the stock of the individual items in the packs. Packs can be made up of many different items and items can be a "member" of as many packs as you want.

[ForwardGear]

Excellent. I hope you don't mind if I add a layer of complexity:

 

Let's say that each of the A, B, and C products is available in different colors. Each color variant of A, B, and C have their own SKU. I want the customer to be able to select their desired color via a dropdown menu in the Kit page, but I don't want them to have to select from A-Red, A-Green, or A-Blue, I want them to simply be able to select from Red, Green, or Blue. Behind the scene, the system "knows" to combine the color choice with the associated product.

 

Possible or asking too much?

 

Chris

[ForwardGear]

If PrestaShop could append or insert some characters into the SKU based on the content of the dropdown menu, I suppose that would do it...

 

Chris

[Dh42]

I don't think with the stock product packs that it can handle combinations. I think a module can be made that will make them handle combinations, but I don't think there is currently one.

[radus]

True, combinations do not handle stock correctly, neither in Products nor in Packs [ as far as I tried ]. I try to sell wines by individual bottle and by pack, with different prices per bottle.

 

I'd be very curious how to do it.

 

cheers,

[radus]

Further more, If you want to track combinations vie Google Analytics for E-commerce, the option is to insert in Cart a column with Variant = Combination Name (https://developers.g...ackingEcommerce and use this ) and use this to track sales of Variants.

 

For stock Management use Advanced Stock Management , which works very well, but as DH42 said, to keep stock at the level of combination, is a development.

 

I am in the same stage, maybe we can split dev. costs. PM for details.

 

Cheers,

 

r