Correct amount in stock

[Mr.Bean_S]

Hello,

 

I have a little problem that I have not yet figured out a solution for.

 

I sell bean bags in my webshop and for each model the customers can choose between many colours but that does not affect the price.

 

If I have 10 red bean bags and allow the customer to buy them WITH or WITHOUT the filling it doesn't affect the total amount of bags that I have it's still 10 before I sell any but now I have to say I have 10 empty AND 10 filled in stock?  That makes 20 in total.

 

Is there a way to make combined products that instead keep track of the amounts of the items included in these packages?

 

This would mean that if I have 10 bags in stock and sell one (nomatter if it's WITH filling or not) it would change new stock to 9 pcs nomatter if the next customer choose to look at the price for this bag with or without this filling.  It wouldn't make any sense to make two different articles for this since the filling is just an attribute in my eyes.

 

Just to complicate things (not that it matters) I have two other attributes to choose between for these bags. They can choose between price with DHL shipment and no shipment included at all. The last choise is for those who want an alternative shipment (they might prefer their own shipment partner or want to pick up the bags themselves).

 

This makes it look as if I have 40 red bags in stock instead of 10.  This makes keeping up with correct stock numbers a nightmare.

 

Just to make things worse there is selling of these products going on beside the webshop which means I need to update stock manually on a regular basis.  It would be so much easier if it only was in ONE place where I needed to make the corrections and not in four places after each sale. 

12 different colours makes this lovely stock of 48 positions to keep track of:

 

Edit:  Why not include a link? 
http://webshop.bean-bag.se/sit-on-it/41-sit-on-it-original.html#/fyllning-ingen_fyllning/fargval-rod/leverans-hamtas_i_taby

Edited September 7, 2013 by Mr.Bean_S (see edit history)

[stottycabanas]

Hi Mr. Bean,

Well unless you can find some module to help you out, the only way I can think of at the moment is to have two products, the bag and the filling. The bag would have an attribute of colour, so you would need to maintain 12 stock quantities for those. The filling (assuming you won't run out) can be set to a very high stock quantity.

A customer viewing a bag would therefore see the correct stock level based on colour. They would also need to be alerted to the possible purchase of a second product, the filling, and provided with a link to it. The description for the filling would need to state that it can only be purchased with a bag - of course, actually preventing someone from buying just the filling is another matter!

It's not ideal (1) that the customer wanting a filled bag has to buy another product rather than click a radio button; and (2) that the customer has to do a little mental arithmetic to work out the total cost of a filled bag, but hopefully these are not big issues.

As for the shipping, you should be able to set up separate carriers via back office, and the customer can make their choice of carrier at the checkout.

I don't know if this will fit the way you want your business to operate, but I hope it's of some help.

Thanks, Dave

[Mr.Bean_S]

Thanks for showing interest in my problem stottycabanas.

 

Yes, the filling is something I'll never run out of since I produce as much as I need all the time so showing a stock quantity for that really is kind of stupid (but don't think I can prevent that so I have set it to 10 000 to start with).
 

It's true that keeping the bag as a separate item would make life simpler regarding quantity updates but life is not always about making it simple for ME. I have to think of my customers and it surely won't make it simpler for them if they can't see the actual cost for a complete bag (including shipment) until it's in their cart.

 

When selling products with such difference in sizes (as I do) a freight cost would have to be placed on each product but in a case like for this product the freight and package for an empty bag might be 12 Euros and same cost for the needed filling would be 47 Euros. The cost for both products would add up to 59 Euros for the customer even if the cost of adding the bag inside the parcel of filling still would give me a cost of 47 Euros.  Customer might not like this (even if I would) and it might make them feel freight is too high (which it actually would be).

 

I feel that the solution I have now (http://webshop.bean-bag.se/sit-on-it/41-sit-on-it-original.html#/fargval-rod/fyllning-380_liter_cellplastkulor/leverans-hamtas_i_taby) is perfect for the customers point of view but on the other hand not so perfect for me (regarding the stock values).

 

If I would have to choose the benefit for the customer would always win.

 

If you check my link you will see quite a big change in prices when changing delivery (leverans) and filling (fyllning) options (unless you use the mobile theme where no changes in price occurs at all when you change options).

 

Hopefully the problem with the mobile theme will be solved soon, otherwise I might have to follow your suggestion even if it would make ordering a lot more diffcult for my customers.
 

[stottycabanas]

I agree that it's important to make the customer's experience a good one. Having said that, it is unusual to see a choice of shipping methods on the product page. The 'standard' behaviour for a Prestashop store is to show the default shipping charges in the cart and other carrier options at checkout, with all delivery information in a CMS page rather than on the product page. Shipping method isn't a product attribute, it's more of an order attribute if anything, but I appreciate we all tweak Prestashop to achieve what we want.

Your approach, whilst giving the customer the final total, still requires them to do a little mental arithmetic to work out the shipping cost, as they won't see it broken down in the cart or on an invoice. Speaking as a customer, I'd prefer my shipping costs to be explicitly identified.

As for the calculation of the charges, you can set weight ranges such that the combined weight of however many bags and/or filling packs are purchased, it produces the correct shipping cost. You can base it on the volumetric weights if that's the method used by your carrier.

Anyway, whatever you decide to do, I wish you success.

Cheers, Dave

[Mr.Bean_S]

What I want is to give the customer a good idea of the total price immediatly since the price for packing and freight often is larger than the price of the product itself.

 

In this case volume is the only interesting factor since the weight of the filling is due to the fact that 95% of the content of polystyren beads is air.  A volume calculation of the freight cost would be really simple if you send via a transporter that charge you by the volume but if you send to private consumers it's not that simple.

 

First of all DHL Service Point (similar to sending by parcel post) have restrictions on how large a package can be and a shipment can only contain 1 box.  The maximum perimeter of this parcel is 200 cm and this does not mean that it can be 75 cm high and 25 cm deep since the max height and depth is 50 cm.  The maximum width of the parcel is 120 cm but you can't send a parcel that has the ideal measures 120 x 50 x 50 cm since that would exceed their total volume limit (which is 250 litres).

In other words, if the box has max height and depth (50 cm) it can only be 100 cm long to become 250 litres in volume.

 

Since the amount of filling in a regular bean bag often exceed 250 litres you can't send them filled to your customer and must deliver them in 2 (or more) parcels. Since 1 parcel is 1 shipment using DHL Service Point you can't use a volume calculation to get the freight cost.

 

If a customer want to buy 50 litres of filling they pay 100 SEK for the material and another 150 SEK for parcel and shipment. My feeling is that most customers couldn't care less about anything BUT the total cost for them and they rather not get it as a surprice when they "check out" and are finalizing the order.
If they buy 100 litres they pay 330 SEK (165 SEK for the filling and 165 for parcel and shipment) and if they buy 240 litres (max amount I can send in one parcel) they pay 300 SEK for the filling and 250 for parcel and shipment.

 

If a customer want 300 litres they would have to pay for 2 shipments and the total price per litre they get would be higher than when they order 240 litres. Two packages with a total of 300 litres would cost them 450 SEK for material and 325 SEK for the shipment.

Price per litre when buying 240 litres is then 2,29 and for 300 litres it's 2,58. On the other hand the cost per litre if they buy 480 litres exactly the same as for 240 litres so it all depend on the amount and size of shiped boxes.

 

It's kind of hard to make all this understandable for customers. 

 

Personally I agree that the best for me would be if they could switch between different shipment methods when checking out and decide what suits them best but it's very difficult to set up Prestashop for my circumstances.