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How do Pack of Products actually work?


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I've just set up my first pack of products, but I am not sure how this is supposed to work correctly, the user manual does not really provide much info.

 

  1. Does setting a manufacturer (Associations >> Manufacturer) for a pack make any difference (considering the pack consists of products from different manufacturers) or should it stay unselected?
  2. Do I need to set up the shipping options (package dimensions and weight) for the pack manually or does it add weight / dimensions from the products in the pack?
  3. I am using the advanced stock management, what do I need to set up in the Suppliers and Warehouse tabs for a pack?
  4. Do I need to set a stock quantity for a pack of products, although it should depend on the available numbers of products on the pack automatically?
  5. If a pack of product gets ordered, are the individual products of a pack put into the shopping cart, or the pack itself as a product?
  6. If a pack of product is sold, are the amounts of the individual products in the pack properly subtracted from the stock amounts automatically?
  7. If the amount of packs is set up correctly, does the pack get unavailable when any of the products in the pack are sold out automatically?

 

For my first pack of products I have not set a stock amount and it's showing the product as not available from stock on the product page, although the individual products from the pack are available.

 

So as you can see I'm totally confused on how a pack of products is supposed to work and be configured, especially the interaction between a quantity for the pack itself and the products in a pack considering the use of advanced stock management.

 

Can anybody with the knowledge respectively successfully using packs of products please through some light on how to use this feature (which is essential for our endeavour)?

Edited by Master One (see edit history)
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In the meantime I have

  • configured Associations >> Manufacturer
  • Shipping dimensions and weight
  • Suppliers and Warehouses

for that pack of products, but the quantity for the pack shows zero and the pack can not be found in Stock >> Warehouse Management, which means a quantity for the pack can not be configured.

 

In the pack's Quantity tab you can choose the "out of stock" action and displayed texts when in/out of stock, option to set the pack's quantity manually is missing here as well. There is an info telling:

 

 

For packs: If it has products that use advanced stock management, you have to specify a common warehouse for these products in the pack.

 

All products in the pack have advanced stock management, are actually in stock and in the same warehouse.

 

The product page for that pack of products shows all products in the pack as available, but the pack it self is not available (the logic behind this must be the quantity in the pack's Quantity tab being zero).

 

So what am I missing here?

 

Is there a bug in the Pack of Products functionality?

 

Does anybody here use the Pack of Products feature with advanced stock management?

 

Anybody any clue?

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have just disabled advanced stock management, and although I can now enter a number in the quantities tab of the pack it does not get saved. Means it says "Data saved" after entering a number, but it's actually not saved and returning to the catalog list or reloading the product edit page it's showing a quantity of zero again.

 

Entering a quantity for a pack of products is ridiculous anyway, because it can only depend on the available quantity of products in the pack, but with a pack quantity of zero the pack is always shown as out-of-stock.

 

Does "Pack of Products" really does not work at all in v1.6.0.9 ???

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I'm really annoyed by that not working Pack of Products feature. There is a pay-module named Advanced Bundles Stocks which seems to fix exactly that "bug", but I'm skeptical, because why should I buy a module that fixes a bug?

 

Such a fix has to go into the core code, not into a separate module with costs by en external provider!

Edited by Master One (see edit history)
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I've discovered this problem today, trying to use the products pack feature.

 

I think that the Pack of products feature of prestashop is useless, does not make sense to sell a pack of products in which it is necessary to define the stock of packs manually. This is dangerous because a user could buy a products pack including products without stock products without being notified and pay for it, causing a big reputation and administrative problem for the shop owners, and it's also something completely ridiculous having to monitor the stock of packs manually. 

 
I think the automatic stock of packs should be something included and working since it was implemented in prestashop, but from what I read in different forums and bug tracks, this has never really worked and still does not work in the latest version of prestashop.

I agree that it makes no sense to pay for a module to correct a bug in the system.
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I've discovered this problem today, trying to use the products pack feature. I think that the Pack of products feature of prestashop is useless, does not make sense to sell a pack of products in which it is necessary to define the stock of packs manually. This is dangerous because a user could buy a products pack including products without stock products without being notified and pay for it, causing a big reputation and administrative problem for the shop owners, and it's also something completely ridiculous having to monitor the stock of packs manually. I think the automatic stock of packs should be something included and working since it was implemented in prestashop, but from what I read in different forums and bug tracks, this has never really worked and still does not work in the latest version of prestashop. I agree that it makes no sense to pay for a module to correct a bug in the system.

 

As seen, you can not even enter a number for a pack even if advanced stock management is disabled and a number is entered in the quantity tab, so the assumed "manual" workaround is not working as well.

 

As bad as it seems, I may have to purchase the mentioned module, because without that functionality we can not proceed with our shop. I have already looked around for alternative shop software with only OpenCart and wooCommerce having a similar affordable solution available (but OpenCart v1.5 is way behind with v2.0 still being considered alpha, and with wooCommerce the product bundle addon does not work with the multilanguage extension; so both are a clear no-go for me).

 

The problem is now did I did not receive a feedback from the programmer of the mentioned pay-module yet, and their current version is only published up to PS v1.6.0.8 (so it's not showing in the backoffice modules section).

 

I'm sitting on hot charcoal here. :wacko:

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In my case I can define the pack stock manually, with the advanced stock managment disabled, but for example if I have 10 units from product A in stock, and you purchase 20 units of product B (that is a pack that contains 1x product A), you are able to buy it without problems, and in the system the Product A stock goes to -10 !

Im trying to contact too to the module developer, mainly to be sure about if it fix this problem before to purchase it. 

 

If it fix the problem, I think that the module should work without problem in 1.6.0.9 although this is originally for 1.6.0.8, because checking the *.9 changelog there was not changes in the core of the stock or products controllers or classes.

I hope they could fix it.

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In my case I can define the pack stock manually, with the advanced stock managment disabled, but for example if I have 10 units from product A in stock, and you purchase 20 units of product B (that is a pack that contains 1x product A), you are able to buy it without problems, and in the system the Product A stock goes to -10 !

 

Im trying to contact too to the module developer, mainly to be sure about if it fix this problem before to purchase it. 

 

If it fix the problem, I think that the module should work without problem in 1.6.0.9 although this is originally for 1.6.0.8, because checking the *.9 changelog there was not changes in the core of the stock or products controllers or classes.

 

I hope they could fix it.

 

Very strange, whatever I tried, I could not get an entered value for pack quantity to be saved, it always reverted to zero (that's with advanced stock management disabled). But such a manual approach simply is not an option anyway.

 

Please tell once you get feedback from that module developer, I'll do the same here in this thread.

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Yes sure, I will post here the reply. I've asked the developer two questions that I consider essential:

1. If the module updates the pack stock automatically after any sub product contained is purchased, I mean if it works on real time.

2. Reading the notes of the module, it says "the stock level for a Bundle (Pack) is equal to the lowest level of the products which compose the Bundle.", but what happen for example, if you have a products pack containing 2 units of a product, so the Pack have 2 units of Product A and 1 unit of Product B, if the product A have 1 item in stock, the pack will be available for purchase, but real stock of product A is 1, and if the module get the lowest level of product stock it will show 1 stock for pack and its wrong. I think its a very big detail!

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@DannetStudio, question #1 has been answered by the provided YouTube video, where the developer shows the quantity changes when a pack of a single product that's also in a pack gets sold, so that should really work as supposed to.

 

No idea about your question #2 though, and it would again be a show stopper if multiple units of a product in a pack would mess up the available pack quantity, because we have a lot of products in a pack with multiple units each in most cases.

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I have just received feedback from that module developer.

 

My inquiry:

 

Does this module work with the Advanced Stock Management function of PrestaShop, or only with Standard Stock Management?

Is this module working with the latest stable version of PrestaShop (currently v1.6.0.9 with v1.6.0.10 to be expected shortly) and will you keep updating your module (your last update was more than 2 months ago)?

 

Answer:

 

Hello,
The module works with both Advanced Stock Management and Standard Stock Management features.
About currently version, Yes.
Next version, this should.
We update our module when needed and / or planned in our roadmap ; We did not planned to add new feautres for this module for the moment.
Best regards.
Sylvain

 

I've send another inquiry about the module version (as it seems to be approved only up to v.1.6.0.8 and therefore is not showing up in the module section of my v1.6.0.9 installation). @DannetStudio, I didn't want to repeat your question number 2 because you surely will get a feedback shortly as well.

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I've received the feedback too, my question about multiple quantities of a product on a pack:

Inquiry:
 

 

I've read the module description, and it says "the stock level for a Bundle (Pack) is equal to the lowest level of the products which compose the Bundle."

But what happens for example, if you have a products pack containing 2 units of a product, so the Pack have 2 units of Product A and 1 unit of Product B, if the product A have 1 item in stock, the pack will be available for purchase, but real stock of product A is 1, and if the module get the lowest level of product stock it will show 1 stock for pack and will lets the customer to purchase the pack with 2 units of a product with a real stock of 1.

 

Answer:
 

 

The pack will be out of stock, then you'll be able to sell the pack or not as defined in your BO.

 

It seems to fix, theoretically, this problem.

 

I will purchase it and test on my shop (its a PS 1.6.0.8), and post here the results.

Daniel

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I will purchase it and test on my shop (its a PS 1.6.0.8), and post here the results.

 

Excellent, Daniel, I'm going to have to purchase that module too, we totally rely on that functionality. Just waiting for the info on v1.6.0.9 now.

 

 

I've found another module that seems to do this work. Its more complex and have extra features as calculate the package price based on products contained and options about combinations of included products, in addition to synchronizing the stock. But its really expensive: http://keutche-dev.com/blog/category/modules-documentation/

 

I've discovered that one too when looking for options, but it's completely out of question due to the high price.

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I've purchased the module and tested it on a PS 1.6.0.8. It seems to work very well and fix the problem of the automatic packs stock based on the included products real stock.

 

I've tried to simulate all the possible context of working and I didnt found any problems with it, and also it calculates without problems the pack stock when it contains more than a unit of a same product.

I think it's bad enough to have to pay for a module to correct something that common sense dictates that it should work natively on the system, but apparently there is no alternative.
 

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Despite the fact it has to be paid for, that's great news, Daniel. I've already posted about that matter on my issue at the bug tracker and I've sent an e-mail to the PrestaShop team as well, no response so far. But there is no way around it, I'll have purchase that module anyway, I can't wait for something to happen and we completely rely on that functionality.

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From what I read reports of similar cases in the bug tracker and other forum posts, prestashop not consider this as a bug, but its part of how they have designed the product packs functionality. It's weird but they devised the products packs stock to be updated manually.

 

I dont think they will correct this for the prestashop current or older versions, but maybe this feature could be included in future PS versions as a configuration option, although mine are just speculations.

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  • 6 months later...

Since there doesn't seem to be a lot of movement on this problem ticket (PSCSX-2818), I started to search for other solutions. I found following addon: "Advanced Pack 5 - Create bundles of products". I've tested the demo shop and it looks like a good/better alternative for the standard Pack functionality in Prestashop. Pack products or bundles as they call it and individual products are separated by this addon, and it has a nice feature that can be used on the product page of your shop to indicate that a certain individual product is also available in a "bundle".

 

It's not a cheap addon so I wonder if anyone has experience with it and wants to share that experience. Or do you have other suggestions, addons, solutions?

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I have only taken a short look at that module, but it is completely out of question to pay 250 EUR for a functionality that has to be in the core instead of a module. The overall consensus is that that functionality is too important to be developed and maintained by a third party.

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That's a good point. I didn't see it like that, but you are right. That means I will have to wait again until this is fixed. I hope my customer can wait for it. Are bugs like these generally fixed quickly? I would like to inform my customer about the expected delay.

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We are waiting for a solution for ages now, have a look at all the details in my issue report and the comments for it. Right now it's a real mess, Sacha Froment's patches should have solved the problem in v.1.6.0.12 but obviously it's not working as expected. The to-pay-for module from webincolor we are using right now is defunct and messes up the shop badly, but it's the only thing that keeps us at least have our packs available to customers. If I had known how this turns out, we'd gone for Magento instead, I'm really disappointed with PrestaShop only because of the not working pack of products functionality, which is essential for our operation.

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  • 1 month later...

I tried a method and pack of existing product works. Create it as a normal product with qty mentioned in the qtys tab and save the product. Later go to info tab and change to pack of existing products and add the products u want and save it. Now u chk the qty remains and in store side I am able to create a order for the pack of products. 

But if I create a product as pack and try to add qty, its doesnt add qtys. try your luck. It works this way..

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  • 3 months later...

Hi, I've run into the same issue with this and thanks to this post (@nnab) I've been able to find a way to make it work. 

Here is what worked for me:

  1. Preferences > Products : Set "New products use advanced stock management" to NO
  2. Create a pack product, select several simple products and save. Then go to Quantity and see if you can set the quantity. (I could do it) The simple products could use advanced stock management and the movements will be generated for them when the order is for pack product.

With that setting enabled I was able to use previous post to be able to set the quantity. With it disabled I think it is a bit more straight-forward.

 

An to share some thoughts on setting the quantity for the pack, even if I find it a bit misleading and far too complex for its base role, there might be a purpose in setting manually the items that you want to sell and not relying on the minimum of the components in the pack. 

Imagine product A has 10 items and product B has 15 items and you create a pack with one item A and one item B. At most you could sell 10 packs before running out of their stock. But I could want to have a campaign for selling only 5 pack products before disabling the pack. So at this point being able to manually set it to 5 (less then maximum 10) makes sense. I fully agree though with everyone else that it should be core, it should be limited to the minimum quantity of the items in the pack, etc,etc. And it should have been dead simple to set it up.

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  • 1 year later...

I tried a method and pack of existing product works. Create it as a normal product with qty mentioned in the qtys tab and save the product. Later go to info tab and change to pack of existing products and add the products u want and save it. Now u chk the qty remains and in store side I am able to create a order for the pack of products. 

But if I create a product as pack and try to add qty, its doesnt add qtys. try your luck. It works this way..

Hi nnab,

It appears this issue still has low priority in Prestashop's backlog. I've tried to apply your instructions to my PS 1.6.1.11 setup and am still turning circles. As the BO's interface has changed a bit from 1.5, here are the steps I go through while trying to apply your recipe:

  1. While in the "All shops" context, create new standard product named "Dummy base product" which uses advanced stock management (inherited from the default setting).
  2. Add 1000 units of "Dummy base product" using the stock management interface.
  3. Create a second standard product named "Dummy pack (10x)" which, when I save it, uses advanced stock management as I cannot access the quantities tab until I've saved the product.
  4. Go to the quantities tab and change to the "Default group" context so I can change the stock management method for the product (can only be done at the shop group level).
  5. Uncheck "I want to use the advanced stock management system for this product." and enter "5" in the quantity box, which means there are 5 packs in stock. Save.
  6. Change to the "All shops" context and open the pack product, which, at this stage, is still a standard product.
  7. Change the product type to "pack of existing products" and add 10 units of "Dummy base product". Save.
  8. Open pack product again and change to the "Default group" context.
  9. Check "I want to use the advanced stock management system for this product." and select "The available quantities for the current product and its combinations are based on the stock in your warehouse (using the advanced stock management system)." quantities calculation method. Save.
  10. Now available quantity displays 0 whereas, from my understanding, it should display 100 (1000/10).

Please note I am running two stores, which is why, depending on the step, I have to change contexts.

 

What am I missing? This is so frustrating!

 

 

Thank you very much for your help,

Tom

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