Product variants. Can PS do this?

[matbennett]

I'm still enjoying getting to grips with PS, but wondered whether it has a way of dealing with "product variants".

Best way I have of explaning this is an example.

Lets say that there is a product for a "XYZ Widget". This is a product with it's own picture, description, features etc.

However, it can be ordered either as:
* New
* Used
* Refurbished

Each of these variants has it's own fixed price - ie prices are entered for each, rather than being +£10 / -£20 etc. Is this possible?

[weloveperfume.co.uk]

Yes this is something that we have requested within the feature request list a few weeks ago but still showing under review.

Really hope this get added to 1.1


8-/

[matbennett]

Would be useful. We're basically trying to evaluate PS at the moment to see if it can become our preferred e-commerce platform next year. Generally things look good, but we need to make sure that at least the most common requirements of the initial dozen or so stores are met. Several of them depend on this sort of stock handling.

[Paul C]

There could be a good reason for doing it the way you propose which I've missed completely, but I'm inclined to play devil's advocate here :-)

Psychologically, isn't it better to offer a reduction in price for the refurbished and used units? Can't you just work out the reduction from the fixed prices and enter them?

Paul

[matbennett]

As far as sales go, I'd agree. The practicalities though are that the cost prices rarely follow such simplistic pricing. A used item and a refurb item have specific costs that are probably not directly related to the price of the item as new. Imagine the following simple scenario based on just 2 products (made up, but realistic enough):

Product A
New price: £100
Refurb price: £80
Used price: £50

Product B
New price: £100
Refurb price: £90
Used price: £40

Fairly easy to set this up initially using the existing system. However, when new stock arrives it could fall apart a bit. Let's say they get some more New product B in, but this time it costs £120.

Now, they still have stock of used and refurb items at the same price. The only way to handle this would now be to change the price of the new item, then also go in and change the "discount" for used and refurb. OK on one product, but an epic pain if you are dealing with hundreds and the prices are changing frequently.

If set prices were allowed for variants I would imagine that these could just be dealt with en mass fairly easily - updating only the products that had been changed. Using price variations only ALL products would need to be updated whether the price had changed or not every time a new item was changed.

The way PS handles it is not unusual and on the face of it seems pretty logical. My experience though is that in practice it is not ideal. It might also sound like a fairly specific requirement, but it isn't. The same problems occur in different sectors as well.

Another customer that we have sells uniforms. The variants there are sizes. Oddly enough, the price of childrens and adult sizes are not directly linked - but they need to be displayed together.

Another customer sells "custom" jewellery. The same item might be offered with 2 different gemstone insets - which again the prices change independently.

I'd imagine that, one we know PS better, we could come up with a way around the issue by creating new stock management functionality that updates it all as needed. Of course though we are trying to find a solution at the moment that doesn't require too much more custom work to get all our core needs sorted!

As I have said elsewhere, I'm impressed by PS. The biggest downer for me is the lack of developer/designer documentation. If that was in place most other issues are just a case of working around them. No harm though in exploring how many of the issues might not be issues at all!

[Paul C]

Sounds like a reasonable set of scenarios where this would indeed seem like a necessary addition :-)

Thanks for the time you've taken to describe it; I think proper laid out justifications like this are more likely to result in getting feature requests approved

Paul

[matbennett]

You're welcome.

[Altex]

You could do it like this.

Product base price: 1000$
Lets say you have a standard unit as package for example with a factor 1 - (package) Price based on factor = 1000$
If the package contains 10 pieces the factor for (pcs) is 0,1 and the - (pcs) Price based on factor = 100$
If a full pall contains for example 8 packages the factor will be 8. (Pall) Price based on facor = 8000$

And you might have the possibility to set different margins on different units. You might wonna have a lower margin if your customers buy a package instead of pcs.

Example 2

Floor base price : 50$
Standard unit package with factor 1 - Price = 50$
m2 unit (package contains 3 m2) factor 0,3333 - Price = 16,665$

That way you could show both price /package and /m2 on the product page and you can easy change the base price and have all unit prices change automaticly based on the factor and the margins.

/Mattias Johansson

[saikat]

Hi in version beta 1.4
it has only 3 option
> New
> Used
> Refurbished

How can i add more option like
> bulk
> Broken


etc

[saikat]

Hi in version beta 1.4
it has only 3 option
> New
> Used
> Refurbished

How can i add more option like
> bulk
> Broken


etc

oo i have found. its in AdminProducts.php page