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Use existing product for Options/Variants

Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 10:45 am
by ajones
Here is our scenario:

We have over 500 products in our system. We have products that can be attached to other products and sold as packages basically. The problem is we have over 3,300 combinations of this and do NOT want to create 3,300 new product numbers.

Is there a way to use the Options/Variants or anything else in ablecommerce to attach other products to master products as optional items for sale? I currently don't see a way to do that. I would like to be able to come to a product page, add another product as an option and then those products show up in the cart individually.

Thanks.

Re: Use existing product for Options/Variants

Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 12:01 pm
by AbleMods
Adam, sounds like you looking for kits. A kit is where you create a "master product" and then choose which components should make up that product to form the kit.

Each component of the kit can be a specific selection of other products from the store catalog. Since component products can be used multiple times in different kits, you only need to keep 1 product record for each product in your store regardless of how many different kits you want to make.

Say you're selling golf equipment and you want to sell clubs, the bag and golf balls. You've already got them all set up separately as individual products. Perfect.

Now create a new product called "Golf Kit". On the edit product page, choose the Kits/Bundles option on the left side. Now you can create component lists for the various parts of the kit.

So the first component could be "Choose your Bag" and you would add the various golf bags you sell as choices. The customer will be choosing just one of course.

Then add another component for the Clubs.

Finally, you can add a third component for the golf balls.

Save it and preview your product to see the results.

Re: Use existing product for Options/Variants

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 8:51 am
by ajones
That is a solution however we do not want to create new part numbers called XYZKit and add components into them. Basically we want to be able to mix and match individual parts together as we determine. It looks like this is another scenario I am going to have to write a custom control to do this. I will and when I am done I will post on the forum so other people can do this.

Thanks.