Kits or Options (variants) for best sales reporting?

[NC Software]

As soon as R7 releases, which I hope is VERY soon, I'm going to overhaul my web site which I currently use kit components extensively. While this is a handy way of bundling things, and I may have to stick with it, the reporting is a disaster in AC 707. You'll get quantities for kit parents and quantities for kit components and if you add them up then you exceed the total ever sold yet either number makes no sense in actual sales quantities either. I need better reporting on exactly what is sold in this next go round and I wonder if KIT components needs to be abandoned to get better stats on exact sales stats. Any opinions on getting accurate sales stats and pro's/con's regarding sales numbers in kits vs. options/variants in 7.0.8 ("GOLD")?

[Katie]

It's hard to say. Can you give an example product? I can try setting up a kit to see if the reporting is wrong. Also, what sales report are you referring to?

[NC Software]

I'd have to check and do a test at some point with a dummy store. Let's say I have a kit called AbleCommerce and it has a kit component with 3 editions. Standard, Professional, Enterprise Editions. If you make 10 purchases, you should see stats ONLY for the three editions and nothing for the parent product hosting the kit component if I recall. What you will see is a total number of purchases but no value on the kit parent, then numbers on the kit components but they don't add up properly at times either when kit components are shared (if that matters, don't know). It's just terrible accountability and accounting and this product needs to be air tight in accounting.

I've tried both sales by product and product sales breakdown, both don't make sense and this is a major issue in 7.0.7 to me and I need to be sure to get this right in gold as I have royalties to deal with soon.

Here is an example from my store, top one is the kit parent, bottom is one of the kit components. Now you'd think that if you sum'd the kit components it should match the parent total of the kit parent, nope, it's a mess, and the grids in 707 aren't sortable so I can't get like product names together, etc.

Please investigate. In my opinion, kit parents should be zero, all stats should be from sold products only, not placeholders.

[compunerdy]

I agree that it is a mess as I use kits a lot as well but try not to when I can because it is all goofy. Creating the "fake" parent item is annoying especially since it is treated as a normal item and gets carried over into quickbooks and has a sales history. To not mess with current setups maybe creating a additional version where the parent item is not really a item would help.

[NC Software]

Shopping cart view looks confusing as well, just today "Why are there two of X in my cart" (this was kit parent plus kit component making two rows and confusing them). So if you purchased per my image above you would see both of those in the cart - not good! This is an e-commerce product which is ultimately an accounting product. Fail on either and it's a total fail. Needs to be tightened up with more accounting in mind.

[Katie]

In my opinion, kit parents should be zero, all stats should be from sold products only, not placeholders.

I agree with you there, as long as the main kit product doesn't have a base price. Maybe that is the trouble when they generate the reports. We may have to add a feature to kitting that allows the merchant to include/exclude the main kit product from reports.

Why are there two of X in my cart

For kits, you can choose the display style. For "invoice", the kit component items are itemized in the basket, invoice, etc.
For the "bundle" style, there is one line item that includes all viewable items in the kit. You can change back and forth to see the different results. It's just for display purposes.

[Katie]

I just wanted to add one more thing. Kitting is flexible, and because of that, we can't make assumptions about how a merchant may want to configure the kit. For example, in our store we use kits too. But the main product is AbleCommerce software and it has a price. The kitted components may be a subscription or source code option. For us, we do want everything (including the main kit product) to be shown in the reports. So, again, we may just need to add a new feature to make it possible.

[NC Software]

Thanks Katie - ideally and ultimately, I need accurate reporting of units sold and total sales for the same.

[compunerdy]

Invoice style "bundle" is what I would consider a kit as it is a main item followed by the kit components.

Invoice style "itemized" is a bundle.. ordering multiple products at once that are just dumped into the cart and show no relation.

Katie, I think the way you showed you use kits in the AC store is a pretty common one and the setup works great for that. I think the problem is when someone wants to make a kit out of products they sell as separate items. For example...

If I sold liquid glue, bottles, and bottle tops in my store as inventory items and I also want to sell the same thing where the glue is put into the bottle and the cap is installed and charge a fee to do this then the only way is to make a fake parent item. This is the way I use kits and it sounds like the same for NC. I guess having a option to exclude the parent item from reports is one solution but it would still dump that item into quickbooks since it is treated as a normal item in AC, this also creates funny looking invoices as it shows the parent item as $0. I think the better solution is to create a kit setup where you do not have to create a actual item for the parent.

If you see a better way of using kits like this with the current setup please let me know.

[Katie]

We'll have to throw around some ideas, because I would think that creating a 'product that isn't really a product' will create just as many new issues. For the most part, it seems like we could add some more display options, and filters to exclude from reports, feeds, exports, etc.

You have to understand that AC is becoming such a vast product, that sometimes, even the tiniest changes can make huge waves.

Thanks for all the feedback. I'd like to see this submitted via the Feedback system:

http://ablecommerce.uservoice.com/

Otherwise, I might forget to look into it further and write up a proposal.

[NC Software]

My kit "product" is not a product, it is a container for kit items. Think of it that way. I don't want any reporting on it, I don't want it ever shown, it is just a group control that holds group items. It has a "caption" so the user knows the group they are in, the group of subscriptions for example. Think differently

[Katie]

I’m not saying that it couldn’t be done, but it would be a lot of work. Product or not, it would need to interact with the objects in the catalog like it was a product. We have admin functions to copy, move, delete, search, etc. On the storefront, it would have to comply with the visibility features hidden, locked, members only, etc. It would need to be sorted alongside other real products, searched, and displayed like products can be in all the controls, with images, component prices, product reviews, search engine components, and on and on. Really, the only thing that would be easy to figure out would be the basket calculations because there wouldn’t be a price for this type of item. So, it’s the display issues that would be challenging to deal with. Every control that can display a product (nearly all of them) would need to be modified. The trouble with adding features is that we have to make it work with everything that the software currently supports. When you do something as a customization, you only need to make it work in a limited scope of your own business requirements.

I don’t know. Maybe I am making it more complex than it needs to be, but like I said earlier…even the smallest features can have a huge impact.

[NC Software]

It may be simple such as adding a bit "Act as Product" similar to forums where we have categories and forums. We just need a "property" on the kit master as to how it's to be utilized in reporting, etc.