Possible to order zero?

[saucysal]

I have gone to some trouble to set up products which a number of optional extra choices, and was happy with it. Some of these options were very complicated to set up, as they are products that are made up of a number of components, and then those products are in a list of choices in an option, and there are 3 sets of options, each with a number of choice of products with choices, or something like that. However, it has suddenly dawned on me that some people may like to order the options but not the main product, but this is not possible as the system does not allow zero of the main product. Is there any way of doing this without major changes?

To give you more of an idea, the main product is a book of patterns, and one of the options is to choose a yarn pack with a choice of sizes, which contains all the yarns to make the pattern chosen from the book - some people may want to just order the yarn pack as they ordered the book previously. Other options are the needles, with choices of length, size and material.

Sarah

[fergusw]

it has suddenly dawned on me that some people may like to order the options but not the main product

Semantically speaking your statement is saying:
"As well as the 'main' product, I want people to buy 'other' products on this page"

The only way I can see of doing this is to use more than one product on the page and then use a "single add to cart" button on the page.
Layouts of the "main" product and the "other/option" products can be very different if required. Indeed, we have customised such a layout for some people where the other products on the page appear as checkboxes and drop-downs "within" the main product layout.

I appreciate that may require a change to your existing structure and some additional layout designing.

Another alternative would be to have a link to a page with just the option product on it, thereby allowing people the choice to order it with the main product or to go an order it on it's own!

[saucysal]

Sorry, not the point

Sorry, perhaps I was not clear enough! I want people to be able to by the additional options and NOT the MAIN PRODUCT if they do not want it.

I have experimented with making the main product £0.00, and then putting a component - attribute - choice of the product or none. I thought that this might work, but unfortunately, when the person selects None, the main product enters the cart as a quantity of one and for £0.00. So back to the drawing board.

Sarah

[NormanRouxel]

I'd experiment with Fergus's suggestion.

Single Add to cart with the main product in a detailed layout at the top.
Yarn kits below, perhaps in a more concise layout.
Customer can then do things that would be impossible on your original scheme.

E.g:
No book but any number of any of the kits.
One book but more than one of any particular yarn kit (for the triplets!).
Several books but only one yarn kit.

[saucysal]

I already have one add to cart button

I had already set up this product with the page having only one add to cart button, and optional options for a list of kits in different size (radio buttons), optionals needles likewise, etc. They can select None for the pattern book if they don't want it, and can select a kit or none, likewise the needles. This all looks fine and performs fine on that page. However, when the customer goes to View Cart or Checkout, and has selected None for the book (the main product) this book is listed at the top, with quantity 1, with no price, and the customer may think they will receive this book, and for free. I would rather either the product didn't appear there at all, or had the quantity zero.

I do not need to set up options of multiple choices of the kit in different sizes, etc as it is extremely unlikely that anybody would want to do this, and they could do it if they really wanted to by going back to the product and adding the second kit to cart.

I may be mis-understanding what you are saying.

Sarah

[Mike Hughes]

I agree with what the others are saying, but you could do it the way you want to. Just create a dummy product called 'Complete yarn kit' and then have the book and everything else as options under that.

Mike

[saucysal]

I don't understand

I am sorry but I don't understand. I had done what the others had said, from the start, with having one add to cart button. The yarn kits are optional too (they don't have to order a kit at all), so changing the main product to the yarn kits does not help as it is just the same problem. However, the main product has to be the pattern book. It is in the Patterns section, and the customer clicks on a pattern book, and is then given images of all the patterns in the book, clicks on a pattern, and gets the options of ordering the pattern book that includes this pattern, option of yarn pack etc to knit that one pattern. The product page looks fine and works, the only problem is that in the cart/Checkout the pattern in the pattern book comes up at the top, even when None is selected, with quantity of 1 (cannot set as zero) and price £0.00 - but they won't receive this if they selected None. I have tried all the options, including the pattern book, ticked as component as separate order line, and in main product Sum of Components, but this does not help. Am I still mis-understanding something that was suggested?

Sarah

[Mike Hughes]

Am I still mis-understanding something that was suggested?

In a nutshell. Yes.

The 'Single add to cart button' scheme is where you list multiple products on the page and have a single add to cart button, usually at the bottom of the page. This differs from the usual layout where there's an add to cart button for each product.

The others are suggesting you have multiple products on the page, rather than options, so the customer can select how many of which products they want and then just click the add to cart button at the bottom.

My suggestion was that rather than having the book as the main product, you could make the book an option under a dummy product. This way you could continue to use all the options, etc that you have set up. Alternatively, just create a dummy product underneath the book product called 'Optional sets to go with this book'.

Mike

[saucysal]

Now I think I understand

Thanks, Mike. Now I'll have to find out how to do this, as I never before had a number of products separately on the one product page. The structure of the site is becoming increasingly complicated - I won't go into it all now, but I had to make use of sections performing as products and use of the Advanced Link to get the pattern book clickable to get all the patterns in the book, and these images clickable to get the book, yarn packs for pattern etc.

The pattern is already a dummy product, in that it is a pattern which doesn't actually exist as a product in itself as it is one of many in the book.

I'll have a go at trying to do this later.

Thanks.

Sarah

[leehack]

Here's an example of SATC setup in action - http://www.makitadirect.co.uk/acatal...aw-Blades.html

[saucysal]

Thank you, Lee

I shall have a go at doing this and see how much work it is going to be to change everything (I have so far put on about 64 patterns, with options, that will have to be changed. It may be easier than I think. Alternatively I could just put a link for people who want to order the yarn packs without a pattern, which takes them direct to the yarn packs for that pattern, in the Yarns section: Yarn Packs.

Sarah

[saucysal]

Different Solution

Thank you everybody for your help. I tried the suggestion of a section (page) with the products in it and one Add to Cart - this works fine. However, because of the complicated structure necessary in my case, there were too many customer clicks necessary to get to where they wanted to be - too many sections, sub-sections, sub-sub sections and products, product details, and also a lot of extra work for me, including in splitting up the product details. I decided that it was neater, fewer clicks, quicker and possibly more logical, to keep the patterns with the yarn pack options in the Patterns section as it was, but to also have the yarn packs in the Yarns section, copy pasting, with minimal editing, for example changing the individual pattern name in the product name to say Yarn Packs for XYZ pattern. Then putting a link in the pattern in Patterns to the particular yarn pack in Yarns for people not wanting to buy the pattern.

Sarah