Is it possible to have options for a Product

[Aphelion]

Hiya

I was wondering if anyone has setup a shop which contains items that have optional extras, we sell printers and i would like when they are looking at a model they are given the options for i.e. (duplex) or a add a starter pack to the basket? any reccomendations or any one done anything similar would be appreciated.

Cheers

Mike

[jeff p]

Actinic comes with sample pages...one of which is products with optional extras.

Here's a link to a product with 3 optional choices.

http://solutions-marketing.net/acata...die_Flags.html

[Nadeem]

Hi Mike

Have a look in the help file, if you go to "Help | Help Topic | Contents", click on the "+" sign for "Product Options", then read through "Creating Choices".

Kind Regards

[steelcube]

We have implemented this on a number of products at http://www.steelcube.com

If you look at the following link:
http://www.steelcube.com/acatalog/AR_AV4x.html
you will see a product that has two versions and two optional extra products.

Version Choice

To show different prices for two versions of the same product, set the product price to £0.00. Add a component to the product (set the name to " ") and within this, an attribute called "Product Choice:". Then create a choice (right cligh on the attribute) for each version of the product you are offering. Under HTML name, enter what you want to appear on the product page. Under choice name, enter what you want to appear in the shopping basket.

Then go back to the component, and click on the permutations tab. Press the + button and select the product choice. Here you enter in the price of that version. Repeat this process for each choice you have created.

Finally, go back to the product and, on the general tab, a component details sectoin will have appeared. Select "sum of component prices".

Optional extras

The easy but here is creating the optional extra. Basically, right click on the product and add a component. Then make sure the price details in the product are set to "sum of component prices" or "sum of product and component prices".

One feature that took us a long time to set up was getting the optional extra as a separate product line in the shopping basket. If you need to do this, first create the component within the original product. Then, create a new product in actinic for the optional extra, in a sub-seciton called "accessories" (in the asample above, the headphones are a separate product). Once you have created the product, hide the sub-section. Go back to the original component that you created and under "associated product", link to the hidden product you have just created.

If you are going to add the same component to a number of products, set the price of the component in the hidden product and then each time you add it the component, click "use associated product prices".

Conclusion

The above method is pretty complicated and took literally days for us to figure out. If you find another simpler way of doing the same, let me know. It goes to show that Actinic does have huge functionality if you are willing to delve into it and get your hands dirty.

If you have any questions about this, let me know.
Good luck

James

[jont]

James - I take it you entered the price manually into the HTML name or have you found a way to automate this?

[steelcube]

Yeah, we had to enter text prices manually. It's not a great solution and causes problems when the price changes on an accessory that is featured on many pages but it's the only way we could figure out doing it.

If anyone in the forum can figure out a way to improve our implementation, particularly from a time point of view, I'd really appreciate hearing it. The method I detailed takes ages to implement per product page and is open to all sorts of errors.