Pricing Problem using Components

[NickD]

Hi

Maybe I'm being a bit dim, but I can't get my site to price things using components. I sell wine, and have about 100 different wines by the bottle. I also sell mixed cases, which are themselves products simply composed of selections from the 100 basic wines.

To date I have not used components, and have just defined the mixed cases using text descriptions and a product price. However I now wish to start using the stock control capabilities of Catalog (probably more questions later!) so am looking at using components to define my mixed case products.

I may have misunderstood how this works (and someone please tell me if they think I have) but I thought that the price of the overall product would be automatically calculated as the sum of the components - yet I cannot make this work. On the "Product Details" tab one can enter a price, and then on the "Components" sub-tab there is a "Pricing model" drop down menu that seems to suggest that what I want to do is possible - yet whatever I select it just uses the data entered in the "Price" box on the "Product details" tab. All the components entered have their own prices.

Help!

Nick

[cdicken]

Nick

Take a look at the product and you will see that a 'Components' tab has appeared. This tab contains a drop-down list that controls which prices are used by the online store. If this is set to 'Product Price' then Actinic will ignore the prices you set in your components. Change the field to 'Sum of Product and Component Prices'.

[NickD]

Chris

I've tried all the options on the pricing model dropdown memu - including both 'Sum of Product and Component Prices' and 'Sum of Components Prices'. and it still ignores the components prices.

Regards

Nick

[cdicken]

I don't know what is causing the error for you, but it does work (honest!). It will not change the price that appears in the HTML - it will only show the summed combination of the product and component prices once the product has been added to the cart.

There are some examples of component use in the sample database that comes with Actinic. Perhaps you could import the file 'SampleHierarchicalCatalogImportFile.txt' and take a look. Back up your data before the import.

[NickD]

Chris

So far I've only tried this in preview mode - not live on the site - would this explain what I am seeing?

Also I'm not sure I fully understand your last answer - if you are saying that the actual price only appears when the composite product is placed in the cart, will there not be a (quite serious) disparity between the actual price and the price displayed on the site to the customer BEFORE being put in the cart? If so surely the customer will get upset!

In short, does the SW do what I want as described in my first posting this thread?

Regards

Nick

[cdicken]

In short, does the SW do what I want as described in my first posting this thread?

No - the component prices will not be shown until the product is added to the cart.

[Mike Hughes]

As Chris says, the calculated price only appears in the cart not on the page. But there are two ways of making this work.

1. If the sum of the component prices is always the same then there's no problem. You just put the correct value in the product price as always.

2. If the product has a different price depending on the components selected then the only way I've found to make it work is to put the price of the individual components with the component description in the drop down box (or whatever selection option you use).

Mike

[NickD]

Gosh, that's rather disappointing - it's not at all how I expected it would work, and I reckon this will be immensely confusing for users, who will wonder what on earth is going on. What we're trying to get away from here is constantly having to manually recalculate total prices, so what is really needed (and what I expected was in there) is price automation, so that if the price/quantity of underlying components changes, then with the appropriate pricing model selected, the displayed price will automatically be updated to reflect the change in the components, without having to manually intervene.

For the moment I guess it'll have to be out with the trusty calculator!

How about this as one for the wish list?

Related question:-

Does a product made up entirely of components affect the stock records for those components if the composite is ordered? eg if I sell a case of 12 bottles - 1 of each of 12 different wines - does the stock of each of those 12 components, which are themselves products, get reduced by 1?

Regards

Nick

[cdicken]

Does a product made up entirely of components affect the stock records for those components if the composite is ordered? eg if I sell a case of 12 bottles - 1 of each of 12 different wines - does the stock of each of those 12 components, which are themselves products, get reduced by 1?

Yes, as long as you associate the components with the products by using the 'Associated Product' field.

I have added your request to the wish list.