Stock Management

[newuser]

We are trying to use Actinic V6 for stock mamagement. We deal with me's clothing and would like to manage our stock i.e sizes 15, 15.5, 16 etc of different products. Is this possible, do we have to have each one of them as single product? How much work is involved in doing this?

Is there someone out there that has done this before? Is there an easier way or do we require additional coding?

[James M SellerDeck]

Hi Ade

In order to do this you would firstly need to create a product (i.e Shirt), then create a componant, attribute and your choices (sizes)coming off that product. You can find instructions on how to do this in the Help Files if you search for 'componant'.

Then once you have done this, you would need to right click 'shirt' and create a new product for each size (the reason for doing this is that this is where the stock monitoring is held for each size.

Then, within each one of these 'size' products that you have just created, if you go into each one, and Check Hide On Website under the general tab, and also set the relevant stock level for each size under the Stock tab.

Once you have done this, then go into the componant you created coming off the 'shirt' product, and go to the Permutations tab.

For each choice you have entered in the list, if you scroll to the right there is a column titled Product - if you select the relevant 'Size' Product from the dropdown list to associate it with the 'Size' Choice, then you will be able to apply stock monitoring to each size on your site.

[rmladden]

I’m in a similar situation and am using this method. What seems to be lost doing this is the “Out of Stock” indicator on the web site when one of the component products is out of stock.

Is there a way for a component product to indicate out of stock?

Bob Ladden

[Jan]

If the user trys to order a component, you will get a message telling you that the item it out of stock but the out of stock button will not be displayed.

Regards,

[rmladden]

That works, but the message is:
We are sorry, the combination you selected is unavailable at present due to [main product] being out of stock.

The message should display the component product's name, not the main product. Other component products may still be available.

Bob Ladden

[pinbrook]

The whole issue of clothing stores needs to be looked at in detail by actinic dev team.

Whilst there is the stock control solution of entering each product twice, this isn't a practical solution, there needs to be stock control on each component in the component box, and individual pricing too.

double entering products is a nightmare when you have one tee shirt available in 15 colours and 5 sizes, and a mens version, ladies and kids.

[James M SellerDeck]

Originally posted by pinbrook

Whilst there is the stock control solution of entering each product twice, this isn't a practical solution, there needs to be stock control on each component in the component box, and individual pricing too.

Hi Jo

Just to let you know I have added this request to our wishlist.

James
________

[rmladden]

I found message ID 297: We are sorry, the combination you selected is unavailable at present due to %s being out of stock.

Is there a replacement for %s that will display the component product instead of the main product?

Bob Ladden

[cdicken]

The message you get always displays the name of the component, rather than the name of the product. Do you have the same name for your component as you do for your product?

[rmladden]

My component does have the same name as the product, but that does not matter. The component has two permutations. Each permutation has an associated product. It makes sense to display the associated product name. Even if I change the component name, the message still won't say which product is out of stock so the customer can choose the other associated product. I have attached a screen print of that part of my catalog.

Bob Ladden

[NormanRouxel]

Re the clothing stock problem.

If you're using Top To Toe as your internal stock and EPOS system then I have a product that completely maintains Catalog from the T2T data. All info is held in T2T, and as items come into and go out of stock that is reflected in the web-site.

It also add many features that Catalog lacks. See www.snowlines.co.uk for such a site.

Norman#