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Alternative product id (Alt Prod ID)
Overview
The alt prod id feature allows you
to assign a unique product reference to a product option by either
creating a completely new id or modifying the existing product
id.
This feature can be particularly useful in combination
with stock management as you are able to control the inventory
of individual items such as a setting stock on long-sleeved blue
shirts rather than on the generic shirt product. It also means
that each product id can have its own image associated without
having to list them separately on the page.
As stock and pricing can be shown in real time,
your customers will also benefit from the feature.
Setting up a new alt
prod id from four options
We are going to show you here how to set up a new
alt prod id. The example we will use can be seen on our demo
store. The item is a t-shirt available in two sizes,
large and small, and in two colors, blue and red. Each of the 4
combinations
will have its own stock level, the pricing for the large size is
different from the small and images will change depending on the
color chosen.
The first thing we will do is set up the main product,
which is the t-shirt. Go to the product admin page of your store
control panel and select "New Product". For the time being, fill
in the following fields as shown here
The reference here is important as values for
size and color will be substituted in the final product id by
"large" and "blue" for example. The price is
set to zero but you can use a base price of say the cheapest option.
If set to set
zero, you would probably want to add this to vsadmin/includes.asp
pricezeromessage="Please select an option"
or to vsadmin/includes.php
$pricezeromessage="Please select an option";
The number of items in stock here doesn't come
into play here so set it to "by options".
Make sure you check the "Display
Product" checkbox.
The next thing we'll do is set up the 4 alt prod
ids so when the customer chooses an option the product id will
reflect their combination of choices. The four products will have
the following products ids tshirtlargeblue, tshirtlargered, tshirtsmallblue
and tshirtsmallred. As you can see these are made up of the product
name (tshirt), size (large or small) and color (blue or red). Here's
the set up for tshirtlargeblue
The price you enter here is the price you are
charging for the final product, in this case $30. If you had set
a base price of 20 instead of zero, as in this example, then you'd
want to enter 10 as the price. Enter the number of items in stock
ie. how many large blue t-shirts you have available. Make sure
you uncheck the "Display Product" box. If you want to show a picture
of the product add the path to the image in the fields "Small Image"
and "Large Image". Hit the submit button and then set up the other
3 products (tshirtlargered, tshirtsmallblue
and tshirtsmallred) in the same way. When you finish you should
see them listed in the hidden products listing like this.
The final thing to set up are the two product options
for Size and Color. Go to the product options admin page and click
on "New Option" and fill out the details as below for the color
and then for the size
We have used a drop down menu here but you can
choose to use radio buttons. Notice that there are no values set
for price difference, stock or alternative product images as we
have already set those in the alt prod id above. The important
thing to note here are the values for Alt Prod ID under Options
/ Alternates. You'll see we have entered size large and size small.
The way the system works is quite clever, it will look for an instance
of the word "size" in the original product id (tshirtsizecolour)
and replace it with the word to the right, for example "large",
when the color is also selected that will replace the word to the
right of colour, for example "blue". That will give us the final
Alternative product ID of tshirtlargeblue, which will match the
hidden product we set up in the step above.
Now we have the options set up, we just need to
add them to the original product (tshirtsizecolour)
Once you have saved your page, you should be able
to test it out on your site.
NOTES
The values are case sensitive, in the example above
we have used all lower case and that's probably the simplest way
to go.
The product id cannot include spaces but you can
use hyphens or underscores for example. If you choose to call your
original product id tshirt-size-colour then make sure that your
alt prod ids correspond ie tshirt-large-blue or tshirt-small-red.
You wouldn't need to make any changes there in the product options
page.
If you run into any problems, check out the troubleshooting
section below.
Setting
up a new alt prod id from a product option
The example above showed how you can modify a product
id through the use of product options. You can also create a new
id. This might be useful if for example you wanted to allow the
selection of another product with an existing one. For this example
the main product is a laptop computer and you are giving the customer
the choice of purchasing an extra battery so the laptop will have
it's own id as will the laptop plus battery.
First of all you would set up the laptop as you
would any other regular product on your store, set the number you
have in stock, the price etc and give it the product id of your
choice.
Make sure
you select "Display Product".
Now set up a new second product which will be the
laptop+battery. Again set the number you have in stock, price etc
and give it a product id of "lapbat". Make sure you deselect the
box for "Display Product".
Finally you need to make the product option. We
will make two choices available, "Yes please" and No thank you".
The choice of "Yes please" will use the prod alt id of "lapbat".
The last thing to do now is to assign the product
option you have just set up to the main laptop product. If the
customer chooses to buy a battery with the laptop they will get
a new product id. If they select "No thanks", just the laptop will
be added to cart.
An example of this set up is available here.
Troubleshooting
One of the most common problems is a message saying
that a product is not available when adding to cart. Here's what
you should check
- The product id must exist in the database
- There must be stock available for the combination selected
and the stock is set for the final product id
- The components of the product id are case sensitive so check
for that and typos
If the product picture doesn't appear, make sure
it has been added to the final product id and not to the product
option. Check the path and the case sensitivity. |
