Per item and weight

[wotnow]

Hi I am trying to figure out how to configure this site so that produce can be bought mainly by weight such as 2 kgs of apples but also by per item such as one bunch of celery. There is no shipping involved as all produce is only sold to local area and a flat delivery fee is charged.

Would I add a shipping cost on for each product that is a per item product?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[ronlee67]

If you can get the mindset that "quantity" actually means "units" it should be no problem.

Examples:
Apples are $0.59 per pound (I'm picking prices out of the air. I have no idea the real price.)
Cantelopes are $1.98 each

You simply set the prices at $0.59 and $1.98 respectively.
To order 6# of apples and 3 cantelopes the customer would enter a quantity of 6 for apples and a quantity of 3 for cantelopes. The total price would add up correctly.

However, this leaves a somewhat confusing display on the product page. It's going to be up to you to clearly indicate what a unit is on the product page.

For instance a statement in the apples product description might be "Priced per pound" and the statement on the Cantelope page would be "Priced per cantelope".

You may want to replace "qty" in the "add to cart" box to "units" and then in the product description state "units = pounds", "order by units...1 unit equals one pound" or similar verbage.

To change the wording in the add to cart box open /includes/languages/[your_template_name]/english.php and enter new text for define

('PRODUCTS_ORDER_QTY_TEXT','your custom text here');

On the product lists it's going to be a bit harder to indicate what a unit is. Before the latest version 1.3.9h of Zencart I was using an add-on in the downloads section called: Short Description (not the one titled "Short Description for Categories"). I'm not sure if it will work with Zencart version 1.3.9h but off hand can't think of any reason why not.

This add-on provides another short field or column on the product lists for supplemental information to be displayed. The information also appears on the product description pages. So you could put the statements mentioned above into this field so that "Priced per pound" shows up both on the product list and the product description pages.

[schoolboy]

As no shipping calculations are involved, you could set this us as ATTRIBUTES.

EXAMPLE... For PRODUCT SOLD BY WEIGHT:

Option NAME: WEIGHT IN KILOGRAMS
- Option VALUES:
- Please select... (DEFAULT option, set to display only)
- 1.0
- 1.25
- 1.5
- ... etcetera...

When you apply these attributes to GRANNY SMITH APPLES for example, as you add each option VALUE you set the option value PRICE.

Such products are then PRICED BY ATTRIBUTE in your product edit/add screen, and given a BASE price of ZERO.

[wotnow]

Thanks so much for all your help. I have started to look at using attributes .. not very user friendly but am trying to study up using the zen cart ebook. Client wants the customer to input the amount.

[wotnow]

Hi I am wading through the attributes module in zen cart ebook and would appreciate some help. Site is http://www.fusionherbsorganics.com.au.
I have set option name to be weight in kilograms, and the option value to be a single text field so that the customer can input their desired weight .. now I am trying to figure out how to multiply the entered amount by the price of the product.

Product Priced by Attributes: is set to yes in Granny Smith Apples which is the product I have been testing on.

I am thinking though that it might be easier to simply write (please enter weight) in all products that are calculated by weight and (please enter how many bunches, etc) in the individual product titles. Seeing as this a purely asthetic problem.

Appreciate your thoughts.

[ronlee67]

Are you planning on allowing any variety of quantity choices? In otherwords, do you really want your customers typing in 5 and a half pounds or 5.5 lbs? Using the text entry prevents the system from calculating your totals and surely slows down your processing of orders and allows for some ambiguity about what the customer really wants.

Why not restrict them to specific quantities? For instance, if granny apples can have some standard packs (by weight) you could make the option values to match.

Example:

Option Name Option values
pound(s) 1
pound(s) 2
pound(s) 3
pound(s) 4
pound(s) 5
pound(s) 10
pound(s) 20
pound(s) 30
pound(s) 50
pound(s) 100

That way, if the customer wants 5lbs he selects 5 pound(s) and then enters a quantity of 1 (unit) in the add to cart box signifying that he wants 1 x 5lb pack. Likewise, if he wanted 200 lbs he would select the 100 pound(s) units and enter 2 (units) in the add to cart box to signify he wants 2x 100lb packs.

It takes a while to enter all the different option values, but it is only done once and relatively easy to add new ones.

The option names and associated option values only need to be entered once, but can be used by all products needing that option. In otherwords, if you sell apples, oranges and pears by the pound, then the attributes tables for those products can reuse the option name/option values previously set up for pounds. And you can pick and choose which option values to use for each product. If you only sell oranges in 10 and 50 pound sacks, then you can choose to only display 10 and 50 pouind option values on the product page for oranges.

[schoolboy]

I have set option name to be weight in kilograms, and the option value to be a single text field so that the customer can input their desired weight .. now I am trying to figure out how to multiply the entered amount by the price of the product.

Not possible...

The field is designated in the database as a TEXT field - and as such does not see numerals as "numbers", but as "text". And as it is a TEXT field, there is no mechanism to "control" whether your visitors enter ALPHA or NUMERIC values (or a combination of both) ... unless you build some additional extra code than invokes a NaN (not a number) alert if anything other than numerals are entered into the field.

All this starts to get very complex... So just use drop-downs where there are logical increments, as has been discussed already in this thread.