Attributes and percent pricing

[londoh]

I've struggled with this issue before and it was covered somewhat in this thread:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77659

I tried 1.3.8 hoping it was fixed, but the issue still appears to be there.
I have 2000 products to get into a project (real soon now!) and am hoping this can be resolved (or somebody can show me where I am going wrong!)

PROBLEM
Items with attributes that affect price do not calculate correctly when a 'Special' price is applied.
And there are 2 aspects:
1) The Attribute price as displayed on Prod info page
2) The combined price (Sale_Price + Attribute_Price) for product added to cart

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
Using a virgin Demo Zen Cart 1.3.8 install:
add a new category = 'My New Cat'
add a new product = 'My New Product', Price = 200

go to attribute controller and use existing attributes to add
attributes to 'My New Product' as follows:

Color->Red
prefix +
Price: 0.00
Price Factor: 0.00
Price Factor Offset: 0.00

Color->Orange
prefix +
Price: 0.00
Price Factor: 1.2
Price Factor Offset: 1.00 (= +20%)

Color->Yellow
prefix -
Price: 0.00
Price Factor: 0.90
Price Factor Offset: 1.00 (= -10%)

Product is NOT 'Price by attribute'

Attribute switches are all as follows:
Used For Display Purposes Only: No
Attribute is Free When Product is Free: Yes
Default Attribute to be Marked Selected: No
Apply Discounts Used by Product Special/Sale: Yes
Include in Base Price When Priced by Attributes: Yes
Attribute Required for Text: No

These settings will display the attribute prices as:
Red
Orange ( +40.00 )
Yellow ( -20.00 )
PLEASE NOTE: These are the correct attribute prices


Items added to Cart show:

My New Product
* Color - Red £200.00 £200.00
* Color - Orange £240.00 £240.00
* Color - Yellow £180.00 £180.00
PLEASE NOTE: These are the correct combined product + attribute prices



Now, place this item on Special Offer at 100 via Admin Menu > Catalog > Specials
The Product Info Page now shows:
(£200.00) £100.00
Save: 50% off
This is correct.

The attribute prices display as:
Red
Yellow ( +10.00 )
Orange ( -5.00 )
PLEASE NOTE: The Yellow and Orange attribute prices are now INCORRECT.
They should be +20 and -10

Items added to Cart show:

My New Product
* Color - Red £100.00 £100.00
* Color - Orange £140.00 £140.00
* Color - Yellow £80.00 £80.00
PLEASE NOTE: The combined (sale_price + attrib_price) added to cart are now INCORRECT.
They should be 120 and 90
These incorrect attribute amounts are also DIFFERENT from the incorrect attribute prices displayed on the Product Info page.

SOLUTION:
I set out what I thought might be cause(s) of the problem(s):
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpo...8&postcount=12

I'm still using these fixes for demo purposes on the project and (with very limited testing) they seem to work OK, but I dont know the code well enough to consider what else might be getting scrambled

Hoping someone can help with a solution to this.

thanks if you can

l.

[londoh]

I'd really appreciate any response to this.

Either opinion from devs, or users with experience of this functionality / problem.

Is it a bug? Is there a fix?

Or can somebody show me how to get it to work correctly? Or a workaround to correctly deal with individual items with attributes, on a sale price?

l.

[Ajeh]

The problem is using Price Factor, Special and Priced by Attribute together ...

While Attributes using the regular attribute price, special and priced by attribute usually behave well together, the other pricing options do have issues that will be looked into in a future release ...

Price Factor was originally intended to work with the products_price and functioned with the Special ...

Taking it that extra step where you are using Price by Attribute there isn't really a true price at the time that the calculation is made and this throws things off in the shopping cart ...

This is not of help to you right now ... but we will be looking into further developments of Attributes and Pricing ...

[londoh]

Hi Ajeh

thanks for reply, even if it isnt very hopeful - which is gonna be a hassle cos its exactly whats required and I've spent a load of time setting up ZC, assuming this would be workable somehow

Its a shame you didnt respond to my PM several weeks ago - I would have still had some other options.

for what its worth, I'll point out that I'm not using 'Price by Attribute', (ie: "Product Priced by Attributes" is set to NO) and therefore in this scenario there is always a true price - its either the regular price or Special price. Then plus or minus the attribute adjustment.
Its not at all a complicated scenario.

I'd also like to ask: do you have any comments on the possible solutions I posted ?
I'd very much appreciate your opinion if you have time to take a look. Things seem to work correctly with those mods. I'm just concerned maybe its gonna throw something else off. Maybe you know what stuff might be at risk?

thanks for your time

l.

[Ajeh]

I have not had time to look into solutions to this and all the possible pitfalls ...

It is solvable ... but will take time to work through all the scenarios to adjust this to make it function in this manner ...

[Girdy74]

I realize you said that the Price By Attribute does not function or 'play well' with Specials, but I have an odd thing happening. Some are working (no complaints there) and some are not! Weird. I have looked SOOO close to see where I can find a difference in attributes and products that I just cannot find any difference.

Our website is www.botaniesoap.com, if you scroll down you will SEE MONTHLY SPECIALS FOR SEPTEMBER. The Essential Oils are displaying properly (these ARE set as Priced By Attribute)...the original price shows and the red (special) price is correct. then, look at the ORGANIC PALM OIL...original (price in black) SHOULD BE $19 and the red price (which shows correct) is $17. This also happens with the Juniper Berries...specials price in red shows CORRECT but the original price shows INCORRECT $6.00 which SHOULD BE $6.99.

All the essential oils that are listed are listing the correct price and discount, the herbs and oils are not. Does anyone have ANY idea why some would be working and others not?

NOTE: When you click on the actual product...it's fine. It doesn't tell you the price is SPECIAL but it displays the correct price. The pages it messes up on are: The home page or index page where the specials are displayed below and the Specials page (left hand navigation you will see CURRENT SPECIALS in orange......this page displays incorrectly for the herbs and oils but NOT for the essential oils.

If this normally doesn't work with Price By Attribute, why would it be working with some and not others? Any ideas??