How to you make price dependent on the Option Value choosen

[ehtraveler]

Im a new zen carter. I'm doing okay so far (I think) except the custom programming that I may need to tweek the options/attributes a bit. There's two issues I'm facing right now -

2) I need the price to be dependent on two options that you choose for that product. I represent a travel company so for example - you choose a hotel for your product - the price will be dependent on both the dates you choose for your product and the room category.

1) I'm also trying to create a calendar as an option to a product (ie. hotel booking arrival date and departure date) as seen on all travel sites.

Any thoughts/help/words of advice?

I'm not a programmer - just a designer, so please be easy on me :)

Laurie

[Kim]

Dependent attributes are not a stock feature of Zen Cart at this time.

Perhaps with an example another idea could be put together?

[Ryk]

Not a clue on the calendar, and depending on what you really meant by

price will be dependent

you can do the pricing by attribute. What you can't have is an attribute price which changes according to a previously selected attribute, so you have to try to find fixed points and break the attribute into manageable numbers. By that, I mean that yes, you could set up an option for each room category for each set of dates for each hotel, but that's a nightmare scenario.

You would need attributes of:

Option name: Room category Option Values: A, B,C
Option Name: Seasonal Supplement Option Values: Jan,Feb,Mar etc (you could set this as date blocks)

You give your product - Hotel Example - a price of zero and Pricing by Attributes

Obviously I don't have your exact pricing plan to hand so, at the Hotel Example for a cost per night we have:

Room Category A (£200)
Room Category B (£150)
Room Category C(£100)

Seasonal Supplement Jan (0)
Seasonal Supplement Feb (£20)
Seasonal Supplement Mar (£50)

Your add to cart button becomes "Number of nights", so 3 nights in Cat A in March would be

Cost of product - 0
Cost of Room +200
Cost of Season + 50
3 nights = 750

7 nights in Cat C in Jan would be

Cost of product - 0
Cost of Room +100
Cost of Season + 0
7 nights = 700

You could indeed have an option for the number of nights and apply discounts/surcharges via one-time prices - in that case, the Add to Cart button would not have the quantity box.

That's the basic logic for the pricing. However, how you cope with what the start /end dates actually are and what if someone wants to span 2 "seasons", avoiding dual booking etc is beyond me!

[ehtraveler]

Thanks for your help. I started this process already of inputting all of the different attributes and their difference in prices.

It's not the best scenario however, only because we have hundreds of hotels to input and with all of their variables of prices (room category, seasons, occupancies, add-ons) we're talking about thousands and thousands of manual calculations. It would be easier if the program did the calculations for you and we just inputed the rates as they are.

Another option (less proficient but still works) is something like this sample at [FONT=Arial]http://www.southtravels.com/america/bahamas/nassaubeachhotel/index.html[/FONT]

Ideally however, I would want something like this;
[FONT=Arial]http://www.kayak.com/?tab=hotels&gclid=CJuny5WEtIoCFQgTWAod5mZLuA[/FONT][FONT=Arial].[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]For customized work, if anyone knows of anyone that has perhaps worked on a travel shop cart before and/or knows who to do a calendar pick-date and work out what we need, please let me know.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Thanks again for your help and I'm still around if you have any more suggestions/ideas/advice.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Cheers,[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Laurie[/FONT]

[ehtraveler]

Hi Kim,

[FONT=Arial]Here is an example of one hotel's retail rates that we have to input as one product (hotel) with their various prices (options and their attributes):[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial]SEASONS[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Value- 01May07-09Jul07, 21Aug07-05Nov07[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Low - 10Jul07-20Aug07, 06Nov07-20Dec07[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Shoulder - 21Dec06-07Apr07[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]High - 08Apr07-30Apr07[/FONT]



[FONT=Arial]Per Person Value [/FONT][FONT=Arial]Low [/FONT][FONT=Arial]Shoulder [/FONT][FONT=Arial]High[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Studio[/FONT][FONT=Arial]Single [/FONT][FONT=Arial]170 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]193 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]276 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]334[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Studio Double [/FONT][FONT=Arial]85 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]96 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]138 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]167[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Deluxe Studio[/FONT][FONT=Arial]Single [/FONT][FONT=Arial]175 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]223 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]296 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]354[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Deluxe Studio Double [/FONT][FONT=Arial]88 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]111 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]148 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]177[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1 BedroomSuite[/FONT][FONT=Arial]Single [/FONT][FONT=Arial]214 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]259 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]326 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]384 [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1Bedrm Suit Double [/FONT][FONT=Arial]107 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]129 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]163 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]192[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1 Bedrm Suit Triple [/FONT][FONT=Arial]83 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]98 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]123 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]142[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1 Bedrm Suit Quad [/FONT][FONT=Arial]72 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]86 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]103 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]118[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Dlx 1 Bdrm Suite[/FONT][FONT=Arial]Single[/FONT][FONT=Arial]239 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]288 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]387 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]444[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Dlx 1 Bdrm Suite Dble [/FONT][FONT=Arial]119 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]144 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]193 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]222[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Dlx 1 Bdrm SuiteTriple [/FONT][FONT=Arial]92 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]110 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]143 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]162[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Dlx 1 Bdrm Suite Quad [/FONT][FONT=Arial]78 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]93 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]118 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]133[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1 Bdrm Penthouse[/FONT][FONT=Arial]Single [/FONT][FONT=Arial]253 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]295 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]423 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]480[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1 Bdrm Penthouse Double[/FONT][FONT=Arial]127 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]147 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]211 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]240[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1 Bdrm PenthouseTriple [/FONT][FONT=Arial]96 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]113 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]155 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]174[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]1 Bdrm Penthouse Quad [/FONT][FONT=Arial]81 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]95 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]127 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]142[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2 Bdrm Dlx Suite [/FONT][FONT=Arial]Single [/FONT][FONT=Arial]334 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]414 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]594 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]651[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2 Bdrm Dlx Suite Double [/FONT][FONT=Arial]167 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]207 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]297 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]326[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2 Bdrm Dlx Suite Triple [/FONT][FONT=Arial]111 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]138 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]198 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]217[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2 Bdrm Dlx Suite Quad [/FONT][FONT=Arial]83 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]104 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]148 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]163[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2 Bdrm Beachfront Lux.Ste.[/FONT][FONT=Arial]Single [/FONT][FONT=Arial]377 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]456 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]651 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]709[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2 Bdrm Beachfront Lux.Ste Double[/FONT][FONT=Arial]188 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]228 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]326 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]354[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2 Bdrm Beachfront Lux.SteTriple [/FONT][FONT=Arial]126 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]152 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]217 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]236[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]2 Bdrm Beachfront Lux.Ste Quad [/FONT][FONT=Arial]94 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]114 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]163 [/FONT][FONT=Arial]177[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]If anyone can come up with a scenario of how I can input all of these prices for one product, please let me know.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial]Thanks! [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Laurie[/FONT]

[ehtraveler]

Also Ryk,

I like your suggestion of having the quantity of the shopping cart item be the number of nights. Do you know how to customize the cart button to say "# of nights" but not to make this on all of the cart buttons in the site (because some of our packages can be sold as a normal product with regular quantities etc).

Thanks again :)

Laurie

[Ajeh]

If I was a customer and had to see all of that on one product I'd be more confused than I was on Dell's site buying a computer ...

Why not take the first portion as the Product:
Studio

Deluxe

1 Bedroom

Dlx 1 Bdrm

etc.

Now toss in the options for the date ranges ...

[Ryk]

Also Ryk,

I like your suggestion of having the quantity of the shopping cart item be the number of nights. Do you know how to customize the cart button to say "# of nights" but not to make this on all of the cart buttons in the site (because some of our packages can be sold as a normal product with regular quantities etc).

Thanks again :)

Laurie

I reckon it could be done by being able to identify which page you're on, but that could get complex. Perhaps if all these particular uses of the add to cart were within one category, then that would be easier. There's also the possibility of setting up a separate product type, but I haven't thought that one through!

Now, I'm as fervent an advocate of ZenCart as anyone, and have a faith that it can be made to do anything given time and knowledge, but sometimes you've just got to face reality. You/your company probably need to assess how much it's going to cost in time (and probably paying for the knowledge to customise to the extent you require) and balance that against the cost of a purpose-built tool.