1 Collection-Multiple products-1 add to cart button

I am looking for a specific feature and have been looking all over the forum for an answer, no luck so far.
I am setting up a store for Bed Linens featuring 50 different collections.
Each collection has multiple products (25 of them for each collection) such as Pillow Shams, Queen Pillow Sham, Twin Flat Sheet, Queen Flat Sheet, etc...
Each product has a different price.
Each product has different color options.

A sample of this can be seen on Neiman Marcus store: http://www.neimanmarcus.com/store/catalog/prod.jhtml?itemId=prod43750099&selectedSuiteId=prod43750100&cmCat=cat000000cat000553cat3520785cat3520786cat3520787cat14300738

I have read every thread about attributes and I dont seem to see a way to do that without having some tweaking of the code. Unfortunately I am a novice in programming, I can "manipulate" some code but cannot create it.

Is this possible with Zen Cart? Love this app and I have created one site already but this one is a hard one for me.

Thanks for any clue!!!!

After a quick look at the high$ site - I think that you can get close be making 50 categories with the 25 items in each.

Place your collection description in the category entry page...

I would have to search for how to limit the product info pages or skip them and you can do this just as I could

Not sure if this will work for you, but look at the "Bunch of Stuff" product at this demo site:

http://www.linuxpuppy.net use "demo" for usr and pw.

It is a kit of stuff with multiple items. The customer can delete un-needed items from the "Kit" and price is adjusted accordingly. The "Kit" components are individually priced and can be seperate stand alone products if desired.

kobra:

After a quick look at the high$ site - I think that you can get close be making 50 categories with the 25 items in each.

Place your collection description in the category entry page...

I would have to search for how to limit the product info pages or skip them and you can do this just as I could

This option is the one I selected even though it does not offer all the options I need. I will not be able to skip the product info pages because I also have attributes (about 20 different colors per product) and was not able to include this in the listing page (which would be great if I could), but because there are options in the listing page the add to cart button adds a ...more info that takes you to the product info page. I guess I can live with that.
So thank you for the tip, I am still working on making it work ...

I ran into a different issue, a tax problem. The store is located in CA, and we must charges sales tax to any sale in the state. So I setup a tax zone and tax rate, but when I make a purchase it charges tax only on the shipping cost not on the subtotal amount??? If I select store pickup for example ($0 shipping) then there is no tax added. I am surely doing something wrong but I am not sure what.

kiddo:

Not sure if this will work for you, but look at the "Bunch of Stuff" product at this demo site:

http://www.linuxpuppy.net use "demo" for usr and pw.

It is a kit of stuff with multiple items. The customer can delete un-needed items from the "Kit" and price is adjusted accordingly. The "Kit" components are individually priced and can be seperate stand alone products if desired.
Thanks for this tip. This would not work for this case because I need to have model numbers for each product and add color options on top of that. But thank you for the reply.

You might best post this question in the Currencies & Sales Taxes forum, where it will be more likely to get the attention it needs.

And yes, if you have 20 colors per product, going to the info page is a necessity. Having 23 x 20 (or something like that) choices on one page would be a nightmare for the customer.

Yes, sorry I realizes after I posted. I am looking there now for a clue.

Ok I am back with the same problem. All the options I have tried have shortcomings and do not allow me to actually achieve my goals. The closest I got to it was by setting up the Collection as a category and the products as products. This way all the products show up in the product listing page but because each of my products have about 20 colors to choose from, I have to redirect to the product info page where the color attributes are showing.
That means that the customer is no longer on the page where he can make multiple choices and add them all to the cart, which is a basis of this shopping model.
Is there a way to add the attributes "Colors" to the listing page next to the "Item Name" and have the quantity button on the same line with only one add to cart button one the page.
So basically the customer would select a Collection to view and would land on the product listing page where he would have a listing of 25 different products. Each product(which does not require an image by the way) in showing an Item Name, a product model number, the available colors(a dropdown menu of 20 colors) the cart quantity box.
Below the listing of all the products would be the add to cart buttons wich would go directly to the shopping cart bypassing the product info page which is not needed.
I have seen many shopping carts built this way and I am talking about the Neiman Marcus site because it is the exact example of what I am trying to achieve.
I have tried using another route setting up the Collection as a product priced by attributes, the otion name beeing the products and the colors being the option values but when all the option names are listed I cannot order just one item (because I cannot use checkboxes, I would have 500 of them on 1 page), it selects one of each dropdown color and adds it to the cart, and all under on cart item not itemized. Anyway it doesn't work.

Anyone out there who whould know how to configure the product listing page to include the color attribute, please contact me, I am really stuck!!!
Thanks

The NM site requires huge amounts of javascript to function. Getting that exact functionality is going to require major custom work; I doubt any prebuilt cart system will have it built in.

I think you need to contact a pro to handle this; it's beyond what we can just guide you to do. Post in the Commercial Help Wanted forum, or look around for the professional designers who help out here and see which ones you like.

I can tell you that the Neiman Marcus site is not using Zen Cart or any open source cart script.

You might have to re-think your requirements unless your pockets are as deep as Neiman Marcus !! They most likely paid someone $1,000's for this.

kiddo:

Not sure if this will work for you, but look at the "Bunch of Stuff" product at this demo site:

http://www.linuxpuppy.net use "demo" for usr and pw.

It is a kit of stuff with multiple items. The customer can delete un-needed items from the "Kit" and price is adjusted accordingly. The "Kit" components are individually priced and can be seperate stand alone products if desired.

this will work for me, but feeling very blonde this week, can you tell me how to find out how to do this.

Thank you for your help

Wheat

Has there been any sort of new development in regards to the OP's question? This is exactly the same thing that I am trying to accomplish on one of my client's store.

Neiman-Marcus isn't the only site that uses the "collection" layout... I've found the same thing at Bedding.com as well as other sites.

The solution seems like it would be fairly simply to do, but I'm not a programmer, just a designer, so I'm rather stuck.

If this is something that ZC is absolutely incapable of handling, I'd be open to other cart software recommendations.

mainestratman:

If this is something that ZC is absolutely incapable of handling, I'd be open to other cart software recommendations.
others:

I can tell you that the Neiman Marcus site is not using Zen Cart or any open source cart script.

You might have to re-think your requirements unless your pockets are as deep as Neiman Marcus !!

The NM site requires huge amounts of javascript to function. Getting that exact functionality is going to require major custom work; I doubt any prebuilt cart system will have it built in.
This is attainable but requires much "Custom Code" for any cart

Apparently osCommerce has a module that would work perfectly:

http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=67284

mainestratman:

Apparently osCommerce has a module that would work perfectly:

http://forums.oscommerce.com/index.php?showtopic=67284

Yup.. I was right.

Thanks for the PMs everyone.

And if you glance at the support thread for it you will see that it has had years of coding work done for it. It might be possible to port it to Zen Cart, but I wouldn't attempt it if you don't already have good PHP and ZC chops.