I’ve added one more feature to the choice options, and I hope it will be useful to some of you. It allows you to have add-ons with quantities (so a customer could order 3 extra doublers or 2 bars of wool soap, etc.). And I’ve finally documented how to use the various options on your stocking page with instructions, so hopefully it will be slightly clearer than mud now. I’m still getting bug reports here and there and fixing things along the way, so please, if anything seems weird, let me know so I can take a look at it.
Here’s the documentation for the choices (and it’s on your vendor pages too):
OK — choices. This option adds a lot of flexibility for you and the customer, but as a consequence, it also adds some complexity. So please bear with me through this explanation 😉 Regular choices: At it’s most basic, the choice options are designed to be used for in-stock items which are mostly the same, but have a slight difference (for example, color or pattern). So if you had five pocket diapers, 3 red and 2 blue for $10 each, you would enter “red”, “3”, “10”; and “blue”, “2”, “10”. If you also had one frog print to offer for $12, you could also add “frog”, “1”, “12”. In this case, after you hit submit, the stockpage would automatically sum all your choices to get the main item qty (the one that shows in your store table). Take note, that means if you enter 12 in the main qty field (at the top of the stocking page), then enter some choices with numbers that add up to 6, your 12 will be automatically overwritten by the number 6. Hope that makes sense. On the item page, the customer would see a drop down menu with the choices 0 to the number of that item still available. The items would be inventoried and decrease as customers purchase them. This allows you to sell more than one item at a time. If your customer tries to make a purchase with all the drop downs still showing 0, they will get an error message telling them to enter a quantity greater than 0.
999 (yes/no) choices: Now let’s say you have an add-on feature that costs extra. For example, snaps on a diaper. You want the customer to be able to choose whether or not to have snaps and also for the total price to reflect the add-on. Basically, you’d like a choice that shows yes or no in the drop-down menu. That’s when you enter a choice qty of 999. So, for example, if you enter, “Snaps”, “999”, “0.50”; an extra 50 cent charge will be added to each diaper your customer purchases if they click “yes”. Note that choices with qty of 999 don’t add to the total item qty. In fact, if all your choices have 999 for a qty, then the main qty you enter for your item will not be altered.
1000+ (add-on) choices: Finally, let’s say you have add-ons you’d like to offer your customer and they don’t have a limited inventory. For example, doublers, t-shirts, wool soap, etc. For this type of item, you would enter 1000 plus the max number of this add-on you would like to offer. Say you’re selling an AIO shell and would like to offer up to 6 extra snap-ins at $3.00 each. Then you would enter “Snap-ins”,”1006″,”3″. The customer will see a drop-down menu offering 0 to 6 add-on snap-ins and can choose to add those to their purchase. These types of add-on options are *not* inventoried. That means of customer 1 comes in and gets an AIO with 6 snap-ins, the item page will still show a drop-down offering 0-6 snap-ins for the next customer. If you have a very limited quantity of something, then using the 1000+ add-on option is not the way to go. However, if you have 20 bars of wool soap, for example, then you’re totally safe offering up to 5 bars of soap with each of your 4 in-stock soakers. Like the 999 option, 1000+ options don’t add anything to the main qty.
Shipping: The additional shipping per item field only applies to regular choices, not 999 or 1000+ choices. If any of your add-ons will add significant weight to your customer’s package, you should include that additional charge in your choice price.
Multiple inventoried items: There’s one last way to use your choices, but it’s a little unconventional. Let’s say you had 24 prefolds ($2.50 each), and 3 pink snappis and 4 blue snappis ($1.50 each) to sell, and you want your customers to be able to purchase all of those items at one time. You could enter “Prefolds”, “24”, “2.50”; “Pink snappis”, “3”, “1.50”; “Blue snappis”, “4”, “1.50”. All of these items will have separate inventories and won’t oversell, but on your main store page, in the table, the Main Qty will show as 31 (24 + 3 + 4). That may or may not be confusing, but it would work. Note that in that case, you’d have to sort of average your additional shipping charge as each prefold and each snappi would add the same shipping charge to the total.
Hopefully this huge explanation doesn’t deter you from using choices. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Also, I have some test items shown in this store.
Oh — one other thing — when you make your payments, could you use the Paypal button at the bottom of your vendor pages? If you would like the option of typing in the amount rather than it always being one $5 monthly payment at a time, let me know and I’ll add another Paypal button.