[redegifts]

Has there been any thought within the grouped items concerning the options field with somehow having separate stock levels? As an example, what if I am selling T-shirts in sizes S,M,L and colors Red, Green, Blue.

Do I need to create 9 separate items nesting the options together:

Small Red
Medium Red
etc.

Or can you give stock levels/enable fields to the options so I can control when Medium Green shirts go out of stock by creating only 3 separate items with 3 options each?

This post has been edited by redegifts: 08 May 2010 - 08:25 AM

[Danny]

Yes, there has been lots of talk and thought on this topic.

We're going to modify "Product Options" to allow you to create a single product with multiple options that can affect the product's price. For example, blue girls t-shirt costs $20, red boys - $25 and so on. Each option has a separate SKU, price, image and inventory.

Some of the things we are trying to solve are: 1) it is not known how to manage tier prices for each option, and 2) it is not known how this feature will interfere with the existing grouped products feature.

This change will be made prior to release of version 1.0 - we don't have any more specific of timeline for you than that.

Thanks

[redegifts]

Quote

Yes, there has been lots of talk and thought on this topic.

We're going to modify "Product Options" to allow you to create a single product with multiple options that can affect the product's price. For example, blue girls t-shirt costs $20, red boys - $25 and so on. Each option has a separate SKU, price, image and inventory.

Some of the things we are trying to solve are: 1) it is not known how to manage tier prices for each option, and 2) it is not known how this feature will interfere with the existing grouped products feature.

This change will be made prior to release of version 1.0 - we don't have any more specific of timeline for you than that.

Thanks

Danny, thank you for the quick response. I am just glad to know that it is in the works and that this much needed feature is on the horizon. Thanks again.

[pmeissner]

I'd like to reopen this discussion.

A client came to me wanting to transition his cubecart store to lemonstand store. He sell undershirts, and his product page is http://www.ribbedtee...ong/prod_2.html. He wants to consolidate his product on one page in lemonstand. His product will have 3 variables - color, size & style. And when you select the options it dynamically appends the base SKU.

To pull this off in LS, I could use product "Options" for those because you can have multiple groups of options and they don't affect the price, but options don't give you unique SKUs or inventory tracking.

Or I can group products by 1 variable -- "size". But that means, instead of a single master product I would need 6 master products (black/crew, black/vneck, white/crew, white/vneck, grey/crew, grey/vneck).

I don't know the solution. It would be interesting if in product options you could add a code that would be appended on the master SKU. Of course, this would create totally new SKUs. In my case (3 colors * 2 Styles * 5 sizes) it would create 30 SKUs for one master product. A new inventory system would have to be created to manage these dynamically generated SKUs

I hate to say it, but maybe you need a 4th way to configure products besides (options, groups & extras). Something that lets the user build their product (based on predetermined parameters/options) and creates a SKU. With inventory management of of all possible outcomes.

Any thoughts on the matter?

This post has been edited by pmeissner: 10 August 2010 - 02:44 AM

[Aleksey]

Hi, guys!

We are still gathering information about possible requirements and implementations of the inventory tracking system. Now inventory tracking is bound to database products. But the last post suggests that inventory tracking should also process virtual products (with virtual SKUs), so it cannot be bound to the product database records strictly. That is an interesting approach and we will think about its implementation.

Right now we have some extra options related tasks which we need to complete urgently. When we complete them, I will return to this task and will let you know.

Thank you

[pmeissner]

Thanks for the quick reply and consideration! I don't know if you tried it out. But change a few of the "options" on this page http://www.ribbedtee...ong/prod_2.html to see the SKU change and give feedback if the product is still in stock.

[pmeissner]

Aleksey,

Have you had a chance to look at this again? Have you come to any conclusions?

Since I last wrote the client has decided that blastramp.com would be the source of truth for the inventory levels (so I wouldn't need to track the inventory levels of the SKUs), but it would still be nice to be able create multiple SKUs for the 5 sizes of the undershirts instead adding 4 grouped products to every style and color.

Thanks

[Aleksey]

Hi!

Unfortunately I had no time for implementing anything new in the inventory tracking system. Now we are starting working on the subscriptions module and we need to finish some optimization work, so the inventory tracking improvements could be postponed until we finish.

BTW, what is your task? Do you need to track SKUs because you need to track inventory for different sizes? Before we implement this feature in LemonStand, you can use a custom module which would track new orders and update SKU values in some DB table. You can output the table content in the Administration Area and organize a CSV import for updating the inventory data. I understand that this is more expensive for your client, because you will need to develop a custom module, but right now we cannot add this feature to the core.

Thanks

[pmeissner]

Quote

BTW, what is your task? Do you need to track SKUs because you need to track inventory for different sizes? Before we implement this feature in LemonStand, you can use a custom module which would track new orders and update SKU values in some DB table.

My goals are 2-fold.

My client will indeed reach out to the LemonStand community to have a LS developer create a module that interfaces with blastramp http://secure.blastramp.com/sysint/ -- a fulfillment partner. The module would accomplish:

• new order notification from LS to BR[/*]
  
• notification of shipment and tracking info - order has been fulfilled by BR and BR will provide tracking information[/*]
  
• notification of inventory levels from BR[/*]

Since every product needs an unique SKU to query blastramp inventory levels and create orders, a more succinct method for creating products would be preferred. Even though I have 1 undershirt, it has 2 styles, 3 colors and 5 sizes which is 30 SKUs. I think I'll create 6 products to cover the colors and styles and use the grouped products to achieve different sizes. It's a lot of redundant data unfortunately. But hopefully using a CSV file will make it less of a hassle to manage.

Just thinking out loud -- for the sizes, maybe this could be remedied by an option on grouped products that would create a unique SKU and inventory entry only. Like product "options", all other options/photos/descriptions/meta data/attributes/prices etc. would be referenced/aliased by the original product DB entry. So when you're on the product page and you select a different size the ajax reload is quick since it doesn't need to reload the whole product page. I'm sure what I described is not easy and there are a lot of repercussions that I am not thinking about.

Thanks for all you hard work.

[Aleksey]

Hi!

Yes, it seems we are talking about a same thing. I was going to implement some way of tracking SKUs separate from physical products, based on the product options/extras/other attributes combination. I would love to begin working on this feature now, but unfortunately we need to start working on subscriptions, because we promised to deliver it this autumn. But as everything in LemonStand, you can implement missed features with a custom module. Basically, inventory tracking is not that complicated task. There should be a list of SKUs and corresponding in-stock numbers. You can use any rules for binding SKUs and product attributes (sizes, colors, etc). When somebody places an order, you find a SKU according the rules, and decrease the stock value. Similarly, on the product page you can find how many items are in stock.

Please let me know if you need help with the implementation.

Thanks

[pmeissner]

Thanks for the response and offer to help. I really appreciated your help on doorstepdairy.com site.

I think I read somewhere on your site that you guys are assembling a list of LS developers. For the blastramp.com integration and inventory/SKU module are there any developers you would suggest to me via email for him to contact? Otherwise he will post in the forums, and we'll see what we get.

[Aleksey]

Hi! Please post a message to the Job Board (http://forum.lemonst...um/9/job-board/). We will retweet it. :-) Thanks.

[zone]

Any updates to this? It's been several months...it's quite strange that there is no separate SKU and inventory tracking for grouped products/options. How do t-shirt shops set it up at the moment? I want to be able to create a single product (not multiple) for a t-shirt that has multiple sizes available in Blue and Red colors and track inventory separately.

This post has been edited by zone: 30 January 2011 - 10:48 AM

[pmeissner]

If you look at the roadmap, it is #33. http://lemonstandapp...roadmap/#task33 My client had a developer create a custom module to handle the inventory based on sizes. I believe that my client allowed the developer to maintain ownership of the code to resell as a module, but I'm not certain.

If you are interested, let me know.

[zone]

Thanks for the offer I'll contact you if I'm interested!

And is it possible to list grouped products in another way other than a drop down list? I would prefer to use buttons or radio buttons instead.

This post has been edited by zone: 30 January 2011 - 12:24 PM

[David Cole]

Hi guys

I'd like to add my ten pence worth:

The approach to inventory tracking that you're speaking of seems absolutely essential to me. Clothing is a very good example of where this is necessary. For instance, my client is selling tops. Each top come in different sizes and colours, which I'd like to specify as options for a single product. Each specifically sized top in a specific colour is a distinctly separate item in my client's stock and so she needs to track the inventory for these, but Lemonstand currently doesn't allow me to do this. This is a problem for my client, but I've told them they'll just have to live with it for now, which isn't what I'd like to have to do.

As Lemonstand is fantastic in so many other ways it came as a real surprise it didn't allow me to track stock in this way and I seriously hope you'll make this a higher priority in the roadmap, as it's likely to be an issue on other online shop projects I get involved with. Otherwise, if someone releases a marketplace module I'll be the first in the queue to buy it.

Cheers,
David.

[TSG]

I agree, clients get a little confused when they can't keep track of all products, including grouped products, which is confusing enough for them to use.

[Aleksey]

Hi guys,

The inventory tracking update is the task #33 in the roadmap. Now we are working on the Bundle Product feature. When we finish, most likely the next large-scale task will be #33.

Thank you

[David Cole]

Great news - thanks Aleksey

[Phil]

David,

I'm the developer of the inventory module that pmeissner was mentioning - I'm also currently developing another inventory-related module where a master product has "grouped attributes" applied to it and ultimately every combination of attribute becomes a grouped product, but you still have a high-level interface to manage everything rather than having to manually manage a truckload of grouped products for each master product. If you're interested in either of these now, rather than waiting until the LemonStand team builds their internal feature, please let me know.

Cheers!

Phil