Mixed "boxes" of chocolate dilemma

Hello,

I am trying to set up a storefront for a chocolate shop. We mostly sell truffles in a variety of flavors. Generally, customers purchase 2-piece or 5-piece boxes. Often people buy multiple boxes with different flavors in each box, so I need to know what truffles are to be boxed together. I am running in to difficulty in figuring out the best way to set this up.

I have considered creating a product for each “box” and using characteristics to identify the flavors in the box. The problem is that we don’t inventory boxes of chocolate, we inventory the truffles. Additionally, some flavors are seasonal which means that every time a flavor is on hiatus, we would have to remove it from the lists and then add them again when they return – not an ideal situation.

Since we make our truffles fresh, I could possibly live without the inventory features. One thing I was thinking was to somehow create dynamic characteristics that have a dropdown box populated by reading the names of truffles that are currently in stock. If this could happen, then when a flavor was out of season, we would mark it out of stock, and it would not be an option for the boxes.

Another idea is to somehow “tag” truffles when they are ordered as belonging to a certain “box”. That way when we receive the order, we know what truffles are supposed to be boxed together. Although this way seems like it might get clunky and not be shopper friendly.

I am open to any ideas you all might have. If I need to, I can do a little programming. However, I’m slow and not very good at it, so I’d likely need guidance.

Thank you kindly for your help,
TP

Hi,

I would avoid going the characteristics road with your project because characteristics will create variants for your products and it will be a mess to deal with all of them when you want to change them.

From what I can see you should use options for your truffles and normal products for your boxes.
That way you can keep the inventory on the truffles as options are also products while it displays roughly the same as characteristics:
www.demo.hikashop.com/index.php?option=c...ow&Itemid=91&lang=en
More information about options can be found here:
www.hikashop.com/en/support/documentatio...ct-form.html#options

Nicolas,
Thanks for your reply. I too think that characteristics are not the best idea. I'm glad to see that there is a more simple answer than having to code something myself. It looks like options might do the trick.

TP

Hi Sceadgugenga:

I'd love to exchange ideas with you on how to use HikaShop with a chocolate store. Please see us at www.mamorchocolates.com Regards, howard@mamorchocolates.com