Inventory Variants & Weiland's Volume Pricing

[GregM]

I have a bit of a tricky question. One of our customers is considering a switch over to using inventory variants for his products that have both color and size options.

This individual also makes use of volume pricing discounts through Emporiums volume pricing module.

The trick is, you only get volume pricing based upon your color selection, not the “master product” as a whole.

For example, if a customer selects 3 green nike small shirts, 3 green nike medium shirts, and 3 green nike large shirts, they could qualify for a volume discount for buying more than 8 similar products.

However, if the customer bought 3 red nike medium shirts, 3 blue nike medium shirts, and 3 nike yellow shirts, they would not qualify, because they have not broken the threshold of at least 5 of the same COLORED variant.

Does Weilands module and inventory variants support this type of scenario?

I was told that Miva's built in could handle this, but that there would be an insane amount of data work required to setup a price group for each and every product. This time sink would likely be a deal breaker for us.

Thank you for any insight that you may provide.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Inventory Variants & Weiland's Volume Pricing

I don't believe it does and something is off if it's really that much data work. You should map it out, it shouldn't be that hard.

[Pamela Hazelton]

Re: Inventory Variants & Weiland's Volume Pricing

You should be able to. From the module's description:

"You can amalgamate quantities so in the example above, as long as the product code is the same and the color variation is done with attributes, all 9 items would get the volume discount for 9 items. You have the option for each product code to amalgamate quantities or treat varied attributes as different products."

[GregM]

Re: Inventory Variants & Weiland's Volume Pricing

Pamela,

I'm not sure what you have described has taken into account that we are using variants.

The trick is to allow certain variant types of the same master product amalgamate, but not all.

Basically, you only get the volume pricing discount, if your choices are all for the same color. If you choose a blue, red, and green shirt, you don't qualify for the discount.

[Pamela Hazelton]

Re: Inventory Variants & Weiland's Volume Pricing

It might. It's worth a test.

There is also this:

"Applying the Discount to Inventory Variants
Beginning with version 5.035 you can use volume pricing on products where you use inventory variants and the price of the product is determined by the inventory variant price that you put in the inactive inventory variant products. When the product is added to the basket, the discount is applied. However, it does not use the attribute machine to show changes in the volume price table when options are clicked."

[lesliekirk]

Re: Inventory Variants & Weiland's Volume Pricing

It might. It's worth a test.

There is also this:

"Applying the Discount to Inventory Variants
Beginning with version 5.035 you can use volume pricing on products where you use inventory variants and the price of the product is determined by the inventory variant price that you put in the inactive inventory variant products. When the product is added to the basket, the discount is applied. However, it does not use the attribute machine to show changes in the volume price table when options are clicked."

This needs to be revisited. It seems that what Pamela has quoted is more of a description of what the module can do verses how to implement it. I have a product that has 3 Attributes that have become Inventory Variants.The Volume Pricing has been added to each of the Variants but the Volume Price is not applied as expected. The Volume Pricing does work for products that do not have any Attributes / Inventory Variants.

The products are not using a percentage discount, it is a fixed price. I'm wondering if the Volume Pricing is not meant to work with Inventory Variants and Fixed Price Volume Pricing. In the documentation there is mention of limiting the display of the price table percentages.

Table for inventory variants which override the base price when set at the inactive variant product level. This line <mvt:if expr="l.settings:volprice_variants"> limits display only when using inventory variants. So you can stack the table code if your store has both inventory variant and no inventory variant products. The line <mvt:if expr="l.settings:volprice_calc EQ 'P'"> in this table limits table display to only if the variants are used and the volume pricing calculation is a percentage of the product pricing rather than fixed amounts.

Again, still no real directive as to if the Volume Pricing is to be set at the Inactive Inventory Variant product. If anyone has this working, please chime in.

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

If you are testing on a later framework, there are a number of issues with the Emporium Plus Volume Pricing module because it hasn't been updated to support the new group pricing/variables. We have also documented conflicts with stock and EP Volume Pricing if they are both active/assigned. If these conditions exist on the store you are testing with, you may not be getting accurate output in the first place. For the most part we consider the EP Volume Pricing module end of life internally and recommend clients transition to stock on new or later builds.

[lesliekirk]

If you are testing on a later framework, there are a number of issues with the Emporium Plus Volume Pricing module because it hasn't been updated to support the new group pricing/variables. We have also documented conflicts with stock and EP Volume Pricing if they are both active/assigned. If these conditions exist on the store you are testing with, you may not be getting accurate output in the first place. For the most part we consider the EP Volume Pricing module end of life internally and recommend clients transition to stock on new or later builds.

The site does not use a ReadyTheme nor are there any of the new group pricing/variables in play.

[lesliekirk]

So this is still an issue? The EmporiumPlus Volume Pricing module doesn't seem to work with the variants. Each variant has it's own Volume Pricing configured. If the variant product is tested on it's own (i.e. as an active product) the volume pricing works as expected. If it's used through a master product as an inventory variant (with it's own price) - it is not showing the discount in the BASK.

If I can't get this to work then I'm really going to need better instructions on how to use the Marketing Price Groups for discounts that are specific values, not percentages and are inventory variant products...