KIT / Bundle items headache

[Patd265]

I do not get why creating KIT items, a one click purchasable bundle of several existing live items, is so complicated on MIVA.
Oh it's possible to create a KIT, assign variant skus to it, but don't expect to reasonably be able to control images of what it is a customer is actually looking at.

Call me old-fashioned but I can't help thinking, less time could be spent on all this AI bs and instead making sure the basic features of an ecommerce platform, a very expensive one that is, are at least well developed ?
It should not be such a headache to set up a simple KIT sku.

[Nick]

The 26.x releases included a round of admin UI/UX updates, and that work makes bigger changes like this easier for us to build. A kit has a lot of moving parts, though: the master product, its attributes and options, each part product, the mapping from every option to its parts, the generated variants and their pricing, inventory on the parts, and images. Turning all of that into a few clicks takes more than adding a button.

In the meantime, here’s a provisioning XML file that builds a complete kit in one import. It creates:

• the part products, with prices, stock and a main image on each
• the master kit product, with its attributes and options
• the links from each option to its part product, then generates the variants priced as the sum of their parts
• custom fields for short descriptions, features and “what’s included”, with values filled in for every product

This file is an example. It also creates a category and the custom field definitions, which you probably already have set up, so you can likely skip those sections (1 and 2 in the file). If you skip section 1, change the custom field codes in section 7 to match your existing fields.

Import it under Data Management > Import/Export > Import Data and Settings in XML Provisioning Format. Replace STORE_CODE with your store code, upload the images to the paths in the file, and swap the sample products for your own. Try it on a dev store first.

[Patd265]

Nick creating the KIT in Admin is not really an issue. Making it behave well on the front is problematic though.
I tested a KIT via attributes / inventory kit builder / generate variants with 2 options and could not get the images to behave at all. As soon as an option is picked, the child item main images override the parent main image. There was also no way to assign a secondary main image to the second attribute option.
So I abandoned the attributes KIT method since it simply does not work wel on the front-end.
The other option, creating a simple kit with inventory variants on the Default variant, seems to work. We can match that parent kit sku to a KIT in Skuvault. Although I am not sure yet if the purchase function will auto turn-off if one of the child items is out of stock.

[lesliekirk]

There was also no way to assign a secondary main image to the second attribute option.
So I abandoned the attributes KIT method since it simply does not work well on the front-end.

Pat, did you try assigning a second image to an Inventory Variant product that you would like to display 2 images for? Yes, it is a bit kludgy. I went through this with the bird diaper site. The main product would have multiple colors and sometimes 3 images for a color. I would find myself generating millions of variants. I did build a couple of kits too for the site and was able to assign the existing variants to them. The one thing I discovered is that if you are going to have two images for one of the options, make sure you have two images for all of them - that's where I would see visual wonkiness too.

[Patd265]

[QUOTE=lesliekirk;n725706]

Pat, did you try assigning a second image to an Inventory Variant product that you would like to display 2 images for?/QUOTE]
Yes I did but that doesn't work when the child variant is also a standalone product. That second image then shows up on the standalone product which creates confusion when someone is on that product page.

The KIT creation process, via attributes and inventory kit builder doesn't make much sense and is just not well developed.
Normally a simple KIT parent product would consist of 2 or more child items. So unless a KIT product has multiple choices, as in choose KIT A or KIT B, what is the point in creating an attribute choice option when there is nothing to choose?
However, if you do create a multi-choice KIT, then there is no way to assign images to each KIT option.

The Inventory Variant tab is the only way currently to create a simple KIT. But then the assigned standalone child product inventory does not seem to have an effect on the KIT availability.