Forums (Obsolete)

Member

polarwarp-gmail - 8/25/2009 1:08:01 AM

Ecommerce - trying to get my head around it!

A couple of things.

Your e-commerce guide seems pretty simplified so I'm not sure if I can achieve what I want with Kentico or whether its functionality is just limited to what is in that document. Which is pretty much add a product, and showing the cart steps.

1. Is it possible to set up products in the system without them being actual documents in the tree? Will they still hook into properly into the existing out of the box ecommerce stuff? For sites where there is a relatively small number of items it seems ok to have them in the tree - but when you have a whole stack of items it might be a nightmare trying to have them all in the tree.

2. Can I have categories and subcategories of products - It appears like the categories on the sample site are just pages - and you then place products underneath that. Actually looking at the properties of a product - there is a categories tab. What does this category impact on - as it doesn't appear to have a visual affect? It looks like I can have multiple categories associated to a product?

3. Of the following things that don't appear to be in Kentico e-commerce at the moment are any of them likely to be worked into future editions or should I just plan to customise or choose another platform as appropriate:
- search capability for a product (where you can pick category from a dropdown list to filter)
- multiple images per product
- gift wrapping option/w message
- color swatches linked to different images
- product kitting
- product reviews and comparisons
- ability to mark orders as fraud and list separately
- integration with postal services (eg. automated tracking numbers, delivery barcodes)
- concepts of warehouses and delivery manifests
- customer's order history when they log in
- ability to have discounts relating to specific products (eg. if I buy product A then I get 50% product B)

Don't get me wrong - I realise this is pretty specific to an e-commerce platform but we need to figure out if Kentico can do most of what we want it to do with a little customisation or should be looking for something else for this purpose.

Member

polarwarp-gmail - 8/25/2009 1:10:27 AM

RE:Ecommerce - trying to get my head around it!

Oops - I might have oversimplified what your e-commerce manual contains.. but hopefully you get what I mean - it seems I want to do a lot which would need to be customised - and whilst there are some good examples in the knowledge base its still a bit hard to get my head around properly customising it and getting as much out of it as possible (without having nightmares when apply kentico upgrades/hotfixes).

:)

Member

polarwarp-gmail - 8/25/2009 1:17:14 AM

RE:Ecommerce - trying to get my head around it!

Another thing I forgot to ask - was how do I play around with the product details transformation.

For the Product datalist I can see that it has this transformation:
ecommerce.transformations.Product_Preview

However for the selected item transformation it has:
{%classname%}.default

Where is it getting classname from - and where do I see the actual transformation. If I click edit I get this error:
Transformation '{%classname%}.default' does not exist.

Thanks

Kentico Support

kentico_jurajo - 8/25/2009 9:50:38 AM

RE:Ecommerce - trying to get my head around it!

Hi,

The {%classname%} is a macro expression which is resolved on the run according to the selected document's type. If you are having several different document types for products - for example in sample E-commerce site there are types like Cell phone, Laptop, all of them do have "Default" transformation in Site Manager -> Development -> Document types -> edit appropriate type -> Transformation tab.

Best Regards,
Juraj Ondrus

Kentico Support

kentico_jurajo - 8/25/2009 10:15:31 AM

RE:Ecommerce - trying to get my head around it!

Hi,

1) Yes, there are two ways of creating products (in fact there are three options, but one of them is using API). One option is to create a document on the Content tab of CMS Desk, mark it as product. It is described in this article.

Second option is to go to CMS Desk -> Tools -> E-commerce -> Products tab and use the "New product" button. So only the products (SKUs) will be created. Moreover, you can then link an existing or new document with the product again on the Product tab in CMS Desk -> Content and you will select use existing product option. I hope it makes sense.

2) You can divide the product on your web site using the tree structure. Also, there is the option of Categories as you mentioned. This allows you add the documents to one or more categories from different sections of the web. For example you have documents about animals. One section is about fish and other is about dolphins and whales (mammals). All documents about these animals will be in category "sea animals", so then you can easily display all documents in this category even if they are in different sections of the web. Then the dolphins can be also in "mammals" category so the are displayed with other mammals. I hope it makes sense. The categories are very similar to Taxonomy, but in IT world and in current version of Kentico CMS it has only "flat" flow. You can find more about categories here.

3)
- you can try to use the new feature in 4.1 version - Smart Search
- you can find some description in the E-commerce guide. However, in version 4.1 you can use multiple attachments for documents (also for product documents), and then you can display the images e.g. using repeater.
- I am sorry but I am not getting the meaning of
"- gift wrapping option/w message
- color swatches linked to different images
- product kitting ", could you please explain with more details how it should look like and work? Thank you.
- product comparasion ca be achieved by customization. However, I have added it as a requirement for next versions.
- you can add separate order status for this, but it will be managed manually.
- this can be customized and it is hard to create something in general, since everyone wants to have it different and behave differently. We will consider it.
-I am not sure if I am getting the meaning about the warehouses but maybe the Product inventory can fit your need.
- customer can see his/her orders in My account section
- we are already planning this kind of feature in one of the future versions.

I hope I have answered most of your questions and that it makes sense, if not, feel free to ask.

Best Regards,
Juraj Ondrus

Member

polarwarp-gmail - 8/31/2009 2:43:18 AM

RE:Ecommerce - trying to get my head around it!

Thankyou for the detailed response - I emailed through some more questions now that I've had more of a chance to play with it.

In regards to 1) I'm getting the impression that to display products they must have a document in the content tree (as well as be a product in the system). For a large ecommerce system couldn't this get pretty out of hand? ie. huge lists of products in the content tree. Or does the 3rd option not involve having a document in the document tree?

In regards to 3) I like the look of the new search in the ecommerce sample!
- we'd like to ask the customer in the checkout process if they'd like to have their order gift wrapped - with the ability to type in a personal message for the gift card. This option would need to have an additional cost. This is different to a shipping option - as they could get it gift wrapped at an extra cost (for the overall order not individual products) - and then pick how they want it to be sent
- swatches would be little images that the user clicks on to change the main image (eg. for clothing - the swatches would be there for different colours, and selecting them would show the main image in that different colour). I realise this is pretty ecommerce centric
- product kitting allows a product to be made up of other products - I assume the workaround for this is using product options (which wouldn't reflect on stock counts like using products would). eg. I buy a computer it costs of a monitor, motherboard, memory, keyboard, mouse etc.. if I buy it as a kit I save money rather than just buying individually. Or encourages the customer to easily pick a bunch of products (because they've been bundled together in the kit)

Thanks,
Jen

Kentico Support

kentico_jurajo - 9/1/2009 4:44:21 AM

RE:Ecommerce - trying to get my head around it!

Hi,
Thank you for the details and explanation.

1) you can have e.g. 1000 products (SKUs) in the E-commerce tool but on the live site will be displayed only 100 products (documents). It is not mandatory to bind SKU with some document. Also, you can create a tree structure in the Content tree and manage also the SKU in CMS Desk -> Content via the Product tab. I am aware of customers with several thousands of products and they do not have problem with managing it.

3)
- You can customize the check out process and add e.g. a step to it, where you will collect those information
- there is no such a web part for this at the moment, so you will need to develop custom web part with this functionality.
- you can use the product option for this. Regarding the stock, lets say that we have product X and it has two option A and B. You have 30 items of option A and 70 items of B. So for the product you will enter 100 items. Then when someone will order produc X with option A, there will averall 99 items, 29 for A and 70 for B option. I hope it makes sense.

Best Regards,
Juraj Ondrus

Member

polarwarp-gmail - 9/1/2009 7:38:53 PM

RE:Ecommerce - trying to get my head around it!

Hi,

1) To confirm - if I want a product to appear on the site - do I need to have a matching/associated document in the content tree. ie. if I have a SKU in the database that is not bound to a document could I still display it? Or potentially need some kind of custom control to handle the display differently. It just seems like you could easily have an enormous number of documents in the content tree - if you need one associated to every product you are currently selling.

3) Thanks - I missed where you set the inventory for the product options but found it now. Is there any validation on product inventory vs product option inventory? ie. looks like you could set the options inventory to be more than the product inventory which would be invalid. It doesn't appear to be enforcing the "sell only if items are available" rule on the product option.

ie. I have size as an option category. Under product options I have 4 sizes (6,8,10,12). I have 5 t-shirts in stock, and for the sake of it tried setting size 6 = 10 items, 8 = 1 items, 10 = 0 items and "sell only if items are available", 12 = 0 items (left the option unticked).

I would expect when I look at my product that the size 10 option would not be displayed? Actually I just clicked on Add to cart and notice the message in the cart page "The product is currently not available in required quantity. The maximum available quantity is 0." Is there some other option I can tick so that its not even displayed - when I'm looking at my product it doesn't highlight stock counts of any of the sizes so it should be obvious when there is no stock of something.

Is there a way to hide the price of a product option if its $0 - or is that just to customise the existing control? ie. some product options make sense to have a price associated with them but others will not (eg. colours, sizes of clothing which have no impact on price).

Thanks again,
Jen

Kentico Support

kentico_jurajo - 9/2/2009 8:27:13 AM

RE:Ecommerce - trying to get my head around it!

Hi,

1) it is not mandatory, but it is designed for this behavior. You can use e.g. repeater with custom query or I think also the product datalist web part, where in the repeater you will create custom SQL query, which will return required data directly from the DB about the products (SKUs)

3) You are right, we plan to change this behavior. But with little customization you can change the code in this file (class): \App_Code\CMSModules\Ecommerce\ProductOptionSelector.cs

There is SelectionControl_DataBound() method and here you can display only the options with SKUAvailableItems > 0 and also, within this method you can hide the zero price for the product option.

For the available items the code couold look like this (around line 395):


int skuId = ValidationHelper.GetInteger(row["SKUId"], 0);                     
int items = ValidationHelper.GetInteger(row["SKUAvailableItems"], 0);

if (items > 0)
{
  //code
}

It must be done within the foreach statement.

I hope it will help.

Best Regards,
Juraj Ondrus