Build A Customised Composite Product in WooCommerce with Product Bundles!
by Sam Davis
As a user of WordPress, you will be aware how great WooCommerce is for creating online shops that make it easy to sell your products. Whilst some may say that it isn’t as customisable as other E-Commerce platforms such as Magento, the plethora of plugins that can run in tandem with the popular selling tool can help to enhance your offering massively.
If you have a product that requires mass customisation, as with any shopping platform, there is the ability to add customised options within WooCommerce where you can specify numerous choices that the user can make, including sizes, quantities, and many other configurable elements. However there may be an occasion whereby you may want to provide a more dynamic offering where visitors can create a “composite” product, mixing and matching component items to create a completely bespoke purchase.
One of the projects that I have been working on recently is a website called Poppy and Pearl. Based in Bournemouth, they put together luxurious gift baskets which can be purchased online and can be delivered and/or collected by people around the globe., They have all kinds of gift baskets including Valentine’s parcels, Get Well Soon hampers, New Mum gift-boxes, and much more – each comprising a number of niche products such as candles, confectionery, and pamper items to name but a few.
A visitor to the website would be able to customise the exact products that they would like in the hamper or gift box.
This meant that there was a lot of extra administration to do in terms of the pricing of the baskets and the logistics of putting them all together. Therefore it was deemed appropriate that a “build your own parcel” page could be created whereby a website visitor would be able to customise the exact items that they would like in the hamper/gift box. This would mean that they would be able to create the a bespoke gift which would be 100% perfect for their recipient.
To go about this task, I downloaded a plug-in called WooCommerce Composite products. This enabled me to set various “stages” (or components) in the building of a bespoke product whereby a visitor could pick one item from a category before moving on to the next category and choosing again etc. There are numerous sites online that use this technique already – for instance, if you were to buy a skateboard online, you may want to choose a specific deck, your favourite wheels, and also you could opt for a certain set of trucks – all of which, when pulled together, will complete a totally bespoke skateboard.
However in this circumstance, we would need to select more than one item for a particular category. For instance, the user might want to purchase two baby items, three pieces of confectionary, and a single beauty product for example. As the WooCommerce Composite Products plug-in only allows one pick per category, I needed to download the WooCommerce Product Bundles plugin, which enables a developer to create a plethora of categories, all filled with appropriate items, any number of which can be purchased for each component (or category) that the user cycles through. The following Youtube video explains how it is done…
This particular system is going to be launched this week and I’m really interested to see how it performs. It should save the business owner lots of time in terms administration, plus it should be attractive to any visitor who will now be able to put together the perfect item for the recipient. No longer will they be “put off” by a rogue product in an otherwise perfect gift bundle, as they will simply have the ability to build it all themselves from scratch! Happy days!
See It In Action on Poppy & Pearl
Sam Davis
I am fanatical about providing useful web experiences, via bespoke websites which engage, inform and entertain. I have been making websites since a young age, and am a keen supporter of AFC Bournemouth.
