This post explains how you can configure your product to use variation control when using the WP eStore plugin.
The “Variation1” and “Variation2” fields can be used To configure a product with Variation. Say for example, you want to sell a T-Shirt which comes in various sizes (small, medium, large, XL). Enter the following in the “Variation1” field of this product when you add it to the database:
Size|Small|Medium|Large|XL
Once you add variation control to the product it will look similar to the following:
Feel free to hit the add to cart buttons to see how they appear on the shopping cart when variation control is used.
Now, what if you wanted to add another variation to that product? You can do that too. Say for example, you want to add a color variation to the T-Shirt. Enter the following in the “Variation2” field:
Color|Green|Red|Black
Once you add the second variation to the product it will stack up and look similar to the following:
Variation Control With Different Prices
What if you want to have different prices for different variations? You can do that too by adding the price increment next to the variation name. Say for example, the shirt comes in Green color which costs $20.00 and you want to charge $5 extra if someone wants to get the Red one and $7.50 extra for the Black one. Add the following to your “Variation” field to achieve this:
Color|Green|Red:5|Black:7.50
Now customers will be charged depending on the variation they choose.
You can use both the variation fields to use different prices or any other combinations.
Variation Control for Digital products
The above variation control mechanism can be used for any type of product (digital or non-digital) but if you have a product that requires the digital delivery of different files depending on the customer selection, then you can use the “Digital Product Variation” field to achieve this.
Say for example, you are selling a WordPress theme that comes in 3 different options (Single, Business and Professional) and you have 3 different downloadable files to offer based on user selection. Lets say we have the following details in this situation:
Name of the variation group: License
Variation Names: Single, Business and Professional
Downloadable Files: example.com/single-license.zip (Single Option), example.com/business-license.zip (Business Option), example.com/pro-license.zip (Professional Option)
Enter the content of the following example in the “Digital Product Variation” field (you will need to adjust the name and file URLs for your items):
License|Single::http://yourdomain.com/downloads/somefile.zip|Business::http://yourdomain.com/downloads/somefile2.zip|Professional::http://yourdomain.com/downloads/somefile3.zip
Now customers will receive the corresponding file for the option they select during the purchase (example: the customer who buys the Single License option of this product will receive the “single-license.zip” file).
If you want to charge different amount for different option then you can use the following example:
License|Single::http://yourdomain.com/downloads/somefile.zip|Business::10::http://yourdomain.com/downloads/somefile2.zip|Professional::15::http://yourdomain.com/downloads/somefile3.zip
The product display will look similar to the following:
If the base price of this product (with single license) is $50, then a customer will be charged $60 for the business option and $65 for the professional option.
Collecting Customer Input
Sometimes you may need to collect input from your customer for a particular product (eg. to engrave something). Simply check the “Collect Customer Input” option for that product and it will allow the customer to enter some text similar to the following (you can also customize the label of the instruction field):
Variation Configuration UI
If you are creating lots of variations then it maybe useful for you to use eStore’s variation UI addon. You can also do inventory control per variation when you use the advanced variation control UI addon.
Limitations:
I understand that some of you would like to show the total amount beside the variation text and not the incremental amount but that’s not how variation control usually works. It may work if you have one variation but what do you do when you have multiple variations that needs to stack? Adding the amount is the only way to handle this.
This is exactly why sites like www.apple.com, www.dell.com etc uses incremental variations rather than the total fixed amount next to the variation text (this is a standard practice).
Also, with WP eStore you can have a maximum of four variations (including the digital variation) per product.
Note: We provide technical support for our premium plugins via our customer only support forum
@Karen, Yes you can use variations with subscriptions. When the customer selects a variation option it will change the price, the final price will be submitted to the payment gateway as the recurring amount.
Hello – Just to be clear, we can NOT use variations of prices with a subscription? For example they cannot subscribe to a monthly service price that is $10+5? The subscription can only be based on the base price? I want people to be able to choose Basic or Premium options, and pay the same price monthly.
Hi, Yes you can use variation 1,2 and 3 together with the digital variation but only the digital variation is capable of serving different digital file based on the variation. No, eStore does not limit download per IP address yet. This is because a lot of the customers’ IP address is not static. So when they purchase the product they could have one IP address but later when they go to download the product they will have a different IP address which will mess it up even though they are a ligitimate customer. So until IP v6 comes out where everyone can have static IP addresses, using an IP address block is not efficient.
Amin, I am still testing atm, is there way to have variations 1, 2 and 3 as well as digital product variations working together, with different prices/options AND different download links? As explained in my email – not sure if you received it… Say you have movies in small, medium, large, HD (all have a different price AND downlaod link of course), then you’d also have colour, black and white, 3D… again (all with different prices AND download link), then say you have different formats; .sfw, ,mp4, .mov etc… (all have a different price AND downlaod link of course). So in the end, you’d need to provide in the product settings or variations, all possible combinations WITH URLS. So in short, I’d prepackage/zip different versions of the downloadable products.
Another important one, I can see this option, is there a way to limit the amount of downloads at one time per IP? Say the downloadable file contains 10 urls, because it is a big file, an you don’t want the customer to use download managers, and/or trying to get 10 files at the same time… maybe there could be an option to choose the max + min number per IP. Could this be done inside the cart, or maybe come code to copy and paste somewhere in document?
@Eileen, yes it can do variations however they can not have price variations when using the simple shopping cart. You can read more about the here: http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/simple-wp-shopping-cart-installation-usage-290
Can you use variations in the WP Simple Paypal Shopping cart plugin ?
I finally set up my store with more products. so happy with this product, keep it up!
Next is the subscription.
Hi Daniel, Do you have a “Currency symbol e.g $” in the variation price? Also what version of the plugin are you using?
Hello,
I have the same problem mentioned by Mike (March 11th, 2010 at 7:09 pm).
When variations of values are added the final price is $ 0.00.
How can I fix?
Hi Tim, You can have up to 4 variations with the eStore.
Quick question, I couldn’t quite tell from the videos. How many variations can 1 product have? The videos and demo sites I’ve looked at just show 2. Is that a hard limit, or can a product have more?
Thanks! ~Tim
@Fred, you just make multiple products with the different subscription length. you can hook each product with different membership levels. Place all these buttons on the “Join Us” page and the customer can choose which one they want to subscribe to and their account will be created accordingly.
Hi, would be nice when this could be integrated into the eMember with estore. At the moment i have to add many different membership levels because i sell my subscribtion for diffrent time periods (one month, half year, year). Makes everything a little bit confusing. Or do you have solutions for selling a membership level for different time periods?
Negative values do not work in the variation field.
I’m still seeing the drop-down menu read as “+$-15” when adding a negative value.
It should just read “-$15”
Variation control works fine.
I had a quick look on your site and you seem to be using the simple shopping cart which does not do variation with prices. Please use the eStore’s shortcode if you want to use variation with prices.
Hi guys, thanks for a great plug-in. I am having the same problem as one of your other users in this forum, Heather. My variations are not adding up in the shopping cart. They don’t seem to appear correctly in the drop-down box either. There is no + symbol, only the :. Has this been fixed? That entry was from August last year.
See our site http://animalworks.com.au/meet-the-orphans. We are raising money for orphan elephants with this plug-in and want to offer 3 levels of sponsorship. I am also running WP shopping cart on the site.
Thanks so much for your help
Kat
Hi I’ve just bought the latest version and for some reason I’m not getting the added 4th variation. I did have a previous version installed and I copied over the new files overwriting any existing, if that makes any difference.
Also I have a couple of products that require a 5th variation, is this possible to add?
and is is possible to line up the drop down box of the variations so that when multiple options are used the left hand side of the boxes line up with each other?
Many thanks
Tim
Hi Mike, I have sent you an email regarding this issue. Please let me know if you do not receive the email.
Cheer,
Ivy
In the meantime, I upgraded to eStore version 2.9.7 but I still have the problem with variation prices not being added to cart. I am using WP version 2.9.1. I am eager to solve this problem so I can go online! Thanks.
Hi Ivy, sure it is version 2.8.5
-Mike
Hi Mike, Can you please tell me what version of the eStore you are using?
Cheers,
Ivy
I have the same problem as Heather posted with variation prices (August 14th, 2009 at 2:32 am).
The prices for variations are not getting added to the cart.
If I choose the base variation (with no surcharge) the base price gets added to the cart correctly. But if I choose any other variation, the price is 0.00.
I have the product price set at 45.00
The text I have in the product variation 1 field is
License|Individual|Organization from 1 to 1000 employees:100|Organization from 1001 to 5000 employees:200|Organization from 5000 to 10000 employees:400
Amin, you mentioned you were fixing this. (August 14th, 2009 at 4:29 am), Has this been corrected?
Thanks,
Mike
Hi Mark, Can you tell me what is under the variation settings in the add/edit products menu? It looks like you may not have specified a variation for each product.
Cheers,
Ivy
almost done, one last thing. I’m trying to make a variation for the product I’m selling, one is a baseball item one is a softball item. I can’t seem to get the two models to show up in the cart as one or the other. Do I need to create product for each? one baseball, one softball? Watch the video and must have missed some thing. can anyone help. lool at the site.
http://www.hittowin.com/blog
Thanks,
Mark
Scott, You can you variation control. You would use the example in product 2 variation control from the above post. You will want to put this in the first variation field (unless you are using more then one variation type as shown above).
Ivy
I’m selling psychical products how do you set quantities? Could you give us an example?
For examples:
I’m selling projectors and they come in 4 colors.
Buyer: wants 3 projectors, two blues, and one red.
How would you do this?
Thanks
Hi George, I understand you difficulties. The eStore is designed for selling of digital products mainly so it lacks shipping and tax related options. I do make this clear from the sales page (http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/?p=1059). You will see that the product description on that page mentions “selling of digital product” including the title of the post.
with that said, the eStore only has simple shipping and tax options which are outlined in the following URLs:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-the-shipping-cost-calculation-works-in-wordpress-estore-50
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-to-use-sales-tax-regional-international-when-selling-using-paypal-191
Hi
we are having difficulty with 2 things.
1. shipping we want toi charge overeseas purchases a flat $10 for shipping and domestic purchases( australia) to be free and cant quite get it working.
2. tax we have to charge domestic purchases 10% GST tax and overseas no tax and again cant quit get it working
would love some advice
Ivy
Thanks. I had tried that several times earlier today but I could not get that to work with the product price set to 0. However, I just tried it again and it worked! Not sure what I was doing wrong before but it is working now!
Thanks
Heather
Heather, You can make the base price “product price” 0 and then your variations 5, 10, 15, 20, 100 and so on.
Ivy
I am trying to figure out the best way to offer a gift certificate through the eStore. I have the base price set to $5 and the price increments are setup through a product variation using this:
Gift Card Value|Five Dollars|Ten Dollars:5.00|Fifteen Dollars:10.00|Twenty Dollars:15.00|Twenty Five Dollars:20.00|One Hundred Dollars:95.00
but I think it looks kind of funny. For example, the wording says Fifteen but then it shows +10. Is there a way to set a base price to zero? Any suggestions?
Ah I see.. the product name does not get stored as you get an email from both PayPal and this plugin with the product name that the customer purchased. I can add another column to store the product name though.
Hi admin,
I agree with you about having the product name modified by variations values.
But where can I find this in the admin side of WP?
As far as I can see in the Manage Customers Menu page I can find: customer id, first & last name, email address, product id, transaction id, date and price paid but there’s no place with the product name.
I also noticed that a different customer id is created even if the customer is always the same (the PayPal sandbox test user in my case) and this could lead to some problem in case you want to extract some statistics.
Happy New Year,
Roberto
The variations are stored with the “Product Name”. You can see how the variation names are appended to the product name by choosing a variation and adding the product to the cart on this page.
Hi, all
I would like to know if and where the variations are stored in an order.
I want to sell an online backup service and the client specifies how many computers wants to backup and how many storage space he needs. So I ended up with two dropdown menus with several options (number of PCs and number of GBs).
I can place my order and pay via PayPal but I cannot find anywhere in the control panel the variations that the client chose.
I tweaked the JS code a little bit so that product name reflects his choices but having these vars available could give me the ability to automatically set up the accounts on the backup system without human intervention.
Happy New Year,
Roberto
Thanks for the quick reply. That makes perfect sense. I had tried something similar, but hadn’t thought of using a “none selected” option.
Sounds like it should work, so I’ll give it a try and let you know 🙂
I am not a 100% sure if it will satisfy your needs but there are 3 normal variation options that can be used for the printed version and there is one digital variation option that can be used for the digital delivery option. Lets say the product uses the following two variations:
Physical Delivery Size -> None Selected or Small or Medium or Large
Digital Delivery Size -> None Selected or Low Res or High Res
Now if the customer selects only one of the digital delivery variation he will get that file delivered. If he selects only the physical one then you will have to mail him the printed version. He can select both in which case he will get the download instantly and you will also have to mail him the printed version. Let me know if this makes sense
….can you tell me how? There don’t seem to be any examples here.
For more info, I’m using the NextGen Gallery plugin for a photography site. I need users to be able to select from a variety of print sizes for delivery, or to select a digital download.
The examples seem to show a variety of product options or a variety of download options, but not a mixture of both.
Thanks for your help.
Hi Geo, yes, you can use a mixure of digital and non-digital variations within the same product.
Hi,
Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, but is it possible to have a mixture of downloadable and non-downloadable variations within the same product?
I’m planning to offer direct download or mail order prints for each product on my photo site.
Thanks.
@ Chris, I will add a shortcode for the category display
When you use the Digital Variation Control field the value for the “digital product url” doesn’t really matter so just put any URL there.
Hi Terry, nope this won’t be possible.
Terry,
I’m not a programmer, but I have been tinkering with this software for the last few weeks. I created a short code [store id=9] that results in the longer [wp_eStore:product_id:9:end] . Couldn’t you use the same user interface that you have now and let each combination result in a product number for the store? All the action would take place behind the scene. The number that is collected is fed to the next screen where the customer clicks the button that has been created by the number supplied. Same customer interface, same number of screens.
The more I dig into this plug-in the more it does.
Hi
i would like to make a shop page with categories, not with content of the categories. Is there s ahortcode for this? I can put a preview picture for categories, how can i display this on the shop page?
And second, i would like to sell movies. Now i have one title, but different formats for this (i.e. M4V, 3GP, MOV). How can i make only one article for this with different links for download. I read your post http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/how-to-use-variation-control-in-wordpress-estore-plugin-345 and see this:
License|Single::downloads/single-license.zip|Business::downloads/business-license.zip|Professional::downloads/pro-license.zip
But what have i filled in the digital product url?
The above link I used to show how it is currently being done, doesn’t seem to pull up the order form. You can get to the order form by clicking on the navigation option in the left hand column ” ORDER A TEMPLATE”
http://regd-4u.com/#Order:Order_Item:Order_Ad
Thank You
I am trying to see if I can use the variation control to sell 12 variations of a digital download of templates that are used to sell private placement financial offerings.
The client is having me re-do his existing site into a wordpress site. This is how he is currently selling the templates. The customer clicks on the appropriate selections:
http://regd-4u.com/#Order:Order_Item:Order_Ad
So, I would have 12 product I.D.’s based on the various combination of customer selections. I would end up with one download and they all will be the same price.
It doesn’t look like that can be accomplished with the variable controls options.
Thank you
LOL… I was gonna delete the comments but it was kinda funny so I decided to approve it 🙂
This post should give you more insight:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forum/topic/removing-from-drop-down-menu
OK, jumped to conclusions. The display looked great, but I lost the function. When I removed the + it did not add the pricing correctly. Must have the wrong file. Is there a place where I can safely remove the + from the pricing?
Thank goodness you are moderating. Delete this post and the one before.
OMG I figured it out. I’ve only been tinkering with code for a few weeks but your file name made sense. I deleted the + being added in eStore_button_display_helper.php.
An option to show the plus or not would be terrific, but in the meantime this fix is minor.
I would love to see the edit button on the manage products page be closer to the description or have the description clickable.
Is there a way to show the variation price as a net total? For instance, if I set the price to zero and then add prices for 1/4 yard, 1/2 yard and full yard, the prices show correctly, but I would prefer not to have the + in front.
I’ve been able to figure everything else out so far. Great plug-in. BTW- I found that if I put the gallery-wp-eStore.php in my theme file, I don’t need it in nextGen gallery. I think this will make things safer at upgrade time.
Hi Pete, yeah I have plans to add other good Autoresponder service integration… will add Mailchimp to this plugin soon.
Hey there!
Any plans to integrate other email services in addition to AWEBER? Couldn’t find a free option at AWEBER, just the $19/mo. plan. MailChimp is a great service, offers 500 subscribers and 3000 sends free per month and no base fee, FYI.
eStore working great by the way!
—
Pete
Hey Ryan, the variation price doesn’t affect the subscription payment amount. Subscription payment is separate since it can get very complicated with the whole trial and installment payments combination.
I hope you make a ton of money selling your awesome products 🙂
How does this effect subscriptions?
Does the overall price end up being the subscription price and does this still apply if you use the trial settings and main subscription price?
Thanks oh and I think the plugin is working better for me this week. Waiting for more sales and if its all fixed your getting more money for sure.
Ryan
@Kay, you can’t exactly do what you suggested but you can do something like the following:
The base price is $15. Then you can configure a few donation amounts as variation so the visitor can choose to pay more by selecting the pre-defined donation amount.
For example: A product has the following details:
Base Price: $15
Donation 1: +$5
Donation 2: +$10
Donation 3: +$20
and so on…
Now someone can just pay $15 to purchase it or they can select one of the additional donation amounts to pay more (If someone selects “Donation 1” option then he/she will be paying $15+$5=$20).
We need to sell products for donations – so something like “for a donation of $15 or more….”
So we need to have $15 as the base price, but allow the customer to add a donation of any amount. Is there a way to do that?
Hi Deb, quotation mark (“) is a special character in PHP which is why it puts that slash (/) to escape it. I should be able to do a small tweak to get this working the way you want it though.
For my framed art, is there a way to write 24″ x 20″ Framed, using the inch marks rather than spelling out the word ‘inch’? When I try to write it using the ” symbol, I get a backslash in between the number and the ” mark. For example 24/”x20/” Framed
Thanks Joe. The video tutorial explains (3rd video on the following page) the download location a little bit but I agree that more clear instructions will help (I will work on something):
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/?p=593
@Pete, your settings regarding the checkout redirection is correct.. I wonder if something else is preventing the redirection. Can you please post a link?
Thanks Joe!
I have one final question before I’m up and running I think. I’d like to redirect to a checkout page when an item is added to the cart. I checked the “Automatic redirection to checkout page” and tried both “/checkout” and “http://www.mydomain.com/checkout” in the Checkout Page field (where “checkout” is the page-slug of the page I want). When I add an item to the cart, the current page refreshes and doesn’t go to the cart. Is there another setting I’m missing? I’m using custom permalinks /%postname%/ which I imagine makes no difference. Any ideas?
Thanks again!
—
Pete
Hi Pete,
I had the same problem, the downloads/ folder that is refered to is actually a folder in the plugin folder so its best to place your files there and then use a relative path.
Once i moved my files there everything worked. I agree, excellent plugin but it could do with being clearer about file placement as it took me quite a while to figure out what was wrong.
Hope that helps.
Joe.
Hey,
Awesome plugin by the way, I just bought the WP eStore and it is well polished and a pleasure to install. One thing though I can’t find a definitive answer on. I’m setting up variations for digital downloads, and I see the examples name a “download/product.zip” filename. Perhaps I have overlooked something, but where exactly do I upload my digital files? Is “downloads/” assumed from the root so “mydomain.com/downloads/product.zip” ?. Are there any best practices from preventing this folder from being accessed directly (aside from disallowing indexing)? CHMOD? .htaccess? A small tutorial on file management and tips would be much appreciated. If one already exists then I failed to find it.
Thanks!
—
Pete
Hi Joe, When you use the “Digital Product Variation” field the plugin doesn’t really care what you put in the “Digital Product URL” field as it will use the URL specified in the variation control.
So you can simply put the URL of the first variation in the “Digital Product URL” field since you need a value here so it doesn’t think it’s a physical product.
I really like this plugin but am a little confused on how to set things up,
I have digital products for sale and i have 4 variations of each product, each variation is a .zip file, all of which are contained in the same directory. The variations seem to be working (ie. the drop down is correct and the cart, prices and names are too) but what should i enter in the Digital Product URL box. If file to be downloaded depends on the variation selection of the user what should i enter for the URL.?? Is it ok to enter just the directory where all the .zip files are located (and let the variation control select the required file) or do i need the enter the exact url of each of the .zip file variations??
Thanks
@Jay, I have added a 4th variation field… will send you a copy of the updated plugin.
Is there a way to add a 4th variation field? It would really make things much easier for my customers. Thanks
Hi Mike, I decided to keep the optional amount in an increased dollar amount because I was facing some other issues when I tried to make it work for both increasing or decreasing. So at the moment it is a limitation if you want to have variations in decreasing amount. At least you can get what you want by listing the variations the other way around 🙂 I will work on it later to make it more robust.
Hello Ari,
I just downloaded the eStore plugin and it appears that the variation options issue is not functioning correctly. What I mean is that instead of showing (as an example) small – $50.00. It is showing the option of small +$50.00. It looks like the optional amount is still an increased dollar amount based off the original price.
Is this correct, or do I need a more recent release of the eStore plugin? From reading the posts, I thought this was addressed back in August. Another user (Heather had a similar problem).
Thanks Ari,
Mike
Hi Jay, The following URL has instructions on how to do that:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/ecommerce/?p=215
Hi. How do I make the “instruction” input box bigger, I would like it to be 3 rows and about 2 more columns long.
Thank you.
Hi Aileen, Nope this is not possible yet.
can i have different stock numbers for the variations?
I have 3 sizes of t-shirts and different amounts of stock for each one.
Not sure what I am doing wrong, but I can not get the price variation control to work. This is the text I am inputting into the product page of the eStore plugin:
Additional Options|Single Initial:2|Single Name:5|3 Initials:5|Monogram:5|Full Name:8
I have also tried it with 2 decimal places:
Additional Options|Single Initial:2.00|Single Name:5.00|3 Initials:5.00|Monogram:5.00|Full Name:8.00
The dropdown menu does show up with the different options but once you put it in the cart, the price is not changing. In the examples above on this page, I tried adding a black shirt which is $7.50 more on the Demo Tshirt 3 but the price is showing up as $22 ($20 for shirt +$2 for shipping). Not sure if those are set up to work but anyway… I didn’t notice anyone else who posted on this page with this problem, so I don’t know what I am doing wrong.
Also it is possible to have more than 2 variation controls? I need one for additional options, font, and color, and pattern.
Thanks for all your help.
How about quantity? I know it can be added at the basket, but how about as an additional drop down?
Thanks.
Hi Ari, I am in the process of implementing this part (different digital content is delivered based on the selection) of the variation control.
Is there a way to use variation control for digital products. For example, say a product is bundled to include 5 digital product downloads, is there a way for the customer to select just one of the 5 and only receive that link (obviously with a price reduction as per above method) or must there be separate Add to Cart buttons for each one?
Say there are 10 products bundled – 10 buttons would get to be quite a lot!
OK, cool I see how that works. It looks a bit weird though. The drop-down reads as “Low-res +$-10.00” — very confusing to a customer I would think.
Plus, as the above comment about digital delivery of different files based on the selection points out that one cannot deliver a specific file depending on the choice is limiting for this.
I actually wanted to use for different usage licenses so the digital delivery works fine for me, but the way the pricing appears in the drop-down menu is too odd. I think it would scare off a customer.
Nope, but this is something I will have to implement for sure… hopefully in the next release.
Nice update! I have a question: how would one offer different price levels without a base price?
Let’s say one wanted to add a low-resolution and a high-res version of the same file. As it works now, I need to enter a base price, but if I enter an alternate price it shows up as “+$10.00” as opposed to two separate prices.
I want to offer the higher price first, then have a lower-priced option. For example, the base price would be $50.00 and then a low-res version for $40.00 — how do I do this?
Thanks. It would be great. I’ve got a suggestion or two on how to implement, if you’re interested, email me.
-Gordon
Can the variation control be used for digital delivery of different files, depending on the selection?