
What does this do?
This extension will group together similar products so if they have a matching field value, any time one of the products is ordered, all of the products with this value will have stock deducted.
Why do I need this?
There are many circumstances where this will be beneficial. For example:
Your store is selling car parts, batteries or computer accessories that have products which can fit in multiple devices/machines etc. You have one physical product that fits into many different consumer products. Grouping these products together within opencart by a specific product field saves you listing the same physical product, with its own stock levels, multiple times.
I still don't get it?
You sell parts for Ford cars.
You have a seatbelt which can fit in many different car models (e.g. Ford Focus, Ford Fiesta, Ford Transit).
In opencart admin you list each model this car fits into as a separate product so that the customer can make use of the search function, you can take advantage of unique descriptions, metatags and even have specific pricing for each of these product listings. However, this is still the same seatbelt that sits on the shelf in your warehouse and so stock for each of these should be identical, right?
By default, when a customer orders a Ford Focus seatbelt, stock quantity is only changed on the specific product (product_id) ordered - the Ford Focus seatbelt, but now your stock levels are inaccurate for the Ford Fiesta & Ford Transit because their stock levels remain the same. This is not good.
With this extension, when a customer orders a seatbelt for a Ford Focus and you have set the SKU (for example) as SEATBELT001 for all three of these models, when any one of them is ordered stock will be deducted from all of the products with this SKU and your stock levels/inventory remains accurate across these products.
How it works:
You install the extension and within the settings you select which field you would like to use to group the products for stock control purposes. Only products with a value in the db for this field will be grouped so you will need to enter these values either within admin via the edit product function or directly in the db through phpmyadmin.
So you can also have a Ford Explorer with no value set for SKU and when that product is ordered, the quantity will be deducted based on the product_id (default opencart behaviour) and not the field you set in the settings, giving you flexibility over your product db. These changes are enforced on a product by product basis.
Blank values are ignored and will not be grouped together, if you have set a custom field but the value for this field is empty for any product, stock will continue to be deducted based on the product_id.
What this doesn't do
This does not add any extra fields to your db. It does not effect product options.
Compatibility
The extension is compatible with all versions listed in the compatibility section on this page and is a simple install using OCMOD.
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