If one item is added to cart then force 2nd ..

(I wrote this in an email earlier before finding the forum - sorry!)

This eShop will be handling made to order items, so there are a number of options available to the customer whilst they are ordering. I need to setup to sell items which have three required parts, example below. Whilst I appreciate I could import a load of unique SKU’s that between them take care of the various options, it is the customer process that I think needs to be clean and clear.

1) The Product.
This has two characteristics size and shape – this I have setup and the price changes depending on chosen characteristics.

Now once customer has chosen (1) they MUST choose (2) :

2) The Fixing.
Once customer has chosen ‘The Product’ they must choose a ‘Fixing’, but here we have one characteristic with two levels, cascading options ?

Wall - flat or curved or wobbly etc

OR

Floor – trolley or platform or stand etc

OR

Ceiling – Spring or Tube etc

OR

No Fixing

Now once customer has chosen (2) they MUST choose (3) :

3) The Gift Packaging.
Either wood, paper or cardboard or none etc

Now when they have chosen (3) the items are all added to the cart as a ‘group’, then perhaps the customer wants to add another differing Product and starts from step 1 again. So then they complete checkout the order in the system shows three items, one with the sales value and two at zero value, if a second Product added this would need to be shown as a 2nd group. Also items (2) and (3) should never be able to be selected directly on the site, always only after item (1). Right now item (1) is the only product for sale, however in future item(2) could be a requirement option for other products and option (3) would be required again.

Also during item (1) I need to ask the customer to complete a text box (REGEX tbc applied) which will give a name to be engraved on the item (1), I think Custom Product field is required ?

Ultimately we could only have item (1) catered for on the site, and then once checked out we open manual email/telephone dialogue to complete the item (2) and (3) but would prefer the site to force the customer to make all the choices before they checkout !

I see that Options and product custom fields are only available for a commercial HIKAShop (not a problem) but will it handle what I have outlined above or do you have any thoughts on how to handle this within HIKA ?

Thanks

On reflection it is the cascading parts of the item 2 characteristic that appears to be causing the problem in HikaShop. If there was a cascade option in characteristic then i could handle all the variables required from a regular product screen ?

I see custom field in 'item' table would be needed

oh, and to add another option in there, the required item (2) 'Fixing' each choice presented will be available in different sizes. So .. different items, with different style and different size fixings all compliled in different gift packaging.

Possible ?

Probably the 'fixings' and 'gift packaging' themselves could also be ordered as stand-alone items, but are must have options for the 'Product'

thanks, will play around in demo. do i assume correctly you mean '... or you CAN do it with custom coding' ?

well i've tried to sit in the demo site a few times now and each time it seems to cancel everything i've done whilst i`m doing and reset, i assume this is be design ?! Anyway, makes it difficult to work out whether HikaShop is going to do what i need for this project.