Customsize plugin + Change weight according to size?

[darien81]

Hi,

We are using Joomla 2.5.6 & VM 2.0.8e

We are going to use the Customsize plugin to sell products that range in size from 12 - 144 inches in length.

Our question is:
Can the weight of the product (and associated shipping cost) be increased according to the length?

Example:

Product SKU: 1234
Product Title: PVC Pipe
Size (length) range: 12" to 144"
Product Price: Starts at $10 for 12" and goes to $100 for 144"
Product weight: Starts at 3 lbs for 12" and goes to 21 lbs for 144"

Question 1: Can VM2 + Customsize Plugin make the calculation for both price and weight?

Question 2: If not, could using child products and stockable variants plugin achieve this (where each child product represents a different leng and has a different weight)?

Thank you!

[easy]

That's interesting question
I am using the same plugin to build new website and now I see your point, you are right, the plugin works with the price only and not with the qty.
VM can do it by increasing qty only.
I will do tests on my site and will try to find the solution as I need this to work, same like you.

[PolishedGeek]

That's a very good observation. I'd put in a request to the developer to see if adding that is on their roadmap. It seems to me that it would be reasonable feature to add, to have it adjust the weight along with size.

I haven't test this, but do the dimensions for shipping change as well as the price, or does that stay static too?

It could get really messy with the math, really fast. You can do some pretty neat price calculations with that plugin, but how do you indicate how to translate that to a weight or dimension adjustment when it's not a simple quantity multiplier?  And my head spins to think about using the multiplied dimensions and weight for shipping calculations. For instance, using the final dimensions might make perfect sense for a framed picture, but not for fabric sold by the yard.

[easy]

Do you really need to use this plugin to sell your products by length?

What is the reason of not using standard qty box?

You can set min qty order - 12'' and max 144'', use price for one inch as product price and then fill your weight and size.
The weight for 1'' will be 3lbs divided by 12 and size will be 1inch

[darien81]

We've been thinking about this and struggling to find a solution for a long time. The quantity box idea is problematic on many levels, one of which is what if the customer wants to order three 24" items?

Another way we thought of approaching this was having a child product for every inch and using the stockable variant plugin to shift to a child product when a length selection is made. Each child could have an independent weight. This seemed fine in theory (especially if using CSVI Pro), but we have been unable to get it to work. It seems as though the child products/attribute system has issues. It was much more simple and reliable in VM 1.1.x.

I think Polished Geek is probably right: We should see if the developer (iStraxx/Max Milbers & co.) can help us by adding the functionality to the customsize plugin.

[easy]

I agree, Polished Geek is right,

I understand your needs clear now, I have the very same problem at present (on my old vm1 website) where client can put to cart one item from product page only.

I hope it can be done soon - I need it too.

Do you use custom fields beside custom size plugin? If so, please look at another thing that doesn't work as it should when you sell products per length or surface area http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=105790.0

[easy]

Any success darien81?

I got my custom size plugin to work as I wanted (see above forum link) finally!