Any way to stop VM 2.0 child product page loading?

[en jie rudd]

Hello

I have been battling this issue for quite some time and would appreciate any advice or recommendation.

I have certain products that have different combinations: quality grade and packing weight. As a result, each combination has a different price (shown below):
High Grade - 50g: $14.5
High Grade - 100g: $25.1
Premium Grade - 50g:$19.35
Premium Grade - 100g:34.65
Exclusive Grade - 50g: $23.2
Exclusive Grade - 100g: $41.9

They are too complicated to use simple custom field add on prices (too confusing for customers), I therefore decided to use child products, but running into issues:
1/ every time when a child product is selected, a new page loads - making ordering process painfully slow
2/ duplicated content as the product description is the same apart from quality grade and packaging weight

I was wondering if there is anyway with the VM 2.0.26 (joomla 2.5) that I can avoid loading a new page for a child product, but going directly to the show cart link?

thank you very much in advance for any help!

regards

En Jie

[lindapowers]

But you dont know the worst thing about this yet, and is that in VM3 is even worst! cause now the child product selected from the category view will redirect and refresh the page in the detail view making it slow an annoying for the customer to choose a child product.

I understand the page has to be refreshed to load the child product but hell! dont change the current page view for the customer!

[jjk]

...now the child product selected from the category view will redirect and refresh the page in the detail view making it slow an annoying for the customer to choose a child product.

I'm not shure what to mean. If you are switching from category view to a product details view of course the page has to be reloaded.
If I look at the 'Santa Cap' and 'Red Santa Cap' at demo.virtuemart.net (VM 3.0.3), the page doesn't seem to be refreshed after choosing a child product.

[lindapowers]

After choosing a child product FROM the category view you are redirected to the detail view of the product.

We are talking about the redirect when selecting child products.

Why a redirect to the details view? Is nonsense, you can see that in the example you mentioned which made me notice is even worst cause the redirect happens always, even from featured products.

[jjk]

you can see that in the example you mentioned...

Ok, now I understand what you mean 

[bluezeyes]

After choosing a child product FROM the category view you are redirected to the detail view of the product.

We are talking about the redirect when selecting child products.

Why a redirect to the details view? Is nonsense, you can see that in the example you mentioned which made me notice is even worst cause the redirect happens always, even from featured products.

Yes I agree to your statement,

if you have a custom-field select in category-view and the customer choose one of the variants, it should be change the product details which are shown, but not redirect to the product-details page of the selected variant.

[jjk]

Don't forget that in many countries it is a good idea to show the full description of a product for legal reasons. Especially if your customer is a first time customer.
See for example here: http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/shopping/shopping-abroad/information-payments-delivery/index_en.htm

[lindapowers]

After choosing a child product FROM the category view you are redirected to the detail view of the product.

We are talking about the redirect when selecting child products.

Why a redirect to the details view? Is nonsense, you can see that in the example you mentioned which made me notice is even worst cause the redirect happens always, even from featured products.

Yes I agree to your statement,

if you have a custom-field select in category-view and the customer choose one of the variants, it should be change the product details which are shown, but not redirect to the product-details page of the selected variant.

Exactly

Please JJK tell the developers about this issue, I wanna think they were drunk when they did it that way or most possibly they have not even noticed!

[jjk]

Please JJK tell the developers about this issue, I wanna think they were drunk when they did it that way or most possibly they have not even noticed!

I did notify them yesterday. But I assume at present some other things have priority, like for example implementing the new EU-VAT rules into a VM plugin. The EU commision and our governments certainly were drunk when they made those law: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/telecom/index_en.htm
However, there currently is an initiative to change those rules again: https://www.change.org/p/vince-cable-mp-uphold-the-vat-exemption-threshold-for-businesses-supplying-digital-products
and here: http://euvataction.org/
It seems that it is planned to apply the new VAT rules for physical products too in 2016.

[lindapowers]

Please JJK tell the developers about this issue, I wanna think they were drunk when they did it that way or most possibly they have not even noticed!

I did notify them yesterday. But I assume at present some other things have priority, like for example implementing the new EU-VAT rules into a VM plugin. The EU commision and our governments certainly were drunk when they made those law: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/telecom/index_en.htm
However, there currently is an initiative to change those rules again: https://www.change.org/p/vince-cable-mp-uphold-the-vat-exemption-threshold-for-businesses-supplying-digital-products
and here: http://euvataction.org/
It seems that it is planned to apply the new VAT rules for physical products too in 2016.

Yeah those are drunk too, thats important of course.

But if our customers stop buying in our websites cause they take 2 mins to select a damm product and are redirected each time to the detailed view we wont have to worry about VAT rules since there will be no orders

[sandstorm]

@ en jie rudd

If you are working within VM2, you can achieve what your after by using the stockable variant plugin.

I'm waiting for an equivalent to be available for VM3 before I can move any of my bigger sites over because as @lindapowers reports, the pages refreshes when similar set up is used in VM3.

[lindapowers]

I was reading the VM 3.0.4 release news:

The new version contains a new sample product, the "child variant", which allows you to use up to 5 dropdowns to determine the product variant. It is similar to the stockable plugin, but allows also changing the variant data of any child directly from the parent.

Not sure I understand correctly, has something been changed in the child products regarding the issue commented here? Im unable to test this version currently.

Regards

[sandstorm]

Not sure I understand correctly, has something been changed in the child products regarding the issue commented here?

According to Max (see this post - http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=127500.0) the functionality for stockable variant products has always been in VM3 using child variant plugin, but the demo site didn't have a product set up to show this. The new demo site using VM3.0.4 now apparently has this demo product setup, for us to take a look at & try to emulate.

I have yet to test it myself, but plan to in the next few days

[lindapowers]

Not sure I understand correctly, has something been changed in the child products regarding the issue commented here?

According to Max (see this post - http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=127500.0) the functionality for stockable variant products has always been in VM3 using child variant plugin, but the demo site didn't have a product set up to show this. The new demo site using VM3.0.4 now apparently has this demo product setup, for us to take a look at & try to emulate.

I have yet to test it myself, but plan to in the next few days

Thanks for reply Sandstorm but Im talking about the issue with the child products being redirected to the detail view.

Regards

[Milbo]

There are different problems in this topic.

One is the simple function logic, you can use other switches and it just changes the price and does not redirect you to the product detail page. So I understand you expect the same for the Child variant.

The function of the child variant is so, that it reloads the full product. This behaviour makes it very mighty, because you can change the price tables, discounts, images, description, dimensions, and so on. When we reload the full product, we use a generic script which works for different occasions. This gives the impression, that the page does not reload, but in fact it reloads 80% of the page, but per ajax.

So when you use this command from the category browse view, the ajax is not loaded and it redirects you to the productdetail page. Because to underline,.. the child variant is working the way, that it redirects you to another product, you just dont notice it in the productdetails, because ajax does it for you.

So technically, I need to use another script in the category browse view, and create a new json view, to able to replace the inner part of a product "frame" of the category browsing view. This is quite a lot work.

So the next question is then, if it really hurts that much. The customsize is speshitpilled to display 50 different products in one product detail page, already. So when you show now 20 products which are actually 2000 products, I wonder if it makes sense to allow users to use the add to cart there. Using variants in the category browse view makes for me only sense when you have a simple product setup. Maybe like in your case Manu, packages with 1kg, 2kg and 5kg or so.

On the other hand, vm3 is in my case so much faster, .... I wonder if it really hurt that much. And as JJK pointed out, it is not always allowed. Maybe in your case the multiadd layout is anyway more interesting. It is part of the support membership.