Magento: Configurable / Bundeld products ? How does it work exactly? - magento

Question

We're a little bit lost between configurable products, bundled products, using custom options, etc.
I'll tell you the result we would like to obtain:
We're a USB manufacturing company. And we want to sell custom USB keys via Magento.
We have about 50 different USB models available. For each model, the customer must be able to select the desired color (won't change the price), the desired capacity (1 GB, 2GB, 4 GB, etc - this will change the price, e.g. 20, 30, 40 % more of product's price). He must also be able to select the packaging of the key (eg box, plastic bag, leather bag, etc).
We want to use tier pricing, and show the price of the keys depending on the quantity AND on the capacity he selected.
A perfect example of what we want to do is: http://wowusb.com/plastic-custom-usb-flash-drive/usb-81.html.
We've tried using the SCP extension (Single Configurable Products), but don't really understand how to use it.
We don't really need to have associated products. One product for each USB model is OK, just having options (and tier pricing) on this one, just like the shop above.
Can you guide us on how to realise this ?
Any help will be greatly appreciated !
Thanks

Answer 1

The Simple Configurable Products extension will work well for this sort of thing, there's typically not a whole lot of configuration (just choose what parts of the configurable product you want to update when the user selects the options). The SCP extension will help greatly when it comes to tiered pricing.
To build a configurable option for what you are looking for, first you must make product attributes (drop-down type, global scope) for each attribute. This is in Catalog -> Attributes -> Manage Attributes. You would make one each for color, storage size and packaging. For each attribute you would add the different options available.
Once those are made, make sure to add them to the Attribute Set (Catalog -> Attributes -> Manage Attribute Sets) you will be using.
Now comes the work: You'll need to make a simple product for every combination available. For each simple product, you'll need to select the specific attributes created earlier, as well as set the tiered pricing for each simple product.
A rough idea math wise: 5 colors X 5 sizes X 3 packages = 75 simple products
This can be done via csv import, so that may save you some time, although you'll have to examine how tiered pricing is structured from within an exported list and copy it exactly. By the way, I recommend setting these products visibility to "Not Visible Individually", but don't disable them.
Now you can begin to build the configurable product. Once you start creating the new product, it will ask you which attributes to use, so select the color/size/packages and whichever else you want the products to be fine-tuned by.
Enter the general product information as normal. Price doesn't matter here (SCP extension doesn't use it).
Under "Associated Products", filter the grid view to find all the simple products you have created, and begin checking them off. If a product line turns red, it means that a product has already been selected with the exact same attributes.
Once you have a configurable product listed, you can play with the SCP extension settings (System -> Configuration -> SCP Config) to have the product behave as you want. The options under the Cart heading determines what you would like to display in the cart line. The options under the Product Page heading let you determine if you would like various sections of the configurable product to update with the corresponding simple product info (description, short description, main image, gallery images and additional info box).
When the user selects the last option, the product prices will automatically update, as well as show the tiered pricing box ("Buy X for $Y each and save Z%!").
One last thing, when using the SCP extension, do NOT add any "Custom Options" to a configurable product, they must be added to the simple products associated to the configurable product instead (Other product types are fine).