Power Bike / Electric Cycles Configuration
Location: Netherlands
Industry: E-Commerce
Problems
The main problem of Powerbike was that the customer sometimes want to customize their bike, but the attributes which were shown in options were not compatible with their bikes system
For example, if a customer buy a bike of 24 inches, and customize it with his own choice by fixing the large size of the engine motor, or by fixing the brake system of his choice on a bike which was not compatible with the bike system.
The other main problems were:
- The biggest challenge was to handle product dependencies as product conversion products are dependent on main products like frame, brake system, and battery selected for power bike.
- The second biggest challenge was to build a configurator (conversion kit selection + mini cart). As configurator is the product detail page and this page is divided into 2 sections: One is features of the bike Second is the customization of the bike
- The third biggest challenge was to make a bundle product out of selected products in the configurator on the fly to show one selected product to the end customer in order detail, shopping cart, and even in the order invoice email.
Solutions
Solution led by Allied Consultants was to first discard the magneto detailed product page and built another page named “Custom Configurator” (product detail page)
- On this page, if you choose the 24-inch main frame of the bike then-incoming options, all the features, and customizable things will be just related to a 24-inch bike. In simple words, we can also say that all the options available are according to a 24-inch bike. The inconsistencies and errors which were there when choosing different features were resolved by the enforcement of this system.
For example, product A is a frame and it has the information of compatible brakes. So if product A is selected and it can direct the system to show the compatible brakes only. We handle it smarter and dynamic way by adding all dependent products attributes to every main product. For example, product A (frame) has attributes like size, brake size, battery size, and rim size as conversion set attributes. So, when an admin adds a frame product in the magneto backend, he/she also provides conversion attributes information so as when this frame is selected as the first step in the configurator, it sends information to the backend system to provide brake, battery, rim, etc. accordingly.
Solutions
Another customization was made in this, magneto by default doesn’t manage dependencies. To manage its dependencies customization was made in the system. Attributes were added in the mainframe bike. For example, if a customer chooses a bike of 24 inches in the meantime its attributes are shown which type of battery, rims, engine, etc. suitable for a 24-inch bike. All these attributes were automatically handled by the system.
Built a custom module for the configurator. It required design change as well as backend code/logic. It manages products with its dependencies automatically so as customers couldn’t be able to select even the wrong product for his/her Powerbike. Product selection is a stepwise process and one can’t jump the steps other than the defined process like one has to choose the frame first, then brake system followed by rims, motors, etc. Every selected product is immediately shown in a mini cart on the same page in its respective section so customers could be aware of what he/she has selected so far.
The third customization which we made was, we had to show the customer’s cart to the customer as a single product. In magneto, these products were added as a single individual product but in the system, a bundle is created in runtime so that the visualization becomes the same.
Normally bundle products are pre-defined in the magneto backend but in this case, we had to create one on the fly which involved a custom module with a lot of complex logic to get this done so that customer could see invoice/emails and products in cart as a single unit and he/she consider it as Powerbike purchased with customized options, not the frame, motor, rims, brakes, etc. as individual products.
Tech Stack
- PHP
- Magneto framework
- JavaScript
- Bootstrap
- HTML
- CSS
Benefits
- Customer can see real-time updated cart as soon as he selects or removes any item in the configurator to make a decision quickly which directly enhances the conversion process.
- Customer is not worried for the wrong selection of customized items as the seller who deals in the same products all the time defines them.
- Customer shopping experience improved due to converting product detail page into configurator, which manages dependencies automatically.
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