Add To Cart Methods - Auto-generated Products. Pre-generated Variants.

In order to make sure the newly created custom product can be added to cart - please make sure that you DON'T have any error messages in your admin panel.

There are 3 ways our plugin can add custom products to cart:

• Auto-generate products on add to cart  (default mode) - Each time a custom product is added to cart a new simple product of { product_type=cpb_ordered } will be created in the store. This is useful for showing a custom product image in the checkout without shopify plus and offers support for complex products with lots of possible variants to be added to cart as well as products with dimensions, wholesale orders, unlimited variants.  Although it has issues with coupons / shipping integrations for custom shipping. (see below)
• Pre-generate variants - inside custom products with total prices for all possible combinations (up to 5000). Newly generated products will have product_type = cpb_variants and they will have a title 'Custom Product Name - Prices from x to y'. The default custom product will also have variants with prices. (see below)

Also read more about SKU / Inventory Management here: Inventory Management - SKU Management. Combined SKU.

Auto-generate products on add to cart (default mode).

Each time a custom product is added to cart a new simple product of { product_type=cpb_ordered } will be created in the store. This is useful for showing a custom product image in the checkout without shopify plus and offers support for complex products with lots of possible variants to be added to cart. 

You can just click 'delete old variants' inside the custom product price tab to clear up existing unused variants. 

Each such product holds 1 price variant. If another customer adds to cart - a new product will be created. 

Cart Example: 

Bulk removal of automatically created products from the catalog

You can also remove all obsolete auto-generated products from your store with just a few clicks.

1. Open the CPB app.
2. Go to "Global Settings" and scroll down to the "Delete Auto-Generated Products" line.
3. Set the time period and click "Delete". All auto-generated products created during this time period will be automatically removed from your catalog.

If you prefer not to generate new products for each price, please follow these recommendations:

Pre-generate variants.

Inside custom products with total prices for all possible combinations (up to 5000). Newly generated products will have product_type = cpb_variants and they will have a title 'Custom Product Name - Prices from x to y'. The default custom product will also have variants with prices.

Please note, pre-generated variants won't work with features "Charge per character", "Calculating fields", Quantity category, Additional price field category, and if you add the weight to your options.

• under cpb product admin > Prices:
• disable 'Generate custom product on each Add to Cart'
• click 'Delete old variants' button. wait for the program to execute.
• click red 'Save' button

The limit for this option is 5000 variant price combinations. In order to fit into this limit for more complex products. The variants will be generated inside the main product and additional products that will have product_type = cpb_variants and they will have a title 'Custom Product Name - Prices from x to y'.

Inside those products will be stored price combinations.

Generating new products with type cpb_variants can take some time depending on the number of variants. If there are close to 5000 price variants - it may take several minutes.

If the message that you see under the exclamation mark looks as follows: 

To see how many price variants your custom product has, launch Developer Tools > Console.  (Right Click)

It means that we can't pre-generate price variants for you due to Shopify Limits. In this case if you decide to continue adding prices to options - Custom Product Builder App will create new products for each newly generated option combination by your customers that has been added to cart.

In order to fit under 5000 variants please follow these strategies:

• Use more flat rates between option categories (customizations). For example instead of having 12.76, 13.21, 15.54 USD for different options - choose one price for all of them (i.e $14). This will only create 1 variant instead of 9 in this case.
• Split custom products with large configurations into 2-3 custom products with smaller number of configuration based on some property.
• Add Parent category for sub-categories with conditional logic rules that hide / display option categories that replace each other. For example: 
  • Choose Fabric:
    • Linen Category
    • Cotton Category
    • Leather Category
• In the tab (panel) where only one option from all categories can be selected at a given time and you don't want to add conditional logic with parent category - enable the setting 'This panel needs only one active option' - this will recalculate the variants based on the fact that options under this tab don't get selected simultaneously.

Tip: you can set a name for pregenerated products in General settings as well as price range and counter

Please note that cpb_ordered & cpb_variants products will appear in the collection pages and search results. You need to adjust your theme to make sure it doesn't happen. Please follow this article: Auto generated custom product variants. How to hide those products from your customers.