Advanced options - lets user add to cart without selecting

[CarolA]

Hi. We're having issues with people adding an item to the cart without selecting their color/size. I define all the color/size options using the advanced options. In the field "Text before option descriptions e.g. 'Choose' or 'Select'" - I use "select". On the product page, you see "select", then the list of all color/size combinations. We are getting orders with "select" where it typically has their color/size selection, and the color/size is not appended to the sku.

I'm using my own custom template. I haven't really modified it since I started using advanced options. Is there something I can do to force the user to choose a color/size from the drop-down list?

thanks.

[ShopSite Lauren]

Check the checkbox to use cascading menus. This will make it so that all your options are in their own pull down, and customers have to select their options before adding to the cart.

[CarolA]

Hi. Is there any other way to fix this? We tried cascading menus at first and had usability complaints. Customers wanted to see all the size/color combinations at one time. It can be tedious and annoying to select each of the first option (color), just to see if we have one in their size (the 2nd option). So, if we have 5 colors of something, but only have size 34 left in the 4th color choice, and they need a size 34, they don't want to have to select the first color, then go select the size, look at the list, go back and select the second color, look at the size list, over and over. Without cascading menus checked, they can see in one glance as it combines the color and size options into one handy list.

thanks.

[ShopSite Lauren]

There are two options to get around this. First, if you are using the regular ordering options (not advanced ordering options), then you can setup your pull down menu like the following, by adding the ;n to the end of your "select" line it will make it so that customers cannot checkout if "select" is selected, they will get an error saying that the product requires a menu selection.

Select;n
Lime S
Lime M
Lime L
White S
White L

If you are using the advanced ordering options, then you will need to make sure that you type in "Select" or "Choose" in the field provided (or else the first option will be the default option selected). When the customer goes to complete the checkout, they will be prompted to select an option if they have not.

Now, for both of these options it requires that you allow customers to make these changes in the cart. If the customer does not have the option of making the change in the cart, then ShopSite doesn't check to see if what they selected is ok, ShopSite just assumes since they can't change the option, it must be correct. To make sure that you are allowing customers to be able to change their menu selection you can go to Commerce Setup > Order System > Shopping Cart, and make sure you have the checkbox "ordering options can not be changed in the cart" UNchecked. If this is checked, then whatever option the customer selected on the product more information page will be the option that is carried throughout the checkout process.

[CarolA]

Hi. Thanks for your help! I am using advanced options, already had "select", but that last item was the key. I had the box checked in commerce setup to not allow the customer to change the ordering options. Once I unchecked that, they can still add to cart without selecting anything, but at least they cannot check out now that way. It stops them on the shopping cart page. It still seems like it should stop them from adding to the cart at all, but this will fix our problem. Thanks again.