Revision as of 15:11, 18 November 2011

Product Bundles are a very powerful tool in WHMCS, allowing you to not only setup order form links that will automatically take the user through the process of adding 2 or more products in a single ordering process, but also provide a way to link to the order form from the pages of your site with specific configurations pre-selected by default.

What a Product Bundle Can Do

Product bundles allow you to:

• Generate shortcut links to add a product to the cart with preconfigured selections & values
• Generate order links that involve adding more than one product to the cart
• Create incentives where if a user buys 2 or more items, and with specific configurations, they get a discount

Some Examples

Here's just a few examples of the type of offers you can create using bundles:

• Buy Hosting for a Year along with a Domain and Save $x
• Buy Hosting and an SSL Certificate, and get a Domain Free
• Buy Annual Hosting + Product X and Save $20
• Buy Product X, Y & Z together and save 25%
• Buy Product X on Billing Cycle Y, and get 50% off Product Z
• Buy Product X with 2 domains and get the second domain free

(All numeric values are simply examples of what can be done)

Bundle Requirements

With bundles, one of the key aims is to incentivise a user into buying more than 1 item, often by giving them a discount for ordering in a certain combination. And so with bundles in WHMCS, you can setup discounts to be applied based on any of a number of requirements. Those requirements can be restrictions on any of the following:

• Actual Products in the Cart
• Billing Cycle
• Selected Configurable Options
• Selected Product Addons
• Domain TLD/Extension
• Domain Registration Period
• Domain Addons

Setting Up a New Bundle

1. 

   Bundle Item Configuration
   

   Bundle Order Summary showing Discounts
   

   Bundle Order Summary Requirements Not Met
   Begin by going to Setup > Product Bundles
2. Under the Options heading, choose Create New Bundle
3. Here you must enter a name for the bundle, a description (optional), the valid from and to date (defaults to 1 month from the current date) or check the No Expiry option for unlimited, and the maximum number of uses (if a limit is desired - 0 for unlimited)
4. You must then save to create the bundle before you can start actually adding items to it
5. Following saving you will then see a new option called Add Another in the bundle items section
6. Click that link to open the item configuration screen (screenshot right)
7. In this window you first have to choose the type of item you're adding - product or domain - and then configure the options for that item
8. Any options you select here from the billing cycle, addons, configurable option values, qualfiying TLDs, registration period & domain addons then become requirements for that bundle, and the user will be forced to select them to be able to proceed with the bundle order process. Any cycle, addon and option requirements will also be preselected for the user during the order process.
9. The Price Override field can be used to grant a discount for an item when all the requirements for the bundle are met - that means all items in the bundle added to the cart, and all requirements specified above matching (see screenshots right). The price override replaces the price of the product and/or domain (separate price override fields for each) and so this price must include both the main product and any configurable options you have selected (excludes addons)
10. For a hosting based product or any that should include a domain, you can require a domain by enabling any of the domain related requirements for the bundle item, so for example selecting all the Qualifying TLDs, or selecting a registration period the domain must be ordered for

Using Bundles

Bundles are most commonly linked to direct from the product information pages of your site. So as with the direct order links used for individual products (cart.php?a=add&pid=X) you link to bundles in a similar way but instead specifying a bundle ID rather than a product ID. WHMCS provides the link for you to use on the bundle edit screen within the admin area, and it will look something like this:

http://www.yourdomain.com/whmcs/cart.php?a=add&bid=X

You may also choose to offer some bundles on your order form itself, which you can do by ticking the "Show on Order Form" checkbox in the bundle configuration options. Doing this for 1 or more bundles enables a new order form category named "Product Bundles" to be displayed within the cart, listing any bundle offerings you have setup along with the description you set.