If you want to remove the “As low as” price on the catalog view, then edit:
app\design\frontend\

\template\bundle\catalog\product\price.phtml

If your theme does not have this file, copy it from:
app\design\frontend\base\default\template\bundle\catalog\product\price.phtml

Then, comment out the code surrounding: <p class=”minimal-price”> ….. </p>

Read more about making changes to Magento for your Bundled Product configuration.

If your shop is set up anything like the TS shop, you don’t want that pesky quantity box at the bottom of your “Bundled Product”. There is an easy way to fix this – get rid of it in all your “Bundled Product” item pages. This is what aclever magento forum poster, tzyganu, suggested in this post.

To do this, you will need to edit your template. Go to this file:
app/design/frontend/”your_interface”/”your_theme”/template/catalog/product/view/addtocart.phtml

Save a copy of this file as addtocart.phtml.bak.

Now, edit the original file. Look for: “<!–?php if(!$_product—>isGrouped()”. Also, find the <!–?php endif; ?–>. In between these two, you should find a <label> and a</label>.

Delete this entire code and insert:
<!–?php if(!$_product—>isGrouped() &amp;&amp; $_product-&gt;getTypeId() != Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Type::TYPE_BUNDLE): ?&gt;
<label for=”qty”><!–?php echo $this—>__(‘QTY’) ?&gt;:</label>

<input id=”qty” maxlength=”12″ name=”qty” type=”text” value=”&lt;?php echo $this-&gt;getMinimalQty($_product)== null?1:$this-&gt;getMinimalQty($_product) ?&gt;” />

<!–?php endif; ?–>

Now, double check your your work by visiting the product page of your bundle product and place the item in your shopping cart. Is the price coming up correctly? If not, it may be because you have set a minimum quantity greater than 1.

To fix this, go to “System” -&gt; “Configuration”.

Then go to the “Catalog” section on the left side and click “Inventory”.

Under “Product Stock Options” you will find “Minimum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart”. Make sure there is nothing inserted there.

Your Bundled Product should now work without the quantity box in the item page.

Please let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment below!

The TS shop is run on the open source Magento platform. I am proud to say that with the exception of one instance, I have been able to fix my shop all by myself. Yes, I am a proud DIYer.

Like any other shop software, I run into problems. When I do, I immediately do a search and sometimes I find the answer. The hard part is figuring out the lingo people use regarding the issue at hand.

Today, for the first time, I tried setting up a “bundled item” to allow my customers to mix different finishes or sizes in one listing and get the bulk rate. I had several obstacles:

1. No easy way to provide a bulk rate discount. SOLUTION: Set up “Shopping Cart Price Rules” – see below
2. Input quantity provided at bottom of my product page. SOLUTION: Manually edit the template – see the upcoming June 8 post
3. “As low as” price displays preconfigured low price. SOLUTION: Remove “As low as” price – see the upcoming June 10 post
4. No minimum quantity for the “bundled item”. SOLUTION: – coming soon

1. BULK RATE DISCOUNT VIA “Shopping Cart Price Rules”
This is a little tricky. My ideal price rules are such that when a customer purchases 100, they get a price break. Then, 240. Then, 600.

To make something like this, I first had to determine the total price of 100 pieces at the normal price. So if the normal price is $1/piece, 100 pieces would be $100. 240 pieces would be $240. 600 pieces would be $600.

Now, after logging into the admin side of Magento, create your bundled product via Catalog –> Manage Products. Remember to SKU for that product.

Note that because I have three price levels, I will be making three rules.
Look for PROMOTIONS –> Shopping Cart Price Rules.

Click “Add New Rule.”

Fill in the “Rule Information” based on your own parameters.

In “Conditions”, click on the “+” and then choose “Product Attribute Combination”.

Click the “+” directly below and choose “SKU”. Type in the SKU of the bundled product.

A. Again, click the “+” directly below and choose “Price in Cart”. Type in the price of 100 pieces ($100). Then, change the “is” to “equal or greater than”.

B. Again, click the “+” directly below and choose “Price in Cart”. Type in the price of 240 pieces ($240). Then, change the “is” to “less than”.

Now click “Save Rule.”

C. Now, go to “Actions.” I chose “Apply Percent of product price discount”. Then after determining what price you want per piece, you insert the percentage discount.

At the bottom, you will see “Apply the rule only to cart items matching the following conditions (leave blank for all items)”. Below that, click the “+” and choose “SKU”. Insert the SKU of your bundled product.

The second and third rule will be created very similarly. Name each rule with a slightly different name. The difference will be the numbers you include in sections A, B, and C above. For your last and final rule, omit section B.

After everything is finished, make sure to double check by placing the items in the cart at the respective quantity levels.

If you have any questions, please feel free to submit them in the comments below!

I just started on Pinterest just a couple of days ago and found so many inspirational images and tutorials. If you haven’t joined, you should try it out. Feel free to add me.

My favorite pins include ANIMALS, food, DIY TUTORIALS, bags, and bag patterns.

Plus you save money.

Investing in an inexpensive scale will save you both time and money. With a postal scale handy at home, you can create shipping labels at home by purchasing postage online. If you have a small store, I suggest paypal for postage purchases for no additional monthly fee. If you have more packages to send out you may want to try a monthly service provider like Stamps.com.

With these online post age purchases, you can save on delivery confirmation (costs around 19 cents instead of 75 cents), you can print out a scan form, and you can even save on the base rate.

For example, if you send via priority or express mail, paypal, click n’ ship, and stamps.com will provide a discounted rate with free delivery confirmation.

If you send by first class mail, stamps.com provides a discounted rate and a reduced delivery confirmation rate.

I happened to stumble on a couple of used food scales (weight watchers) which are pretty useful as a postal scale stand in. I am providing them at $5 per scale and sending it priority mail.

Feel free to ask me any questions about paypal, stamps.com, or my food scales.

I just received a newsletter from Ann Ranlett about the upcoming AAARF Arts and Crafts Fair.

Location: Auburn Autohaus, 2855 Grass Valley Highway, Auburn, CA

You can find the AAARF on facebook.

Here is the Facebook Event. Check it out to see what other artists will be in attendance.

My friend Sandy is moving!

We met online through the Crafting for Animals Guild. The Crafting For Animals Guild is a group of artists and crafters on Artfire.com who are dedicated to catering to the needs of animals by either creating and designing items for animals or by supporting and / or raising funds for charitable animal organizations. I started the group several years ago. Sandy joined last year and was a big help in spiriting our group. Just like me, she loves animals.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances, she is moving and needs to find new forever homes for her furbabies. I have had to do this in the past as well. It really is a hard thing to do but sometimes the best things to do are the hardest to live with. If you are interested in knowing more about her little pooch, please let me know.

In addition wouldn’t it be wonderful if some of her creations found forever homes? Take a look of what she has to offer here.

Previously, I shared with you some tips on possible email vendors and ways to gain subscribers. I mentioned that you can ask paypal checkout customers if they would like to subscribe to your newsletter. This is how to set it up.

Should You Do This?

In general I would say, “Of course!” But after reading some etsy posts, I have decided to stop doing this. This is because the new etsy checkout system prevents this information from showing in your details section of your paypal transaction. (See below for information on how to retrieve the information.) Because of this, your customer is always asked whether she would like to receive your newsletter. However, you will not know whether she wants to subscribe.

Say you do set this up. You asked the customer (via paypal) if she would like to subscribe to your newsletter. She says yes but you don’t know it because she purchased via etsy. So then, you later send an email and also include another invitation to your newsletter. She may simply ignore the question because she is thinking, “Duh, I already said yes! Why do you keep asking me?”

I sell on several venues but I’ve decided that that the etsy problem is hampering the results of my paypal subscription option so I’ve deactivated this feature.

If you sell on artfire or zibbet, then I highly suggest adding this option to your paypal checkout.

Setting It Up

Go to paypal and log in.

In paypal, click on “Profile”.

Then, if you are in the new profile setup, click on “My Selling Tools”

Then, once you click that, you will find “Custom Payment Pages“. Click on “Update”.

Click on “Options”.

Then, at the bottom you will see “Offer Promotional Emails”. Check mark that.

Finding Your Subscribers

This is the more time consuming part. To find your subscribers, you must click on every payment detail.

Then, while in the details screen, you scroll to the very bottom. If you see “Subscribed (email address)” then you’ve got a winner.

If you don’t see any of this at the bottom, that means the customer did not check mark the subscription box.

I started my TS newsletter just over a year ago so I thought I’d share some business tips on how to choose a email marketing vendor and ways to invite members to your newsletter.

Newsletter Vendors

There are many choices of vendors to run your newsletter. In deciding on one, you need to access your own strengths and weaknesses. For example, can you write and understand HTML? If not, you should make sure that your vendor provides easy to use formats.

Over at the SF Etsy team, members were discussing what they use and why. Some top suggestions were:

• Constant Contact
• Mad Mimi
• mailchimp

I personally use dadamail. Unlike the other email newsletter vendors, dadamail uses your own web space. I highly suggest it to tech savvy entrepreneurs as you need to be able to install it and set it up. You also need your own website.

Many web hosting companies provide a one click install for dadamail, which makes it much easier. I use hostmonster (and have used godaddy) and was able to install it with their simple scripts – simple enough to do.

The best thing about dadamail is that you can keep an archive of your old newsletters. You can see mine here. Although not as easy, you can also move your dadamail to another server or website.

Another great incentive with dadamail is that it is free. It is an open source mailing list manager and provides closed-loop opt-in subscription-based mailing list. After running my newsletter on dada mail for over a year, I decided to support the dadamail project and purchase the pro dada mail forever (Its not required but I love to support projects that have supported me.).

The more difficult thing to do is send out nice looking HTML coded newsletters. This requires a little more patience than is required for other newsletter vendors. For instance, I haven’t spent the time to customize my newsletter archive.

How to Collect Subscribers

To figure out who would actually subscribe to your newsletter, first think about your audience. If you are an independent artisan store owner, then I would suspect your audience to be one that enjoys crafty, unique items and articles relating to the process of making those items.

To that end, I suggest posting a newsletter subscription panel on your website (see here on the left side?).

Also, when sending out shipping confirmation emails to customers, don’t forget to invite them to subscribe to your newsletter.

Lastly, if you customer pays by paypal or google checkout, you can set up your account to ask your customer if she would like to subscribe to your newsletter. I will write a tutorial on this shortly.

Remember to NEVER add any email address without the permission of the email addressee and always provide an unsubscribe link for subscribers that decide they no longer would like to receive your newsletter.

The not so new fad are these clever FOB sets. They can be used as an extension of your key chain for easy identification or, if long enough, as an easy way to carry your keys (anything in my hands are immediately placed somewhere and never to be found.)

Some people also use the FOB kit to create the strap part of the wristlet.

The FOB kit is easily assembled. To make a basic fob, choose your choice of 1.25″ cotton webbing. (For more personality, sew a ribbon onto the cotton webbing.)

Fold the webbing in half (if you added ribbon, make sure the ribbon faces outwards.)

Then, sandwich the webbing inside the flat area of the Key Fob Hardware.

Use pliars to close shut. (You may want to protect the metal by covering it with scrap fabric to prevent the pliars from scratching it.)

It takes practice but the end result is your own very key FOB.

If you don’t feel like making one (or perhaps you don’t have all those unique webbing, ribbons, or embroidery machine, check out Paper on Parade on Zibbet. She has a great selection of sizes and styles that you’ll love.