Feature Request: Add Simple Product Link Functionality

[frg-tech]

This plugin has 2 modes right now, and I'd like to request you consider a third mode.

Product Linking Only Mode?

I know our use case is not exactly mainstream, but I doubt it's unique either. We use Wordpress as a Blog only and want to link a single product from our BC store in our daily newsletter. (Product of the Day)

We do not need to or want to sync our products to our Blog, let alone have them browsing or purchasing directly from our Blog as if it was our webstore. It just adds too much complexity that is unneeded for our use case and has already proved to be very fickle for our rudimentary needs.

There was a plugin that has since been abandoned that was very close to the functionality we need. You added a simple shortcode that contained the product number and it would pull the images and description of the product into your post and format it accordingly. The key difference it that it linked directly back to the BC store instead of trying to recreate the store inside the blog.

It seems to me the framework is already in place with this plugin to do something similar, without having to deal with pulling products from your BC store and hosting them on Wordpress as well. So we could just choose our product for that day from our BC store and grab the SKU#. We add that to a shortcode and that's it! Wordpress doesn't need any real knowledge of the product other than to grab the resources to display on the blog with a link back to the page on the BC site.

Is this something you would consider?

Thank you very much for the hard work you've put into this plugin. It really is appreciated.

[frg-tech]

I forgot to mention that one of the biggest benefits would be that we could return to using the single channel product manager on the BC site. The multi channel product manager is terribly limited in functionality and makes it difficult to do basic product management tasks.

[yuenvision]

This functionality already exists, though not in a headless product ID API call method, as you've described. It still relies on the product sync. In order to list products on your blog with a "buy now" button that links to your BC storefront, all you need to do is disable the cart and embedded checkout from the BC4WP settings page.

It still syncs the products to WP, but that is so you can use the block editor to add products from your Channel to your page. The outcome is still just an embedded product on your blog/page.

If you want your product pages unsearchable, you'd need to remove them from your indexing engine or install something like https://wordpress.org/plugins/relevanssi/ to manage your search.

You may need to manage some 301 redirect rules to redirect folks away from product pages.

[frg-tech]

@yuenvision I am already using it in this capacity which is why I made the request.

It is linking to a product page inside our blog and not to the product on our website, and it makes you use the multi-channel product manager on Big Commerce which is plain awful and steals functionality that was there before installing this plugin.

It's just more functionality than we need and wish it could be dumbed down to just link to the product without the need to sync any products.

Actually while verifying what I just wrote, I found that my Buy Now links no longer work and don't know how long it's been like this. The buttons are grey with a ⍉ for the cursor icon. The links in our newsletter still work but take you to the Wordpress product page instead of the BC product page. I wonder if one of the recent updates broke it, so will have to trouble shoot it, but it goes directly to my point of just wanting a simple link without product syncing.

I appreciate the quick reply and the directions to try and get me what I wanted, but this doesn't really help with what I was asking. I can understand if my request can't be done, but this isn't a solution to the issues I'm facing.

[yuenvision]

Can you upload a screenshot of your cart settings in the plugin?

[frg-tech]

Certainly.

I have used these same cart settings since I first installed the plugin. The other settings have been changed and back again during troubleshooting.

[frg-tech]

The buttons are grey with a ⍉ for the cursor icon...

So I figured out what's going on here. For products that have variations, you have to select the color and the size to see if that combo is available before the Buy Now button is active. This wasn't obvious to me and doubt it would be to most of our customers either. If they try and use the Buy Now button and it doesn't let them, they may just figure it's sold out and dismiss it.

I would really prefer if the Buy Now button would never be disabled, and they would be directed to the product on our store so even if we were out of that product, they would be seeing related/recommended products.

Thanks

[yuenvision]

ok, you can get around that by setting a default variant for your products with variants. The plugin will respect variant defaults passed down from BC.

On Sat, Nov 20, 2021 at 9:47 AM Frg Tech @.***> wrote:

The buttons are grey with a ⍉ for the cursor icon...

So I figured out what's going on here. For products that have variations, you have to select the color and the size to see if that combo is available before the Buy Now button is active. This wasn't obvious to me and doubt it would be to most of our customers either. If they try and use the Buy Now button and it doesn't let them, they may just figure it's sold out and dismiss it.

I would really prefer if the Buy Now button would never be disabled, and they would be directed to the product on our store so even if we were out of that product, they would be seeing related/recommended products.

Thanks

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[frg-tech]

When I first started using BC I had set all my products with defaults but removed it from everything for a reason that I can't remember now. I'm sure I'll find out why again soon enough.

This does at least give a message when the default product is unavailable, which will help direct customers to make a different selection, but I still maintain that it's not ideal. I would rather not have it displayed on my fishing report that I'm out of stock on anything. That's perfectly acceptable when you are on the store site, but our fishing report is not a store, but is a great place to showcase a product.

I don't know if it would take a total rewrite of the code, or just be terribly difficult to add the functionality I'm speaking of, but it doesn't seem like my use case is either understood or if it is thought to be without merit. Maybe I just need to go back to copy/paste images and descriptions.

I really don't need a second store, or any of the functionality that comes with it. My goal is to drive traffic TO my web store and not try to handle everything locally on my blog. I have plenty of customers that only visit our blog for our daily fishing reports and don't even realize we have a web store. I want to get them on our site so they can browse around and see the other similar/recommended products we have there.

To add to that, I still haven't heard anything about the multi-channel product management interface. After working in the single channel manager for a couple of years now, it's like I've been handcuffed now to work with my products. Since I don't actually need a multi-channel environment, hopefully you can understand why it's hard to justify using it.

I do appreciate you trying to work with me, but you were really quick to dismiss my request and close the ticket so I'm not quite sure what to make of that. I wish it had stayed open to the public at least for a little while so others might be able to comment and possibly add solutions or other ideas.

I guess I'll hold out hope that there are others out there that might want the same functionality and can voice it. For now I'll weigh my options and figure out where to go from here.

Thanks for listening, Erik

https://fishingreport.friscorodandgun.com/