Product Variants/Mods should be Additive in Pricing

I run a film lab, so it's like a mix of digital and physical products.  Someone shoots film, they pay me to develop it and scan it.  So they order a set of services, mail in their film, and then they receive scans online, plus we ship back the film.  

Currently the way commerce is set up it's unworkable for my services.  It seems like each product variant is treated like it's own separate item, and not parts of a whole.

It would be great if you could have a base price, and then each mod is an additional price.  I.E. A hamburger costs $10, and each topping is an additional dollar.  The way it's set up right now, is like you have a different skew for every possible variation on how to make a hamburger, which seems needlessly complex.  Like...hamburger base $10, hamburger w/ lettuce $11, Hamburger  w/ cheese and lettuce $12, hamburger with just cheese $11, Hamburger medium rare with cheese $12, hamburger medium with cheese $12, hamburger medium cheese and lettuce $13...etc etc etc

Like you have to map out ALL combinations of how the item/service can be ordered.  The ordering page would be a total mess!  

To drive the point home, I'm saying it would be great if you just had (in this theoretical burger shop), a page that said Hamburger, and then a list of options.  Each time you chose something it added or subtracted to your total.  Does that make sense or am I totally missing something about how this works?  

I did go in and build a few of my actual services and there was no way I could make it work in a way that made sense.

Currently my website is with Squarespace and my store is using Square Online (aka Weebly)...which is HORRIBLE.  I want to do it all in one house.  

Someone please let me know if I'm just wrong and you can do what I am describing.

Can you not have a store item for a burger, and then further items for lettuce, tomato etc, and then you can add the additional products to the burger product item page. There are also plugins that can allow you to show "add on products" after adding the hamburger to the cart.

So create each product option as it's own product and then have them allow them to be added onto a core item?  I didn't know you could do that...  I'll need to try that out, not sure how I would make it happen!

Take a look at how the system works on my existing store: https://filmscans.square.site/product/simplescan35c41/55?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=13

You add something, the price goes up, or down.  On my end though I don't have to create entirely separate products and skews for every combination a customer can think of, that's crazy time consuming.  

Can you point me to one of these plug ins?

@northeastphotographic - I really love your site! And I see the issue you're having...I can't help you (sorry), but wanted to let you know that your site looks great and I love that users can add-on and price will adjust onscreen--that's cool!

The reason why I came across your post is because I have kind of a similar issue in that I want my product pricing to show 'From $150' vs. just showing the price '$150'.

I'm hoping to get help with this please. I've attached a screen shot.

thanks,

Glory

18 hours ago, northeastphotographic said:

Can you point me to one of these plug ins?

Try this as one option:

https://snazzyview.com/squarespace-plugins/p/upsell-pop-up-plugin-squarespace

Hmm that's not quite it.  

Think of a pizza.  You start with all cheese and then you add toppings, but in each topping you can do extra or lite.  Pepperoni pizza with olives and peppers, lite on the olives, extra peppers.  Film processing can be that complex!  

The above plugin basically would ask my customers to do an add-to-cart and then select options, which would then be line items in the order form.  It would be impossible to decipher both at the ordering state and the service stage.

anybody figure this out?

I'm looking for this solution, too!