Let customer choose between physical and downloadable format of a book in Magento [closed]

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Closed 9 years ago.

I try to build up a bookstore site for our customer with the magento eCommerce software (Magento Community Edition - Version 1.7.0.2). It's my first time with shop systems..and here is my problem:

I want to sell books in at least two formats, printed, and in downloadable format - each with different price. The user should see a book as one product and should be able to choose the format he wants to buy through a dropdown menu (like a tshirt size in online shops..)..I tried it with a configurable product but I cannot seem to create such a product that includes a simple product and a downloadable product.

Same issue is discussed here and on other sites without concrete solution for this problem:

https://collaborate.magento.com/magento/topics/can_you_include_a_downloadable_product_within_a_configurable_product

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/269950/

My programming skills are not the best and I will be really grateful if somebody could help me here.

Thanks, Irina

Answer 1

In theory you can create a bundle product with one bundle item that has the downloadable book and the physical book as options.

But if you look at app/code/core/Mage/Downloadable/etc/config.xml you will find the following under global/catalog/product/type:

                <!--<bundle>-->
                    <!--<allowed_selection_types>-->
                        <!--<downloadable/>-->
                    <!--</allowed_selection_types>-->
                <!--</bundle>-->
                <configurable>
                    <allow_product_types>
                        <downloadable/>
                    </allow_product_types>
                </configurable>

It looks like downloadable products were once allowed but since Magento 1.6 this was deliberately commented out, so probably there was a problem with it (see also this question). You could try to reactivate this code nevertheless but be careful and expect bugs with that.

By the way, since this is not directly programming related, your question will be more welcome at magento.stackexchange.com