Introduction
What is Promo Bot?
The Buy X, Auto-Add Y Free PromoBot module provides the ability to create 'Buy X, Get Y Free' promotions that automatically add free item(s) to the shopping cart. This means customers do not need to navigate to and add a free item to take advantage of the promotion.
How it Works
Buy X, Auto-Add Y Free PromoBot uses the current Magento Shopping Cart Price Rules, and provides an additional option under the 'Actions' tab. The module allows an administrator to designate product(s) to be added to the cart for free, limit the number of free promotional products provided per transaction, and automatically restores the original price to a promotional product if the Shopping Cart rules are altered after a product has been added to the cart.
Pre-requisites
Code/Conflicts
- NO EDITS OR MODIFICATIONS TO MAGENTO CORE (Typically, this includes all code inside the app/code/core folder)
- No conflicting modules (or conflicting custom code) installed (Typically, if installed component/module affects same functionality as Promobot--shopping-cart-rule related, you should be wary of conflicts)
Magento Version
- Community Edition 1.3 - 1.6.2
- Enterprise Edition 1.8 - 1.11.2
Installation
Before you Install
As with all our modules (and all modules in general), installing this module directly and solely in a live environment is strongly discouraged. It is recommended that it be installed in a development environment, configured, tested, and then deployed to your live environment through your deployment method of choice (i.e. - git, subversion, etc...). If this is not possible, then the next best thing would be to make a FULL backup before installation.
Installing the Basic Application
Navigate to the root of your application. You should see folders like (app, downloader, skin, etc...). If you have not already used Magento Connect or any other Pear package management for your installation, you will need to run the following:
terminal Setting up Pear
If you receive a permission error, run the following:
terminal Pear Permissions
Then (Replace /path/to... with the path to your PromoBot TarBall.):
terminal Pear Install
If you ever need to UN-install PromoBot, you can run:
terminal Pear UN-Install
These Commands Giving You Grief?
Don't give up yet. If you're not a veteran to command line, it can be just a character or two that makes the difference. If you are on a shared host, you might not be allowed to run pear installs (which is lame, but happens). If that's the case, try asking them if they could run them for you (sometimes they're nice that way). If they really are mean (or just not setup that way), then you might have to do a manual install. However, your best bet is to save it for the last option. It's definitely easier to run one command than try to copy files manually.
General Usage
Once installation is complete, login to your Admin Panel > Promotion Tab > Shopping Cart Price Rules. Click 'Add New Rule,' and fill in general information for your new rule, just as you would for other Shopping Cart Price Rules.
Next, under the Conditions tab, set conditions which identify the product(s) upon which your free item(s) will be based. Choose 'Products Subselection' from the various options. The following will appear:
Set a quantity required to trigger the promotion by adjusting various links in the condition. In this case, we will create a 'buy one, get one free' promotion. Click 'is' and select 'equals or greater than,' then click '...' and enter a value of 1. Your condition should appear as follows:
Next, designate the SKU of an item that will trigger the promotion. Click the green '+' button and select 'SKU' from the drop-down. Then click the '...' link, and enter the SKU, or click the blue button for a list of product SKUs. Once a SKU is entered or selected, your screen appear as follows:
Now, set the rules and select the free promotional item(s) in the 'Actions' tab. Under 'Apply,' select 'Buy item X get item Y(s) free (Auto add to cart)'. This will disable the 'Discount Qty Step (Buy X)' fields, which will not apply to the rule. The 'Discount Amount' field should allow you to determine what percentage of a discount you'd like to apply (If you don't want to set it to 100 or Free) In the 'Maximum Qty Discount is Applied to' field, enter a limit of how many free items you would like to give away on a single transaction. The rest of the drop-down boxes in this section may be set to 'No', depending upon your promotion preferences, as seen below:
Finally, select the product(s) to be added for free. In the bottom portion in the 'Actions' tab, click the green '+' button and select SKU from the drop-down. Click the '...' link for a SKU input box, and enter the desired SKU(s). Save your new settings and test on the front end.
Auto Add Ys - If you'd like to add multiple promotional Ys to the cart, you can do so by adding each SKU as a condition in the "Apply the rule only to..." section of the Actions tab.
Testing The Promotion
Navigate to a qualifying product, add to cart, then view your cart. You should see a cart similar to the following:
Remove the conditional product from the cart (here, the Apple MacBook Pro Notebook PC). The free promotional product will stay in the cart, but the price should revert to full price.
There you go! You've now successfully added a promotion that will automatically add a free item to your cart.
Known Limitations
- Simple SKUs Only - Only simple SKUs can be "auto-added" to the cart.
- Multiple PromoBot Rules - Running multiple rules concurrently that use PromoBot is not supported.
- Module Conflicts - One Step Checkout, GoMage LightCheckout