One of the best features about products is that the end user can purchase add-ons and editions at their discretion. The biggest downside of the products is that you can't white label the banners or the marketing pages, and certain vendors give away the white label in their FAQ section (Alpha SEO).
Packages make white labeling better since you can customize the banner and marketing pages, but products make shopping easier since the end user has the ability to customize.
I would like to request that packages get the ability to have add-ons and editions in the same way that products have them. Editions would allow you to condense the packages in your store (for example, "Get Found | Basic" and "Get Found | Advanced" could both be housed under one "Get Found" package).
Add-ons would help sell small products that aren't big enough to warrant having their own package. Or for services that people may or may not want (i.e. if you're selling a website package, including copywriting as an additional add-on). In my case, I'd like to offer a web domain with the purchase of a website package, but I don't want to create an additional package that also includes a domain since most customers already have that.
My current workaround has been to create my own products in lieu of packages. I can offer full customization of your package this way, but the downside is that I have to manually add the correct products to client accounts after the sale.
Customizing the packages more would be the ultimate solution. You would have full-control of your white labeling, the ability to offer your clients the freedom of choice, and still have products auto assigned to accounts after purchase.
If anyone else has this issue, please let me know what solutions work for you!
This is exactly what I've just been struggling with. For example I'm creating Social packages including profile design, page build and weekly posting, but I need to offer additional network(s) and/or more frequent posts. Just can't do it with Packages - this is pretty basic e-commerce stuff here, so I'd be eager to see a solution.
@smoore709 I agree, it's pretty standard for e-commerce when it comes to variations.
What I've found is that a lot of my sales won't happen so much through the store. I'll make a deal on paper and then invoice for it, where you have full customization of what you sell.
If you really need full-customization of the store front, it might be easier to create a product page in your CMS. That said, I really wish Vendasta would open up the tools a bit more for us since the marketing materials they provide are so convenient.
