Solution
Product configurator for your online shop
A product configurator for your online shop guides customers through variants, dimensions and design, shows the correct price instantly and delivers complete, print-ready order data to you. It is aimed at manufacturers, print shops and retailers whose products cannot be ordered as a simple variant. For simple variants, a plugin for Shopify or WooCommerce is often enough.
Who it is for: For manufacturers, print shops and retailers with custom-made products, made-to-measure items or individually designed articles that are ordered by email or quotation today.
Starting point
How the process runs today
The shop shows standard items, but a large share of revenue comes from custom products. Customers email dimensions, sketches and print files. Someone checks the details, asks follow-up questions, calculates the price by hand and keys in the order. Anyone who orders in the shop ends up at an upload field with no preview and no check. Many abandon their order there.
What it costs
- Follow-up questions about missing dimensions, colours or finishes delay orders and tie up your sales office.
- Print files arrive without bleed, at too low a resolution or in the wrong format and have to be reworked.
- One person calculates prices for custom products by hand. When they are away, the customer waits.
- Customers abandon their order because they are unsure whether their file or dimensions are right.
Process
What the process looks like afterwards
01
Choose the product
The customer chooses the product and sees only the options that fit together.
02
Configure
Dimensions, material, finish and quantity are captured step by step. Impossible combinations are ruled out.
03
Calculate the price
The price is calculated instantly according to your rules, including surcharges and volume discounts.
04
Design or upload
The customer designs in the browser using a template or uploads their own file, which is checked automatically.
05
Preview and approval
A preview shows the result exactly as it will be produced. The customer explicitly approves it.
06
Order with all data
Order, specification and print-ready file reach you complete, directly in the ERP if you wish.
Which product configurator suits your products?
The customer chooses size, colour, material or accessories. The configurator shows only combinations you can actually deliver and adjusts image and price accordingly.
Typical for furniture, textiles, machine accessories and gift items.
The customer enters width, height or length within the limits you set. The price comes from your formula, for example a price per square metre plus surcharges for material and processing.
Typical for cut-to-size materials, banners, signs, blinds and glass.
The customer chooses a template, adds text, a logo or a QR code and sees the result immediately. In the trade, this is called web-to-print.
Typical for business cards, flyers, labels, signage and printed textiles.
Customers who have a finished file upload it. The configurator checks format, size, bleed and resolution and flags problems before the order is placed.
Standard plugin or your own product configurator: which pays off?
For simple variants, the configurator plugins for Shopify or WooCommerce are enough. They are quick to set up and cheaper than any custom development. Your own configurator only pays off when your pricing logic, your rules or your print files overwhelm the plugin.
Three warning signs that a plugin is no longer enough:
- You combine several plugins and extra fields, and someone still recalculates the price by hand afterwards.
- Orders arrive in the shop, but dimensions and options sit as free text in a note and are keyed in again.
- Customers upload files that nobody checks until after the order.
What does print-ready mean?
Print-ready means the print shop can print the file without any rework. The rules for this are built into the configurator. Bleed and safety margin are shown as frames, and a print preview shows the product as it will look after trimming.
These four things have to be right:
- Bleed: the design extends a few millimetres beyond the edge, so that no white strip remains after trimming.
- Safety margin: text and logos keep a distance from the edge, so that nothing is cut off.
- Resolution: images are sharp enough for the printed size, not just for the screen.
- Format: the file has the correct final size and a file type the print shop can process, usually PDF.
What does a product configurator for your online shop cost?
| Option | Price range | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Plugin for Shopify or WooCommerce | depends on the vendor | simple variants with fixed surcharges |
| Configurator as an extension of your existing shop | CHF 30,000 to 60,000 | options, dimensions and price formulas, 2 to 4 months |
| New shop with configurator and design in the browser | CHF 60,000 to 150,000 | including print files, depending on the ERP connection, 4 to 6 months |
| Preliminary study with cost ceiling | CHF 4,000 to 9,000 | fixed price, 2 to 3 weeks |
| Maintenance and operation per year | 15 to 20 % | of the project cost |
Project timeline: your own configurator in 2 to 6 months
2 to 3 weeks
Fixed-price preliminary study
We record products, rules, pricing logic and print specifications and clarify the connection to shop and ERP. The result is a cost ceiling, at a fixed price of CHF 4,000 to 9,000.
From week 3
Draft of the ordering path
A clickable draft shows the product page with all steps. You test it with a few regular customers before any code is written.
From week 5
Delivery in stages
Options and price calculation first, then design in the browser and print files. Each stage is checked in a test environment.
Before go-live
Testing with real orders
Your team orders typical and difficult cases. Prepress or production checks the generated files and specifications.
After 2 to 6 months
Go-live
The configurator goes live, first for selected products, then for the whole range.
Afterwards
Operation and maintenance
Shop, prices and templates keep evolving, and the configurator keeps pace. Plan on 15 to 20 percent of the project cost per year for this.
What to prepare for your configurator
Products and rules
List the products that should be configurable, with all their options. Note which combinations are not possible, for example a material that is only available up to a certain size. Often only one person in production knows all the exceptions.
Pricing logic
Set out how you calculate today: base price, price per area or per piece, surcharges, volume discounts and minimum prices. Cases that cannot be captured in rules become an enquiry rather than a wrong price.
Templates and print specifications
Design in the browser needs templates, fonts and colours that you are allowed to use. Your prepress team defines which formats, bleeds and resolutions it requires.
Responsibility
Name one person who maintains prices and templates and answers enquiries about special cases, plus a deputy.
Integrations
Which systems are connected
The configurator works with your shop: as an extension of Shopify or WooCommerce, or as part of a shop built on Medusa. If you wish, we pass the order and specification on to your ERP, such as Abacus or bexio.
- ERP and accounting
- Abacus
- bexio
- Shop and PIM
- Medusa
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
Make or buy
Off-the-shelf or custom?
Off-the-shelf software is enough if
- Your products have a few variants such as size, colour or material.
- Each variant has a fixed price or a simple surcharge.
- Your shop runs on Shopify or WooCommerce, and a plugin covers your options.
Finished products for this case: Configurator plugins for Shopify and WooCommerce, as well as ready-made web-to-print solutions for print shops.
Custom is worth it if
- Prices are calculated from dimensions, quantities, materials and surcharges.
- Rules have to rule out technically impossible combinations.
- Customers design in the browser or supply print files that need checking.
- Orders should reach the ERP or production with a complete specification.
Effort
Price range and duration
- Price range
- CHF 30'000 to 150'000
- Duration
- 2 to 6 months
Non-binding estimate, excl. VAT.
What drives the effort
The effort depends on the pricing logic, the number of rules, design in the browser and the ERP connection. A configurator with options and price formulas in your existing shop sits at the lower end.
The price becomes binding after the fixed-price discovery phase.
Your case in numbers
- Hours per year tied up
- 300
- Cost per year today
- CHF 21'000
- Possible saving per year
- CHF 14'700
210 hours freed up for other work
Rough calculation based on your figures. Not a quote.
Product configurator for your online shop
Frequently asked questions
Can a configurator be added to our existing shop?
In many cases, yes. Common shop systems such as Shopify and WooCommerce can be extended with a custom configurator that checks options, calculates the price and adds the order to the basket with all details. If your shop reaches its limits with pricing logic, design in the browser or the ERP connection, a new shop is often cheaper than many workarounds. We clarify this in the preliminary study, before you commit.
How does the configurator calculate prices for custom products?
By the same rules you use to calculate by hand today, only instantly and without calculation errors. We record your pricing logic, such as base price, price per square metre, surcharges for material or finishing and volume discounts, and the configurator shows the final price for every combination. You then maintain prices and surcharges yourself in the admin area. Cases that cannot be captured in rules reach you as an enquiry instead of landing in the basket with the wrong price.
Medusa, Shopify or WooCommerce: which do you recommend?
For a shop with standard products and standard prices, Shopify or WooCommerce is enough. We recommend Medusa when customer-specific prices, configurable products, approval processes or a close ERP integration are required. We make the decision in the discovery phase, based on your requirements.
Let us talk about your case.
20 minutes are enough to find out whether a custom solution is worth it for you.