Kitero - Composite Products for WooCommerce documentation

Kitero adds a Composite product type to WooCommerce. A composite product is made of components, and each component is one choice the shopper makes, such as a frame or a lens. You fill each component with existing products from your store. On the product page, shoppers work through the components, and the total updates as they choose.

This Pro edition contains every feature of the free edition, so you only need this one plugin. On top of that it adds bundle mode (you decide the contents and the shopper adds the box in one click), fixed and hybrid pricing, per option price overrides, logic rules between components, a step by step wizard and a tabbed layout, more ready made kit templates, and an Insights report on what shoppers choose.

Kitero is for store owners who sell made to order kits, gift boxes, configurable products or bundles built from products they already stock. The chosen items are listed in the cart, checkout, order and emails, and stock is reduced on the chosen products.

Kitero needs WooCommerce. Make sure WooCommerce 8.0 or newer is installed and active before you start. You do not need the free edition of Kitero: Pro contains everything it does.

Kitero works fully as soon as it is activated. The license key turns on automatic updates, so new versions arrive in WordPress like any other plugin update. Pro features never depend on it.

Once the license is active, new versions of Kitero show up under Dashboard > Updates and on the Plugins screen. Click Update now, or click Enable auto-updates in the Kitero row on the Plugins screen and WordPress installs every future release for you.

• Keys are checked once a day in the background, so your site never waits for the license server. If the server is briefly unreachable, the plugin keeps its last known status.
• An expired key or a key that is not accepted only stops updates. Kitero keeps working. After renewing, click Check now in its row.
• Moving to a new domain: click Deactivate on the old site first, then activate the key on the new one. The status shows Site address changed, checking until the new address is confirmed.
• On the command line: wp ppl-license list, wp ppl-license activate <plugin> <key>, wp ppl-license check and wp ppl-license deactivate <plugin>.

Kitero > Dashboard is the starting point for the plugin.

At the top, three counters show how many composite products you have, how many ready made kit templates are available, and how many products can be used as options.

Under Quick actions you can:

• Create a composite product: set the product type to Composite, then pick a template or build it yourself.
• Manage composite products: see every composite product you have built.
• Settings: defaults for layout, option style, catalog price and add to cart.
• Documentation: every option explained, without leaving the dashboard.
• Run the setup again: revisit the defaults at any time. Nothing you have built is changed.

Recent composite products lists your latest composite products with their number of components, their status, and Edit and View links.

Kitero > Composite products lists every product that uses the Composite type, with how many components and options each one offers.

The table shows:

• Product: the product name, linked to the product editor.
• Components and Options: how many choices the product has and how many products are offered across them.
• Layout: the layout the product uses on its product page.
• Catalog price: the price shown on shop and category pages.
• Status and Date.

You can sort by Product or Date, search with Search products, and click Add new to create another composite product.

Composite products are built in the normal WooCommerce product editor.

1. Create a product as usual, then set the product type dropdown to Composite product.
2. Open the Composite tab and press Add component. A component is one choice the shopper makes.
3. Give the component a name, then search for the products the shopper can pick from. You can search by product name or by SKU, including variation SKUs.
4. Add as many components as you need and drag them into the order you want.
5. Press Update. Visit the product page and the configuration form appears with a live total.

The composite product itself does not need a price. The total is worked out from the products the shopper chooses.

Instead of building from scratch, you can start from one of the fifteen ready made kit templates. Three of them also set bundle mode, fixed pricing or hybrid pricing for you.

Each component card in the Composite tab has these fields:

The layout controls how shoppers move through the components. Set it per product on the Composite display tab. New products use the Default layout from Kitero > Settings.

• All components visible: every choice is shown at once. Best for two or three components.
• Accordion (one section open at a time): the rest collapse. Keeps a long build readable on a phone.
• Step by step wizard (Pro): guided, one component at a time, with a progress bar and Previous and Next buttons.
• Tabbed, one tab per component (Pro): compact and easy to skip around.

Also on the Composite display tab, you can set a minimum and maximum number of items for the whole kit, for example at least 3 and at most 6. Items are counted by quantity across every component. The product page shows the limit and a running count, and the cart checks it again. Leave both empty for no limit.

The option style is set per component:

• Thumbnails: a compact image grid.
• Cards: larger tiles that also show the product's short description.
• Radio buttons: a vertical list with the name and price.
• Dropdown: the most compact option, best when a component has many similar choices.

To restyle the form, copy templates/single-product/composite-form.php from the plugin into a folder called kitero-product-configurator inside your theme. Your copy is used instead and survives updates.

Pricing strategies. Choose the strategy per product on the General tab. New products use Default pricing from Kitero > Settings.

• Per item: the total is the sum of what the shopper picks, each multiplied by its quantity.
• Fixed (Pro): one flat price, whatever is chosen.
• Hybrid (Pro): a base price plus the items picked.

The total updates live as the shopper chooses and is calculated again on the server before anything is added to the cart, so an edited page cannot produce a cheaper order.

Per option price overrides (Pro) let you charge a different price for a product inside one component, without changing the product itself.

Catalog price. The lowest price counts required components only, because an optional component can be skipped. The highest price counts every component at its dearest option and highest quantity.

Stock. Stock is held by the chosen products, not by the composite product. When an order reduces stock, the stock of each chosen item is reduced by its quantity, and order notes record the changes.

Bundle mode is a Pro feature. Instead of letting the shopper build the kit, you decide the contents yourself. The shopper sees what is in the box and adds it to the cart in one click.

Optional items get a tick box, so the shopper can drop them, and the total follows.

Some of the ready made kit templates set bundle mode up for you. The built in documentation under Kitero > Documentation explains how to turn it on, what Required means in a bundle, and how quantities and stock work.

Logic rules are a Pro feature. They show, hide or narrow one component based on what the shopper chose in another component.

Rules are enforced in the browser, so the product page reacts right away, and again on the server, so a configuration that breaks a rule cannot be added to the cart.

See Logic rules in Kitero > Documentation for the available triggers and actions.

Kitero > Composite orders lists the orders that contain at least one composite product. The table shows the Order, Customer, Composite items, Status, Total and Date.

Open an order to see exactly which options the customer chose. The choices are recorded on each order line.

Until the first composite product is ordered, the table shows "No orders contain a composite product yet."

Kitero > Settings holds the defaults for every composite product. Many of them can still be changed per product where that makes sense.

The screen has five groups:

• Product page: default layout, default option style, add to cart without reloading, the add to cart button text and how out of stock options appear.
• Catalog: how the price appears on shop and category pages, and the text of the catalog button.
• Admin: how many results the component product search returns, and whether plugin data is deleted when you delete the plugin.
• Pricing: the default pricing strategy for new composite products.
• Insights: whether shoppers' choices are recorded for the Insights screen.

Click Save settings when you are done. Every field is described in the settings reference below.

The Insights screen is a Pro feature that reports on your composite products. It shows:

• how many configurations were built,
• the revenue from composite lines,
• how many builds became an order,
• a share bar for every option, showing how often it wins its component.

The report is fed by the setting Record what shoppers choose under Kitero > Settings. Nothing personal is stored, only the component, the option and the quantity. Switching the setting off stops new rows being written and leaves existing ones alone.

Kitero > Setup is a short wizard that sets the defaults for every composite product you build. It has four steps: Layout, Options, Shop and Done. It takes about a minute, and you can change any of it later under Kitero > Settings.

The first step asks how shoppers should move through the choices:

• All components visible: everything on one page. Best for two or three choices.
• Accordion (one section open at a time): collapsible sections. Good for four to six choices.
• Step by step wizard: guided, one at a time, with a progress bar.
• Tabbed, one tab per component: one tab per choice. Compact and easy to skip around.

Pick one and click Continue. Click Skip for now to leave the wizard. You can run it again at any time from the dashboard. Nothing you have already built is changed.

Kitero > Documentation explains every option in plain language, without leaving your dashboard. Links at the top jump to each section:

• Getting started, Component options, Layouts and styles, Global settings and Pricing and stock.
• For developers: a table of hooks and what each one is for.
• Troubleshooting: fixes for common problems.
• Bundle mode, Pricing strategies, Logic rules and Layouts, templates, insights for the Pro features.

The Global settings table there lists every setting with its default value.

On the product page of a composite product, shoppers see a configuration form in place of the usual add to cart area.

• The price shows the range from the cheapest to the dearest build, or a starting price, depending on Price display.
• With the Step by step wizard layout, a progress bar shows the current step (for example Step 1 of 3), and Previous and Next buttons move between components.
• Each component shows its name, a Required badge when a choice is needed, and its options in the style you picked (thumbnails, cards, radio buttons or a dropdown) with name and price.
• When you set a minimum or maximum number of items, a running count shows the limit and how many items are chosen.
• The Total updates as the shopper chooses, above the Add to cart button.

On shop and category pages, composite products show a button (by default Configure) that opens the product page. After adding to the cart, the chosen items appear in the cart, checkout, order and emails, each under its component name.