What are Wheel & Tire Packages?
Tire and wheel stores usually sell wheels and tires as a set: it is easier for the customer to pick both at once, and the set often comes with extras, such as lug nuts, hub rings or TPMS sensors, or with an installation service.
The Wheel & Tire Packages add-on gives your customers a guided way to do this. The customer selects a vehicle, picks wheels, picks tires that match both the vehicle and the chosen wheels, adds optional extras, and puts the whole package into the cart in one go. Everything in the package is checked against the vehicle, so the customer does not have to work out compatibility on their own.
The add-on is available in X-Cart 5.6.x. If your store has this add-on enabled, a basic package (wheels + tires) works right after installation and needs no setup. The only thing you configure is the list of package extras.
Note: this is the first version of the add-on. It will be developed further, so some details of the storefront interface may change.
Before you start: product fitment
Packages work only with wheels and tires that have vehicle fitment data, because every step of the package is matched to the customer’s vehicle. A wheel or tire that has no matched vehicles is not offered in the package builder.
In X-Cart 5.6.x, wheels and tires imported from an automotive integration, such as AutoSync, get their fitment automatically. For details, and for how to manage the fitment of a product manually, see Automatic fitment detection for wheels and tires (X-Cart 5.6.x).
For more about vehicle data and fitment, see Make/Model/Year add-on explained.
Configuring package extras
Extras are optional products that are offered while a package is being built, for example lug nuts, hub centric rings, TPMS sensors or a mounting and balancing service.
To open the settings page, go to Apps > My Apps, find the Wheel & Tire Packages add-on and click Settings. The add-on works together with the Wheel & Tire Fitment add-on, which can’t be disabled while Wheel & Tire Packages is enabled.
The page is titled “Wheel & Tire Packages” Addon Settings. It says that your package is ready to sell as soon as the module is enabled and that extras are optional.
In the Package extras section, click Create extra to add an extra. The list shows the name of each extra, the linked catalog product (with its SKU), the price, and Selected by default. You can reorder extras by dragging, switch each extra on and off, edit and delete them.
Important: an extra is offered to customers only when it is switched on. New extras are off by default. If no extra is switched on, or none of them fits the selected vehicle and is in stock, the extras step is skipped and the customer goes straight to the package summary.
When you click Create extra, you set:
Enable in storefront: switches the extra on or off. Off by default.
Name: used only in the Admin area. The storefront shows the data of the linked product.
Product: click Add and select a product from your catalog. The extra is linked to one product.
Quantity per package: Fixed qty (a fixed number of items, 1 by default) or Match wheels quantity (the quantity follows the number of wheels in the package, for example four TPMS sensors for four wheels).
Selected by default: if on, the extra is already checked when the customer reaches the extras step. Use it for extras you want to push into the package.
Confirm removal and Removal text: available only when Selected by default is on. If you consider an extra important, enable the confirmation and write the message. When the customer tries to remove the extra, a popup titled Remove [product name] shows your message with the Remove and Keep it buttons. Removal text is required when the confirmation is on.
An extra is offered only if the linked product fits the vehicle of the package (according to its fitment type, for example Universal Fit) and has enough stock for the Quantity per package.
Sample extras
The add-on comes with five sample extras, all switched off:
Sample extra | Linked demo product | Price | Selected by default |
Sample: Universal Lug Nut Set | [Demo product] Lug Nut Set | $25.00 | Yes |
Sample: Universal Hub Centric Ring Set | [Demo product] Hub Centric Ring Set | $12.00 | Yes |
Sample: Universal TPMS Sensor | [Demo product] TPMS Sensor | $45.00 | Yes |
Sample: Chrome Wheel Lock Set | [Demo product] Wheel Lock Set | $20.00 | No |
Sample: Mounting & Balancing | [Demo product] Mounting & Balancing Service | $60.00 | No |
A warning above the list reminds you that sample extras use demo products. You can close it.
The demo products have only a name, SKU and a conditional price, with no description or image. Before you sell them, review the extras: edit the demo products, or link the extras to other products from your catalog.
The demo products are hidden from the catalog (the Hide from catalog option), so customers cannot find them in category lists and see them only as package extras. You can use the same option for any other product that should be available only in a package or by a direct link.
The landing page
The add-on creates a Wheel & Tire Packages page and adds it to the Primary menu of your storefront. The page is available at /wheel-tire-packages. It leads customers to the package builder. It explains the steps (select your vehicle, choose your wheels, match your tires, add the extras), tells what a wheel and tire package is, lists the benefits (guaranteed fit, complete set, one checkout), and has a Build your package button.
To edit the page, use Storefront Builder: change the text, images and sections with the standard tools. See About X-Cart’s Storefront Builder (5.6.x).
The menu item is in Design > Menus & Pages > Primary menu (the item Wheel & Tire Packages). You can hide or rename it there like any other menu item.
The add-on also provides a promo banner for the home page (Looking for a complete setup? with the Shop Wheel & Tire Package button) that links to the landing page. You can edit, move or hide it in Storefront Builder.
The landing page is shown every time a customer enters the package builder from the banner or the menu, even if a vehicle is already selected.
How customers build a package
The package builder opens in a separate full-screen mode at /wheel-tire-package-builder. The Actions menu in the header has two items: Start a new package and Exit package configurator. During the build, the customer sees the running Package subtotal. The View steps panel lists the completed steps with their data and a Return to step N link for each of them.
Check product fitment. The customer clicks Build your package and selects a vehicle: by make, model, year and submodel (with an optional Add to My Garage check box), with Find by VIN, or from My Garage. This step cannot be skipped. If a vehicle was already selected on the storefront, the form is filled with it and the customer confirms it or chooses another one. In View steps, the vehicle step shows the bolt pattern and the front and rear center bore of the vehicle.
Select wheels. The customer sees only wheels that fit the vehicle, marked Fits your vehicle, and can sort and filter them (for example, by diameter and width). The quantity is set to 4 by default and can be changed. Each item shows the price per unit and the price per set of 4. Only the wheels that are in stock in the quantity of a full set are offered. The customer clicks Add to package next to the chosen wheels.
Select tires. The list contains only tires that fit both the vehicle and the selected wheels, in the same layout. The quantity is 4 by default. The customer clicks Add to package for the chosen tires.
Additional products & services. This step appears only if there are extras that are switched on, fit the vehicle and are in stock in the required quantity (see “Configuring package extras”). Each extra is shown as a product with a check box, a badge such as Universal Fit or Regular Product, the price and the quantity, for example “$180.00 (4 items)”. The extras you marked as selected by default are already checked. The customer can’t change the quantity of an extra. Additionals subtotal is shown under the list. If the customer clears an extra that has a removal confirmation, a popup with your message is shown. The customer clicks Proceed to summary.
Check package summary. The summary shows the wheels and the tires with the vehicle they fit (Fits TOYOTA Camry 2023 XLE), their size, price and quantity, then the Additional products & services that were selected, and the subtotal. The customer can still change the quantity of wheels and tires here, and clicks Add package to cart.
To change an earlier choice, the customer clicks Return to step N in View steps. Changing a step discards the choices made after it, so a confirmation popup is shown first. The popups are: Replace wheel? (“Replacing this wheel will remove the selected tire from your package. You will need to choose them again.”), Replace tire? (“Your current tire selection will be removed. You can choose a new tire in the next step.”) and Change vehicle? (“All selected wheels, tires, fitment settings, and additional services will be removed. You’ll need to start building your package again for the new vehicle.”). Each popup asks “Do you want to continue?” and has a confirm button and Cancel.
Clicking Start a new package opens the popup Start a new package?: “Starting a new package will reset your current build. All selected wheels, tires, and configurations will be lost.” The customer confirms with Start new package or clicks Cancel. Exit package configurator takes the customer to the home page right away.
The build is kept in the customer’s session while they browse the store or reload the page. When they return to the package builder, they continue from the step where they left. Stock is checked again in the cart.
Packages in the cart and at checkout
In the cart, every package is shown as a separate group with a title (Wheel & Tire Package), the vehicle it was built for (for example, Fits TOYOTA Camry 2023 XLE), and its items: the wheels, the tires and the extras. If the cart has only one package, the title has no number. If the cart has several packages, each title gets a number (Wheel & Tire Package #1, #2), whether the packages were built for the same vehicle or for different ones. The numbers follow the order of the packages in the cart, so after you delete the first package, the second becomes #1. Items that were added to the cart outside of a package are shown separately, and the same product is never merged between two packages or between a package and a regular cart line.
Quantities. The quantity of wheels and tires in a package can’t be changed in the cart. To get a different quantity, the customer removes the package and builds a new one.
Removing a package. The Remove package button of the group removes the whole package, with all its items, at once and without a confirmation. A message says that the package has been deleted from the cart. A wheel or tire can’t be removed from a package separately.
Removing an extra. Extras can be removed separately with Delete item. If you enabled a removal confirmation for the extra, the customer sees your message first, the same popup as in the package builder.
Stock changes. If availability changes while the package is in the cart, the cart shows the banner “Some items in your cart have quantity issues — please review them below before checkout.” The banner is shown in the cart itself, not among the top messages, and it works for the whole cart, not only for packages. An item that is not in stock is marked Out of stock and dimmed, and an item with less stock than in the cart is marked Only N in stock. Go to checkout is not available until the problem is solved.
If a wheel or a tire of the package is affected, the package also gets its own banner under the package title: “This package isn’t available for purchase — see details below.” with the link Build a new package for this vehicle. All items of the package are dimmed. The link opens the package builder at the wheel selection step, with the vehicle already known, and the current package is removed from the cart. Remove package stays available.
If an extra is affected, the package banner is not shown. The extra gets the label and is dimmed, and the customer can remove it from the package.
Mini cart. The mini cart shows each package as one line with the package total and the number of items in brackets. The items inside are not expanded. For example: Wheel & Tire Package #1, $1332.24 (8 items).
Checkout and shipments
Checkout uses the standard order routing. A package is not a single unit for routing: each item is assigned to a location by the enabled routing rules, as for any other order. See Order routing in X-Cart 5.6.x. This means:
Items of a package may be shipped from different warehouses. There is no guarantee that a package will be sent as one shipment. If one location can ship the whole order, the Minimize split shipments rule, which is on by default, makes routing use it.
A mounting and balancing service is just a product in the package. It is not tied to the warehouse that ships the wheels and tires. If you have several warehouses, check how the shipments were distributed after the order is placed and, if needed, redistribute them yourself.
The service makes sense for stores that have their own warehouse (or several of them) where the service is available. If the package is shipped from a supplier warehouse, such as in dropshipping, you can’t mount and balance the wheels and tires before they are sent to the customer, so don’t switch the service on in this case.
The mounting and balancing sample is a regular product with a large stock (1000), so the add-on shows the service as available whenever the product is in stock. It does not check that the service is available at the warehouse that ships the package.
Packages in orders
In the order, every item that belongs to a package has a Package label and a green label with the vehicle it fits (for example, Fits TOYOTA Camry 2023 XSE). If the order has several packages, the label has the number of the package (Package #1). The number is fixed when the order is placed and does not change if some packages are returned later. The labels are shown on the order page in the storefront (order confirmation) and in the Admin area, on the General Info and Shipments tabs of the order. If an order has a single package, the label is just Package, without a number.
If you work with your own warehouses, you can rearrange the shipments of the order in the Admin area, for example to create one shipment per package: remove the shipment and unassign its items, then create new shipments from Products Not in Shipments. See Editing shipments (X-Cart 5.6.x) for the steps. Package labels stay on the items after you create the shipments again. The labels are not shown while the items are in Products Not in Shipments.
FAQ
Q: Do I need to configure anything to sell packages?
A: No. A package of wheels and tires works right after the add-on is enabled. Extras are optional.
Q: Why don’t customers see the extras step?
A: The step is shown only if at least one extra is switched on, fits the vehicle and is in stock. New extras, including the sample ones, are off by default.
Q: Will the packages work for products without vehicle fitment?
A: No. The package builder offers only wheels and tires that fit the selected vehicle, so products need the Vehicle Specific fitment type with matched vehicles.
Q: Is a package guaranteed to be shipped together?
A: No. Orders are distributed between warehouses by the standard order routing. See “Checkout and shipments” above.
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