Build a box (mix and match)

What it is

Build a box lets a customer fill a box with several different products from a pool you choose, each with its own quantity, where the total has to hit a size you set. It is the classic mix and match: pick any 6 chocolates, build your own 6-pack, choose any 4 sauces, fill a hamper.

It is the pick-many companion to choice slots, which are pick-one. Both are part of the Builder (Pro).

Turn it on

A box is a choice slot in box mode. Add a choice slot to your bundle, then:

• Set How many can they choose? to Build a box.
• The Min and Max become the box size (the total number of items). For “pick any 6” set both to 6; for a range set, say, Min 4 and Max 8.
• Optionally set Max per product, the most a customer can take of any one item (for example up to 3 of each). Leave it at 0 for no per-product limit.
• Optionally set Max different products, the most distinct items a box can hold (for “pick any 6, up to 3 flavours”). Leave it at 0 for no limit.
• Choose the products the box can be filled from, the same way you build any choice slot’s pool: hand-pick products, pull in a whole category, or both. A category pool keeps itself current: add a product to that category later and customers can pick it from the box automatically, with no edit to the bundle. And the odd product a category holds that you never want offered can be crossed off: see Leave products out.

Sizes and pack options

Instead of one fixed box size, you can offer set sizes or packs, each a flat price for an exact number of items: a 1.7kg bucket that holds 10, a 3kg bucket that holds 20, a 4kg bucket that holds 30. The customer picks a size first, then fills it.

Add them on the choice slot under Sizes / pack options, giving each a label, a price and the number of items it holds. The storefront shows the sizes as tappable tiles, then the fill grid below.

When sizes set the price they take over: per-item prices, quantity breaks and the slot discount no longer apply, because each size is one flat price. Leave sizes empty for ordinary per-item pricing (with optional quantity breaks, below).

Because the pack price is the price, the cards in a priced pack no longer show each product’s own shop price. That figure is the same whichever pack you pick, and nobody pays it. An open box, priced per item, still shows it, because there the customer does pay it.

The fill also stops at what the pack holds. Plus goes no further than the pack size. A typed number settles at the room left. So a box the page let a customer fill is never turned away at the basket.

Sizes suit pick-and-mix buckets, hampers, coffee bags, chocolate boxes and meat boxes: anything “pick a pack, then fill it”. Set them up fastest in the creation wizard: choose Build-your-own box, then Different sizes.

What the customer sees

The pool shows as a grid of product cards, each with a quantity stepper. As they add items:

• A “3 of 6 added” meter and a progress bar fill up.
• The live total updates with every pick.
• Add to cart stays disabled until the box total is in range, so a half-filled box cannot be bought by mistake.

Every pick shows in the cart and on the order, and on the warehouse pick list, like any other bundle.

Products with options

A product in the pool can carry choices, as WooCommerce variations or as AddOnBoss option sets. How its card asks depends on how many kinds of choice it has.

One kind of choice (a flavour, a pack size): the card shows a Choose an option dropdown. The customer picks, then sets the quantity, all on the same card. The card waits for a choice before it counts towards the box, so a half-chosen pick cannot slip through. To give each choice its own card instead, see A card per variation, below.

Colour and size: the card opens as a quantity grid. The customer taps a colour and types how many of each size. Three navy medium and two black large are one card, not five dropdown picks. This is how the card opens by itself; nothing needs switching on. Prefer one pick at a time? Set the product’s Shows as to One card, below. The card then asks colour as swatches, then size. Its photo follows the colour the customer taps, where that colour has its own photo. Pressing a chosen colour or size again clears it, and the card stops counting until both are chosen. The same grid on a fixed bundle line is the quantity grid layout.

This makes a box ideal for a build your own kit: pick a tee, a hoodie and a cap, each in its own colour and size, up to the kit size you set. And when the choice is noise rather than the point, take it off the customer’s plate with a Default size, below.

A card per variation

Sometimes the variations are the range: one product whose variations are the flavours, the colours, the designs. Under Product cards, each product you picked by hand has a Shows as control. For a product with one kind of choice it offers One card or A card per variation. Switch it to A card per variation:

• Every variation becomes its own card with its own photo, counter and stock, and customers mix them freely in one box. One product can fill the whole wall: a flavour product with twelve flavours becomes twelve cards. The photo is the image set on the variation itself (edit the product, open Variations, set an image on each); a variation without one falls back to the product’s main image, which is why an untouched product shows the same picture on every card.
• Each card carries both names, the variation leading: the flavour or colour is the bold title and the product name sits above it as a small line. Five flavours of one product read as five different cards, and several products that all come in a “1 Pack” variation stay tellable apart in one pool.
• Click a variation in the editor to leave it out of this box; click it again to bring it back. Variations you add to the product later join by themselves, the same way a category pool keeps itself current.
• A sold out variation keeps its card, greyed and marked sold out, instead of quietly vanishing, and stock counts down per variation as boxes sell.
• A product with two kinds of choice, like colour and size, offers A quantity grid in place of a card per variation. It is on from the start: the card opens into a quantity grid, since a card per combination would be a wall of near-identical tiles. Choose One card to ask colour as swatches, then size, on one card.
• Any size rule on the box still applies. Cards and grids offer exactly what the box will accept, so a rule pinning the weight to 100g leaves the customer choosing the flavour and nothing else.
• Shows as sits beside each product you picked by hand. A product a category brings in keeps the classic card, except that colour and size open as a quantity grid wherever the product comes from.

A product with one kind of choice keeps its card until you switch it over. A card per variation pairs naturally with pack sizes: pick a size, mix the variations freely, pay the size’s flat price. It is the way to build a pick-and-mix from a single variable product.

Shorter names on the cards

A listing title written for search, “Elevate BC Gummies THC 240 MG (12pcs)”, swamps a small card. In the bundle editor’s Product cards section, every product and every variation carries a small pencil: type a card name and the card shows that instead.

• The rename is display only. The real WooCommerce name stays on the product, in the cart, on orders and in emails, so your admin and your records never change.
• Both lines have their own pencil: the small product line and the bold variation title can each be shortened, so a card can read “Sauced” over “Watermelon Gelato”.
• Set it once, it applies everywhere that product appears, every box, every bundle. Clear the field and the real name returns.
• Card names travel with the product in a bundle export.

One size for the whole box

Sometimes the option dropdowns are the point (a kit in your colour and size). And sometimes they are in the way: a sweet shop selling 100g bags does not want every card opening a size chooser.

Default size appears on the slot as soon as its pool holds a product with options, and decides what fills the box:

• Customer picks: every card keeps its dropdown, exactly as before.
• Smallest of each or Largest of each: every product goes in at its own smallest or largest option.
• A specific size: name the size, say 100g, and every product is offered at that size only. A product that does not come in that size uses its own smallest instead, so nothing drops out of the pool.

When the rule leaves a product exactly one option there is nothing left to choose, so its card drops the dropdown entirely and becomes tap to add.

Size overrides handle the exception. The pool follows the default size while a product you name uses its own: everything at 100g, one bag at 125g. The picker offers exactly the pool’s products, category pools included, so an override can never point at something outside the box.

Two behaviours worth knowing. A set size that is sold out shows its product as sold out rather than quietly offering a different size at a different price. And a pool whose products carry several option types (a weight and a flavour, say) takes one rule per option type: pin each type to a value, or leave a type open for the customer to choose. Per-product overrides carry the same per-type values, so one product can differ on just one type while following the rest.

The wizard’s Build-your-own box step carries the same controls: a Default size choice, a size pick on each product chip, and the Item prices switch below.

Card size

Every slot has a Card size choice: Compact, Comfortable or Large. Compact is the original look and stays the default. Nothing changes on an existing slot unless you pick a size.

Comfortable and Large make the cards and their photos bigger, up to roughly double. Bigger cards load sharper images to match, so a zoomed-in photo stays crisp. Each size draws a genuinely different card at every screen width, phones included.

Bigger cards mean fewer cards per row. The grid works that out by itself.

Pick Comfortable or Large when the products are the visual detail: sticker sheets, prints, patterned goods, anything a 72 pixel thumbnail cannot sell. The Accordion and Order pad looks keep their compact rows by design.

Card size works on a Pick one and a Pick many slot too, not only a box pool. All three draw the same card at the same size, so a bundle mixing the three kinds of row looks like one page.

Photo preview

Beside Item prices sits a Photo preview switch, off to start. On, clicking a product photo opens a larger preview over the page. A second click enlarges it again, and a click anywhere else closes it.

Use it together with a bigger Card size where customers want a proper look at each item before picking. Off, photos are simply pictures, exactly as before.

Photo preview works on every kind of choice slot: Pick one, Pick many and a box pool alike.

Item prices

Every box slot has an Item prices switch. Hide removes the small price under each product card and keeps per-line prices out of the “What’s inside” readback in the order panel, for a cleaner “just pick what you like” box. The box total and the From price still show, so the customer always sees exactly what they will pay.

Pricing

A box uses the bundle’s normal pricing. With percentage or set-amount pricing it costs the sum of what was picked (with any bundle discount). For a flat “any 6 for £20” deal, set the bundle to a fixed price: the box decides what is in it, the fixed price decides how much.

Quantity breaks reward bigger boxes: set tiers so the more the customer adds, the bigger the discount. The box sells the deal itself: the whole ladder is shown above the products (“3+ items: 10% off · 6+ items: 15% off · 10+ items: 20% off”), the nudge appears before the first pick (“add 3 more for 10% off”), and once a tier is reached the note shows the active discount alongside the next rung (“10% off · add 3 more for 15% off”). These use the bundle’s quantity tiers.

Good to know

• The box pool can mix simple products and products with choices. A product can show as one card, a card per variation or a quantity grid, side by side in one pool.
• A box card can hold a quantity grid for a colour and size product. The quantity grid page covers the same grid on a fixed bundle line.