Product configurator
What is a product configurator?
A product configurator is the screen where a customer builds the product from choices — size, material, colour, engraving — and sees the price and the lead time before ordering. Every choice is a rule: one combination is possible, another is not; one option adds money, another adds days. The order arrives with a finished specification instead of a phone call to settle the details.
Example
A furniture shop sells a made-to-order cabinet. The base is €180 and 10 working days. A width of 90 cm adds nothing, 120 cm adds €45. A laminate top is included, oak adds €60. Soft-close runners add €25 and three days.
A customer picks 120 cm, oak and soft-close: 180 + 45 + 60 + 25 = €310, and 13 working days. The figures appear while the choices are made, not after two emails.
The same sum done by hand takes about 10 minutes per enquiry. At 15 enquiries a week that is two and a half hours of reading a price list — and now and then getting a line wrong.
The configurator is also the busiest screen in a shop like this. Anything confusing on it shows up in the conversion rate, because people stop exactly where a choice stops making sense.
Why it matters for a business
A configurator moves the negotiation to before the order. The customer sees what a choice costs and how long it takes; the salesperson copies nothing from a price list; production receives a specification rather than a description in words.
It also prices complexity. Once options are written as rules, it becomes visible which combinations are ordered and which exist only to make the range look longer. A range nobody picks from can be cut.
One condition is not optional: the rules have to match what the workshop can actually make, and somebody has to keep them current. A configurator that allows an impossible combination creates more work than it saves. We write the rules and the prices together with you while we build the online shop.
What to ask
- Who maintains the rules and the prices — you in the admin panel, or the developer?
- What happens when a material runs out: does the option disappear, or show a longer lead time?
- Does the choice reach the order as a specification the warehouse and the workshop read without translating it?
- Is the configuration stored, so the order can be repeated or turned into a quote?
- How does the configurator behave on a phone, where the choices run to dozens?