Skipping the shipping part for custom virtual product

Question

We've a WIP that need virtual products. Not the official plugin, but a custom product type that don’t required any shipping. I was wondering if anyone ever try to do so, and how.

I was thinking about a Switch Field for that particular Product Type that will affect all the checkout process (if no product need shipping in the order, of course) : don't show the "Shipping Address" form, skip the Shipping Method choice and hide any shipping mentions on the order and emails.

Note: I already have a custom module to do custom actions on event for this product type. Extend Craft Commerce is a possibility.

Answer 1

There is nothing stopping you selling products that are not physical. Just mark the product as free shipping, and skip the address and shipping method selection screens entirely (the front-end is totally up to you).

p.s Product Type settings even have a 'has dimensions' checkbox you can turn off.

p.p.s check out https://github.com/craftcms/digital-products

Answer 2

Finally found a solution by adding a template variable to my custom module. I can now test from both front-end and back-end if the order really need shipping* with a single if statement.

• I split my product types in two segment; physical and virtual, so I can easily loop through my order lineItems to look at the product typeId.