Today we are introducing a new product type on the October CMS marketplace ­ bundles. Bundles have been popping up in our conversations with the community members from the very beginning of the October marketplace. In fact, our pioneer, Chad Cantrell, had suggested the bundles support as soon as he published his first plugins.

What are bundles

Bundles are containers for plugins and themes, which can be added to a project with one click. Bundles can include both paid and free products. If there are multiple paid products in a bundle, only one payment is required.

Bundles are great for end users, because they allow for installation of turnkey solutions with just one click. Now it is possible to create a bundle that would include a Blog, Google Analytics and Disqus plugins, as well as a blogging website theme.

Another important feature of bundles is the ability to override prices of products included in the bundle. This allows for the creation of bundles that provide more value than individual products, making bundles more appealing for customers. For example, if there is a bundle that includes “Properties for Shopaholic” and “Filter for Shopaholic” products, their total original price would be $64.98. By overriding the product prices, the bundle author can make the total bundle price just $49.99. Thus, a customer would save $14.99 by purchasing the bundle instead of the individual products.

How to create bundles

Currently bundles can only be created by the authors of products included in a bundle. In other words, you can create a bundle if you own all the products that you want to include in the bundle. In the future, we will add an option to add other products to a bundle. This will include a process of negotiating and approving a price for each third­party product in a bundle.

Unlike plugins and themes, bundles do not require the approval from the marketplace editors. However, all products included in a bundle have to been already approved and listed on the marketplace. We also have an option to de-list bundles that violate the marketplace terms.

To create a bundle, visit the Account / Author page and find the new Bundles tab in the sidebar. As plugins, bundles should have a description, documentation and an optional banner. You can set all of these properties on the Edit contents tab. Bundles must include at least one product. After adding products and setting their prices on the Products tab, click the Publish button to make your bundle available on the marketplace. On the Settings tab, you can temporarily hide your bundle from the marketplace.

Happy bundling!