I have a problem deciding how to set my products and need some advice.
I have two types of basic products:
The products in the first category are unique. Each single product has different attributes (color, weight, etc.). I think I can I create each one as a different simple product with its own SKU.
The products in the second category on the other hand have no limited amount. I can create them on order. (does this mean a “virtual product?")
The problem is that a complete product is a combination of both. I have to take one product of each category so if I have 50 products in each category I have 50x50 unique products, with the important limitation that each product of the first category must not be sold more than once.
I have to admit, I read your problem and I couldn’t understand what exactly is the problem. Are you aware that you can tell Magento not to manage your inventory for certain products, but still manage inventory for other products?
Let me try to simplify this a little.
Suppose I have five different gems and five different models of rings and I want to publish all the 5x5 combinations.
Each gem is unique while the rings can be created at will.
If a customer buys a gem, I want to also automatically remove the other four optional ring-gem couples.
Through configurable products, yes Magento will automatically remove that option. That is, because configurable products work like this:
First Customer selects a gem,
Then all options for that gem are now visible; ie all the applicable rings.
You need to set all the rings and gems to visible=nowhere so that they don’t show up on their own.
Unfortunately however, it also means you’ll have to create 50x50 simple products if there are 50 gems and 50 rings and thus 2500 gem-ring combinations.
If that were the case, you’re probably looking at some custom programming.
Thanks, I think that the way I’ll take.
I thought there may be a way to show all the 50x50 products as 2500 different products but I think it’d be too difficult to find anything there…
nel - 28 December 2008 02:02 PM
If that were the case, you’re probably looking at some custom programming.
Of course, managing such inventory manually would be cumbersome and error prone. It’s much better to manage the simple 50+50 products and let a simple program do the hard work
First Customer selects a gem,
Then all options for that gem are now visible; ie all the applicable rings.
-Jay
Need the user select the gem from a dropdown list of available gems?
This might be a problem since:
1. Each gem has to be added to the list of options.
2. Each gem has its own attributes (color, weight, price, etc.) and it would be impossible to see, filter, search and select one.
3. It just doesn’t look nice.
I guess I’ll have to create a static block / landing page for each ring and jump to it upon ring selection…
