Hello everybody,
I'm a bit disappointed of the architecture/concept for features and options. Its very less flexible for store owners in my optinion - or I'm missing the point?
Its not possible to filter by options (yes by a commercial addon - but the addon is limited to global options).
Now what do you do if you have different shoe sizes in different colors and materials? I want the buyers be able to filter for: size, material and color. In a worst case they also have a different pricing. At the moment you need to add a product for every single shoe in this case and setting the appropriate features. And then you can just filter for those shoes - and doesnt see them in the product detail view like options. Or think of furniture and the needed flexibilty there. As soon as you dont resell simple stock products but highly configurable and customizable products - you dont have any chance to maintain that flexibility with cs cart - even with existing addons that is not possible.
Why can't those concepts be merged together and made more flexible? What do you guys think? Does it fit to your needs? I hope there are some store owner here in the forum not just reselling simple products.
Thanks for your feedback!
In my opinion the flexibility and ease of use of the product option-variants side of the cart is where CS Cart does lack in comparision to other carts out there. That said, it has got better over the years and with the upcoming 4.3 import of variant price modifiers is also to be introduced helps a little again.
As it stands now, your question for filters can be achieved by using the inbuilt “product features” and “product filters” menus as standard, yes it s a little long winded to set up but works if you have the server resources to support it.
Strange though as I have thought for a long time that if CS could improve the options/filter import area of the cart then it must easily convert a whole new bunch of potential customers who looked at CS-Cart as its choice, (ones like you that use options a lot) but would have normally walked away due to somewhat rigid product options side of the cart.
John
Hi John,
thanks for your comment!
Unfortunately I couldnt follow you here:
[quote][color=#282828][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]As it stands now, your question for filters can be achieved by using the inbuilt “product features” and “product filters” menus as standard, yes it s a little long winded to set up but works if you have the server resources to support it.[/font][/color][/quote]
I already know the filter but they are limited to features. Therefore I can’t use it for options in any way!? I mean I could add ALL combinations as a normal product. Do you mean this approach? Then there is the problem of having a lot of similar products in the listing for a category. Thats no solution. 
Yes, I mean to use your options as filters, but depends on the complexity of your options I suppose.