[Olof]

Hi Imac, when is 5.x due? My one site has now been suspended from Google Shopping due to feed inaccuracies! The feed says 'in stock' but no combinations are available. We update the hundreds of products from a spreadsheet modifying the options table. Unfortunately this has no effect on the main product at all when they are all out.

 

Hi Amdowney,

 

Like you, I´m eagerly awaiting news from CSC what they are going to change w.r.t Options/Option Combinations & external data exchanges.  I have been pushing & begging CSC via various posts. However, given the major architectural changes required I wouldn´t hold my breath if V5 will deal with it.

 

I´m afraid all we can do is to give it an higher priority through their voting system.

http://forum.cs-cart...te&fromsearch=1

[amdowney]

It doesn't make sense how you can choose 'track with options', then when all options are out of stock the main product remains in stock! You then have to change to 'track without options' so you can mark the main product as out of stock. Broken!

 

Thanks, I will vote now x 3!

[imac]

I announced to CS team described changes as one of the main improvements in CS-Cart v5. 

We did not start working on it yet, but from time to time add some ideas on how this can be implemented. 

 

Just to let you know:)

[P-Pharma]

That's very nice news.

[Consultant]

Is there no way to import product combinations for products that have not yet been created?  I created an option combination and exported the products and product combination so see the format.  I then imported a new product that was just copied from the existing one with the same Options field value.  I then noted the product id of the new product and added lines to the combination export to duplicate the option combinations of the other product and changed the product id and imported.  Doesn't work.

 

What am I doing wrong?

[Consultant]

Yep. I'm pretty sure the Product Combinations Import does not work.  The fact I see no messages on this forum discussing using it seems to confirm that.

 

The product options get created if you copy the Options field from one product to another when you do a Product import.  But if you export the Product Combinations then add some combinations simply by copying a few lines from one product id to another product id and then changing the option product code, the import does nothing.  No messages. No new combination of the other product.

 

Please fix.  Thanks!

 

In the meantime I'm going to have to try to create my own import.  Just need to find the code that creates the combination hash.

[imac]

Hi Everyone,

 

I have important update on this thread. 

 

After some investigation we finally stick to the plan to extend current options functionality (instead of completely rewriting it). It means that we probably will be able to release new option combinations (we call it variations) in minor release, and not in major (which still not on the horizon).

The main idea is to replace current combinations with new combinations. But, options and global options will still work as before in case combinations were not created.

 

I hope, within month we will be able to create a prototype of this functionality (will be set on our servers), so if you are interested in testing, please PM me or leave a post here.

[Olof]

Hi Imac,

 

´to replace current combinations with new combinations´....

What does that mean exactly?

 

To me it certainly means we will not get the 1-table-product data structure-like-many-others as requested in User Voice of which many have voted for:

https://cscart.userv...y-amazon-and-go

 

To be honest, I feel a bit cheated that you have changed the status of that User Voice to ´started´ (great!!) but that the actual solution is not likely to be even close to what was requested & voted for (bad!).

 

I hope I´m wrong....

[remoteone]

Perhaps include some "sku builder" in the option variants.
http://forum.cs-cart...e-2#entry273021

[Jacek]

Imac, I wish you all the best with development of this feature as it is crucial to many members of cs-cart community. Unfortunately, in my opinion extending options functionality will not resolve most of the problems. Could you please calm us and tell us if those problems will be solved by new variations:

1) data feed generation with product variants

2) defining multiple images per variant

3) defining ean, sku, list price, promo price, weight, shipping time per variant

4) will it be possible to create configurable product/grouped product/bundled product and show them on category listing?

 

Best regards,

Jacek

[imac]

Imac, I wish you all the best with development of this feature as it is crucial to many members of cs-cart community. Unfortunately, in my opinion extending options functionality will not resolve most of the problems. Could you please calm us and tell us if those problems will be solved by new variations:

1) data feed generation with product variants

2) defining multiple images per variant

3) defining ean, sku, list price, promo price, weight, shipping time per variant

4) will it be possible to create configurable product/grouped product/bundled product and show them on category listing?

 

Best regards,

Jacek

Hi Jacek,

 

1. Data feed

Can be done, but I don't thing in the first version.

2. Multiple images for variant - Yes.

3. Only some of them are planned at the moment - SKU, List Price, 

Not sure I understand what is EAN and promo price.

4. Not sure I understand what you mean. If you create variations for a product - than these variations will be separated products in admin area. However in storefront you will be able to see only main product.

[poppedweb]

Hi Jacek,

 

1. Data feed

Can be done, but I don't thing in the first version.

2. Multiple images for variant - Yes.

3. Only some of them are planned at the moment - SKU, List Price, 

Not sure I understand what is EAN and promo price.

4. Not sure I understand what you mean. If you create variations for a product - than these variations will be separated products in admin area. However in storefront you will be able to see only main product.

 

Why make everything so hard? You could just make different products for each variant. This will give you every ability that you want, you will just have to link the products together via the option menu. So I imagine a workflow like this:

 

1. You create your options.

2. You click some sort of option which allows it to show different products per option

3. The products will be generated automatically

4. In the products section you will see all the variant products listed in a dropdown from the regular product. (with an option to override something in all the options, f.e. the description.

5. Optimize the code so that it works just like regular options (so with the spinner icon).

 

FYI, I have almost accomplished this through costum development (thanks to alt-team for this!). And I can't image that this takes over 6 months.... D:

 

Best wishes,

[Triplets]

Why make everything so hard? You could just make different products for each variant. This will give you every ability that you want, you will just have to link the products together via the option menu. So I imagine a workflow like this:

 

1. You create your options.

2. You click some sort of option which allows it to show different products per option

3. The products will be generated automatically

4. In the products section you will see all the variant products listed in a dropdown from the regular product. (with an option to override something in all the options, f.e. the description.

5. Optimize the code so that it works just like regular options (so with the spinner icon).

 

FYI, I have almost accomplished this through costum development (thanks to alt-team for this!). And I can't image that this takes over 6 months.... D:

 

Best wishes,

 

CS-cart. Please do not do this. What poppedweb describes will only work for simple sites. Our sites have a lot of products with hundreds of options and on top of that hundreds of option combinations (all with inventory tracking).  The last think we need is millions of new individual products. 

[poppedweb]

CS-cart. Please do not do this. What poppedweb describes will only work for simple sites. Our sites have a lot of products with hundreds of options and on top of that hundreds of option combinations (all with inventory tracking).  The last think we need is millions of new individual products. 

 

Well, the last thing those "simple sites" (please refer to "simple products" the next time as our site is very advanced and also has a lot of products) need is almost no costumization. F.E. with the buy together add-on you will have to select "options" first if this is the case, whenever you have completely different products this will not be the case as it is a different product with a different ID.  

 

For very big stores this would not be that great, agreed. But for small products with almost no variants this is perfect. I for example have frying pans for sale, for every frying pan's size I have different buy together deals as you for example have different lid sizes and such. So having those "seperated products" is great in this case! 

 

Furthermore if you want those variant options where you are talking about, you do need to mind that a lot of the addon's that work now regarding the product options won't work in the future (as you will need to modify a lot of hooks for it to work). This can for example be related to the buy together add-on, but also to many others.

 

The best thing would be to have an option for this as many people have different needs for their store, (per product ofcourse). Hopefully you do agree Triplets. 

[Jacek]

Hi Jacek,

 

1. Data feed

Can be done, but I don't thing in the first version.

2. Multiple images for variant - Yes.

3. Only some of them are planned at the moment - SKU, List Price, 

Not sure I understand what is EAN and promo price.

4. Not sure I understand what you mean. If you create variations for a product - than these variations will be separated products in admin area. However in storefront you will be able to see only main product.

 

EAN (International Article Number - wiki). Single product (variant) should have Manufacturer ID (product number/part number/SKU - they are called differently in different countries) and EAN (GTIN/barcode). Additionaly there should be another field for my own identifier.

 

Example:

I sell baby car seats. One car seat is available in many colors so I create color variants. Each color is in reality different product. On official manufacturer site each car seat from this model has it's own uniqe part number (SKU). Additionally on each product there is a sticker with bar code and in brick and mortar store when customer wants to buy a product I identify it by scanning the sticker and I can see all the data about the product in our ERP system. I have many products from different manufacturers in my store so I give each product my unique identifier in order to manage stocks, integrate ERP and Cs-Cart etc.

 

Price comparison engines and google takes into consideration GTIN, part numbers during offer integration. That's why each variant should have ability to set My Own SKU, GTIN and Manufacturers' Part Number.

[imac]

That's why each variant should have ability to set My Own SKU, GTIN and Manufacturers' Part Number.

Yes, you will be able to change this. 

Just to note in latest version if GTIN is not set as feature for a combination than we will use it's SKU

[imac]

Why make everything so hard? You could just make different products for each variant. This will give you every ability that you want, you will just have to link the products together via the option menu. So I imagine a workflow like this:

 

1. You create your options.

2. You click some sort of option which allows it to show different products per option

3. The products will be generated automatically

4. In the products section you will see all the variant products listed in a dropdown from the regular product. (with an option to override something in all the options, f.e. the description.

5. Optimize the code so that it works just like regular options (so with the spinner icon).

 

FYI, I have almost accomplished this through costum development (thanks to alt-team for this!). And I can't image that this takes over 6 months.... D:

 

Best wishes,

Hi,

 

This is exactly how it will work. However we will restrict editing some properties of variation product (combination).

We will roll out the demo this week. So you will be able to check this by yourself.

 

As for why it takes so long. We have commitment about backward compatibility - and this is not an easy thing to achieve with such major changes.

[imac]

CS-cart. Please do not do this. What poppedweb describes will only work for simple sites. Our sites have a lot of products with hundreds of options and on top of that hundreds of option combinations (all with inventory tracking).  The last think we need is millions of new individual products. 

Can you please share your use-case. Why don't you want separate products for variations? 

Probably you will use current (old) implementation of combinations. 
 

The whole idea with this Variation thing - is to make it separate products. Because, in fact, when you sell t-shirts you sell many physical products like "t-shirt big white", "t-shirt small red" etc. And it is much easier to export/import these variations as usual. To manage them as separate products.

[Jacek]

Yes, you will be able to change this. 

Just to note in latest version if GTIN is not set as feature for a combination than we will use it's SKU

In current version product variants have one product feature available to assign. If every single product variant has its own GTIN we are unable to set them as product features and export to google data feed. If we use CODE as a place where we put GTIN then we don't have a field to put internal product code (my company's product code) and manufacturer's product code.

[poppedweb]

Can you please share your use-case. Why don't you want separate products for variations? 

Probably you will use current (old) implementation of combinations. 
 

The whole idea with this Variation thing - is to make it separate products. Because, in fact, when you sell t-shirts you sell many physical products like "t-shirt big white", "t-shirt small red" etc. And it is much easier to export/import these variations as usual. To manage them as separate products.

 

Hello,

 

Just a few more questions:

1. Will the products have different URL's (seo purposes)?

2. Will it be possible to share features in feature variants. I for example want to define group item id's so that google will recognize it is an option variant. Will this be possible as this would save me a lot of time!

3. What will not be possible to edit with those variants? What limitations does it have? And how does the database structure change? (so that we can future proof our store).

4. What will the product id's be? For example, now I have created it as follows, you have one main product which is linked to other products by defining a costum option. The ID's for the products will be a mockup of the original ID. So if you have product A with ID 1, the ID of product A variant 2 would be 1_2. This made API calls for me a lot easier, how will this work in the next version?

5. What can we expect performance wise? So after I did this huge database purge I got my store like insanely fast, but this mainly was after deleting all the options regarding the google product categories. Cant this be stored in a seperate table so that the filtering won't be affected by this? Because my store has about 250 products and 100 of them have variants. This store is also in 6 languages. So in the feature table I allreayd have about 5000 entires of features (in all languages). But then the big hit comes in. The total amount of google product categories entries is over 23000. Which makes filtering a PAIN!!!

 

This will do for now