300+ colors, mltp quantity per color

[lruskauff]

Hello

I am new to Zencart and have been reading all about how to assign attributes to products. My question is more about what would be the best way to set up a product with over 300 color options and quantity needed for each. I sell thread and for each brand, there can be a lot of color choices.

I want to achieve something like this seller has:

http://www.ericas.com/sewing/threads/isacord/

Opinions? Thank you.,

[fairestcape]

Frankly, I don't really like the approach taken by that website... ALL the colours in one long list.

A better approach would be to set up, say TEN to TWELVE products, based on the major colour THEMES of the thread. Then add each colour shade as an attribute to each theme. These themes are likely to be governed by the products' SKU codes, and I think that Erica's/Isacord could make better use of this feature.

Typically, seamstresses looking for thread are after a specific colour - and in many cases after a specific shade designated by the SKU.

[lruskauff]

Wow, I didn't expect to get a reply so quickly. Yes, I don't like the long list but I do like seeing them all. When I personally shop for my thread (these are embroidery) I have a list of thread colors in front of me and wish to order so many of those on my list. And I am finding my customers that I have now will send me a list of their color numbers.

With that in mind, do you have the same recommendation?>

Thanks

[ronpeled]

I would place each color as a separate product. If setup correctly you will get a much better SEO results. Plus in the category page (product listing) it will look similar to the sample site.

[fairestcape]

Ronpeled makes a very good point. You could use the Display Products By Columns feature in ZC to get a very attractive "tiled" look to the presentation of all the threads, rather than a long vertical list.

Depending on how you set up the product display options in your admin panel, you could not only have all 300 products showing up on your main page, but have the added advantages of SEO, product search (VERY useful if looking for SKU's), and a wider range of display options.

There's a module in the Free Software section that will enable a display by columns, rather than the ZC standard of listing products in ROWS. This mod allows you to choose as many columns as you want, so you could have a grid 8 blocks wide across your screen (and as many blocks vertically as you have products to show).

Just thinking about this approach suggested by Ronpeled makes me believe that you will have considerable flexibility in presentation of the thread colours/numbers. It's definitely a good idea!

[lruskauff]

Thank you both so much. I'm sure that you save me many many weeks of set-up time. And I will look for that module for columns.

Linda