Adding Attributes to Subcategories ?

[dlwwalton]

I am finding out it cant do it out of the box. I just need to find someone who is capable of doing what I need or maybe using some other type of e-commerce such as a MS based application. I am in the US.

[schoolboy]

I am finding out it cant do it out of the box. I just need to find someone who is capable of doing what I need or maybe using some other type of e-commerce such as a MS based application. I am in the US.

No "generic" system will have such a bespoke function. I had a chat with the fellows at Grouptree and they indicate a cost of between 15,000 and 20,000 (UK pounds) if they were to do it. (and that is just for the FUNCTION... not the full CMS)

They build high-level stuff for medium to large retailers, so they are not shy about charging these sorts of prices.

But it may give you an indication of what sort of numbers are involved.

[schoolboy]

How "rigid" - (determined) are you to have this functionality?

Sometimes (for business reasons) you are better off just adapting to what is available - and there are quite a few options in zencart.

What you are after will definitely be costly to develop - and could take months to get right - and that's "downtime" as far as selling online is concerned.

OpenSource platforms are free, and they can get you trading online in a couple of days. Sure... you have limitations, but at least you have a store that's selling online.

[dlwwalton]

I would adapt to what is available if it would work. If a customer is at my site and looking for binders and they have 20 pages to look through whats going to keep them from getting frustrated before they get to the right page. That's my concern. If there is a way to narrow done there possibilities then they wouldn't have 20 pages to look through. Here is my site in progress. http://www.usaofficesupplies.com/shopping. From what I understand about attributes and Zen Cart is that the attributes are only useful at the product level. So if I was selling a binder I could then give the customer a choice between. Black Red Yellow - 3" 4" or 5" - plastic vinyl or leather etc But that's no the case for me and my product line..

If you look at my site and search CRD11652. You will see it does me no good to have attributes there. The product already meets the specs of the attributes.

So is there not a way to put the product attributes at the sub sub category levels. This way I think it would work.. I can't believe that there is not a way to do this or is there something else I should be doing to adapt to this situation.

[schoolboy]

Interestingly, we had a situation not too dissimilar to yours this week...

A printer of CR80 Laminated Plastic offers:

Blank Cards (in white, gold and silver), with or without Mag Stripe, and the Mag stripe can be HiCo or LoCo...

Cards that can be printed in 4-colour, with or without Mag Stripe, and the Mag stripe can be HiCo or LoCo...

Customer needs to be able to select valid variables FIRST, which then takes them to the product in question.

Selection of non-valid criteria, will throw out an error message.

We built a SELECTOR FORM in raw html, that was placed in the category's description field. Accompanying Javascript controls the selectors, and when the customer has made (valid) selections, the SUBMIT button (onclick) takes them to the product page matching their selection variables.

We then used a category-specific stylesheet to HIDE the Product Listings, so that all the see is the selector form.

SEE IT IN ACTION

[gjh42]

Schoolboy's concept sounds very promising.
I do have to say that your description of why your products can't use Zen Cart attributes is self-defeating: If you have the "products" each being one specific variant of the line, of course you can't add attributes.

If you look at my site and search CRD11652. You will see it does me no good to have attributes there. The product already meets the specs of the attributes.

Making attribute selections would involve having the "product" be something like a brand and style of binder, with attribute combinations giving the specific version such as a blue 3" binder. This would probably require support for SKU by attribute combination, which has been the subject of much discussion and work, but I don't know that it is fully available yet in mod form. It is supposedly going to be built into v2.0.

[dlwwalton]

I am glad to know that both of you see and understand my situation. Why can't for example Office Supplies>Binders & Binding Supplies>Binders, then open up with attributes in the category columns. Then you could add as many attributes as you want in the category column. That would allow customers to narrow down their choices allowing as many attributes as you want to attributes be entered here as needed much like http://www.biggestbook.com. However when they select an attribute under manufacturer then manufacturer gets eliminated and it would open up again with new attribute choices.


gjh42,

It looks like on the link you showed, its almost like CR80 Laminated Cards is a product with attributes to choose from underneath it.

Again I guess for the mean time if there is no solution what do I do not to lose the customer from having to flip through many pages to finally find what they need. If they don't know the part number they will go blind looking. By the way I had to reload zencart so my address is changed to http://www.usaofficesupplies.com/zencart..By the way there are over 40k products in my product line

[gjh42]

It was schoolboy who posted the link, but what he described is essentially what you are asking for. There is no way to use Zen Cart "attributes" specifically there as they are strictly a product feature, but you could probably build the HTML in the category descriptions. You would have to ask schoolboy how to do that.