Adjusting for custom coded Webgility ECC Quickbooks Sync

[nabiscuit]

Hello Zen Cart world! A recent Craigslist hire has put my store and gig in jeopardy and I really need some creative guidance here:

I have a ZenCart store that sells hair extensions. Every single color and style of hair has it's own product number. We can't do anything to change the product numbers because they are synced with the fulfillment center already.

The way I had previously had the system set up: every product number in ZenCart was an individual product. This worked perfectly with the integration of both Quickbooks and the Fulfillment center, but the client came back and demanded that customers be able to select the color from a drop-down menu instead of listing all the individual colors as individual products.

So I hired a so-called ZenCart expert to help with the issue and he convinced me that if he set up product attributes with the product number suffix and made the parent product's model number just the prefix - that he'd be able to map all the combos to their prospective products for the syncs.

Well, we implemented his solution (and I had to help cause we were on a deadline and he wasn't moving fast enough). Turned out we missed the deadline and I paid the guy for all the work he did and he assured me everything was set up correctly. I couldn't test because I'm usually not at the client's computer. After the missed deadline, we put off the project for a couple of months until my client could come up with funds to keep development going.

Fast-forward to last night. After everything was successfully set up, the store won't sync to either because the product numbers aren't mapping and transferring with the attributes in-tact. Webgility ECC doesn't even recognize product attributes.

So here's my question: is there some creative way that I could bypass actual product pages and have users select the product they want through a drop-down menu on an EZ page or something?

I'm not really seeing any solution to this issue that can be fixed with the current set-up. I think attributes are dead to me, now. Any help or brainstorming would be greatly appreciated. I would hire another guy, but there is no more budget for help. It's just me and I.

If y'all are interested in taking a look at the store - you can visit it by going to http://nordichaircontrast.com

Thanks so much for your time and I hope to hear from some of you, soon!

-Nabil

[stevesh]

Looks like it's working OK internally. I got the hair I selected in the right color in my shopping cart. Is the only problem the Webgility failure to sync ?

[nabiscuit]

Looks like it's working OK internally. I got the hair I selected in the right color in my shopping cart. Is the only problem the Webgility failure to sync ?

Yeah... the whole ZenCart side of the store is working like a dream. It's the syncing that I need and apparently syncing with product attributes in ZenCart is a global pain that a lot of people share...

That's why I was thinking that there might be a way to go back to having every color a single product and finding a way to bypass the product page altogether...

I have no idea if that's even possible. But I'm hoping.

[stevesh]

Well, it would be kind of a cluster, but I suppose you could extend what you're doing now one more step. When I click on Bounce Bounce in the Products sidebox it takes me to an EZ page with links to the various length selections. Then when I select a length it goes to that product info page where I can select a color (attribute). You could have the length selection go to another EZ page created just for that product and length with links to the colors which would link to the specific length/color product. Each product/length/color combination would be a separate product.

They make it difficult/impossible to find pricing on the Webgility website, but if I recall correctly, it isn't cheap. Seems like they would have figured out attributes by now.

[nabiscuit]

Well, it would be kind of a cluster, but I suppose you could extend what you're doing now one more step. When I click on Bounce Bounce in the Products sidebox it takes me to an EZ page with links to the various length selections. Then when I select a length it goes to that product info page where I can select a color (attribute). You could have the length selection go to another EZ page created just for that product and length with links to the colors which would link to the specific length/color product. Each product/length/color combination would be a separate product.

They make it difficult/impossible to find pricing on the Webgility website, but if I recall correctly, it isn't cheap. Seems like they would have figured out attributes by now.

That actually sounds like a great solution! Would probably take a bunch of work, but I could probably push through it this weekend and get it squared away. My biggest concern with that implementation: is there a way I could possibly disable the product page for each product color? I don't want to have separate pages for bounce bounce 16 light blonde show up in google and have to style a million different product pages.

Thank you so much for your help!

[stevesh]

Can't speak to Google, but you're going to need a product info page eventually for the Add To Cart function, unless you have the Length EZ page links direct to the Color subcategory product listing where each product is a color and you have Add To Cart buttons on those products in that listing. That's probably the way I would do it.

[gjh42]

You need the "add to cart" that the product info page has to complete the purchase. However, you might be able to put the skeleton of the form and add to cart code that the info page generates into the link on the ez-page.


The link to a subcat page with individual add to cart buttons for the final choices sounds like the cleanest method. it avoids hundreds or thousands of individually hard-coded add to cart links.

[nabiscuit]

Can't speak to Google, but you're going to need a product info page eventually for the Add To Cart function, unless you have the Length EZ page links direct to the Color subcategory product listing where each product is a color and you have Add To Cart buttons on those products in that listing. That's probably the way I would do it.

That's another great idea!

Okay, so - my template's category pages look like this:

http://nordichaircontrast.com/index....index&cPath=69

If you were to imagine that page as color blocks, would there be a way that I could disable the link on the image and the title of the product and just leave the add to cart button?

[gjh42]

You would need to edit /includes/modules/your_template/product_listing.php and remove the link code from the title and image generating sections, leaving just the text/image output.

[stevesh]

It would take some doing, but you should be able to edit includes/modules/product_listing.php to remove the <a href ...> parts in the product name and image statements. I have done so, but it was a while ago and I don't have the file anymore.

One minute late, as usual.