Have query regarding setting up of an inventory database of over 500 books

[Ron Haltermon]

I am in the process of setting up ZenCart. I downloaded 3.3.7 and, wouldn’t you know, two days later 3.3.8 appeared, so am now working on that. I immediately ordered the very good, much appreciated, and well written E-Start manual. Probably the best $50.00 I’ve ever spent! I will be putting quite a few products on line and the setting up is taking some time. However, having read the manual and having been maneuvering around within the Admin panel, etc., I am unable to determine how, or even if I can accomplish the following:
Among other things, we have an EXCEL database of over 500 used books that we want to offer. The prices range from as little as 50 cents to $3.00. There are only about 4 different prices. The database (we’ll convert the EXCEL to either csv or pipe delimited) consists of 6 fields. We would like to give the shopper the opportunity to bring up the entire inventory where they could search by any one of our fields, click on their choice(s) and the books would be added to the shopping cart. It would not be difficult to set up separate databases for each price category. This would probably be the simplest. However, I would still need to know how to give the customer the opportunity to review the entire selection of books within that price attribute and pick any one by title and product number.
I can work with cgi and php scripts and html. Before I get to that, though, I would appreciate any suggestions, particularly if this is something that can readily be done within ZenCart’s present capabilities. Again I have no problem with setting up new pages with remote urls, etc. Please note that as soon as I get this up and running I intend send in a donation! My initial opinion of Zen Cart is one of awe and appreciation! Great job!

I have the domain, (shopsbyron.com), so am setting this up “on-line”. Soooo far, soooo good!
Any suggestions regarding handling these books, most of which are unique, or "one of a kind“ insofar as our inventory is concerned, would be appreciated!

I'm obviously trying to avoid entering over 500 separate books!

Ron Haltermon

[Kim]

You can map the fields you have in your excell spreadsheet and them import to your MYSQL DB - note there may be other fields in the product info that you want to use - so you may still have to "touch" every product.