Linked products in same categories?

[Kitty]

Hi,
I noticed it says "Error: Can not link products in the same category." when i click copy and link product,which is what i really want.

same product, same category, different model (product details)

"product details" (what i would put in that particular field when entering a new product) is different.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how i can acheive this?

Thank you!

[schoolboy]

There is no logical reason why you would need a "linked" product in the same category, and ZC understands this.

If it were possible (and it isn't) you would have the same product show up twice (or more, depending on how many times you linked it) in exactly the same place.

The LINKED product feature exists in order to enable zenshop owners to feature a given product in different places in their shops.

Consider a supermarket's aisles...

They may put baked beans with "Tinned Foods" in aisle 1, and
...also put the same product with "Snackfoods" in aisle 4.

This gives them 2 opportunities to "display" baked beans in different merchandising contexts, thus increasing exposure for the product in context-relevant places.

The same principle applies in ZC. Once the "baked beans" are in "aisle 1", there's no logic in placing them AGAIN in "aisle 1" . . . they are already there!

[schoolboy]

What you need to do is create a DUPLICATE product... using the same "copy" function, but selecting "duplicate".

This is more appropriate, as the product (as you indicate) is not strictly identical, but has different descriptions, (for example).

[afo]

Schoolboy is right. You want to copy/duplicate the product, not link it.

[colemanpa]

Schoolboy is right. You want to copy/duplicate the product, not link it.

they mite want to look into attributes sounds like that's what they need for different models with different prices or the same as long as they can put all the different models information in the same product description, if not then you will need different products one for each model.

[Kitty]

thanks for your replies!!

yes, unfortunately same product but recognized by customers by a particular model number. the package is the same and all the model numbers that are known by customers are on the packaging.

attributes would not look as professional as it would in its own listing as customers are searching for that particular model number and duplicating the product means the product count is a hassle.

i will probably duplicate the listing. downside is that i have to keep moving the product count around and sometimes may look as if the product is out of stock. would be great if the linking products wasnt restricted though.


thank you again!!!

[gjh42]

"downside is that i have to keep moving the product count around and sometimes may look as if the product is out of stock"

If the product models are stocked separately, you want separate (duplicate) product listings so the inventory of each version is shown. Having them all under one listing or linked would mean that inventory counts are lumped together. That would be confusing.

[afo]

The point is you don't want to link products, you want to duplicate them. There are linked products on the Holzheimer site in my sig which allows photos of actors to be displayed both under the actor's name and under the project (movie/tv show) that the photo is from. That's what linking is for.