Getting a little help, multiple products with multiple attribute combinations

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This will be best explained via an example, using pet food.....

4 to 5 manufacturers......
each with various brands/grades, etc...
each of those brands comes in various sizes of bags....
and then further each of those brands comes in various sizes of pellets, ie large, med, small....

as an example....

manufacturer A makes brand 1, brand 2 and brand 3....

each of those comes in a 1lb bag, 5 lbs bag, 50 lb bag.....

also each of those comes in a small sized pellet, medium sized pellet, large sized pellet......

and each of those possible combinations have different pricing and different stock numbers....

is there a way to have multiple attributes with sub-attributes?

or do i just list all the possibilities separately and leave well enough alone? (this is what i have done originally)

suggestions?

thanks in advance,

dale

You don't need to list all of the possibilities separately, but I can't see an advantage to listing all of the choices as sub-attributes even if it were possible.

Probably the best compromise is to list the brands as subcategories with small, medium and large pellet products, which have size attributes.

You could also list the brands as products, with a "combined" attribute for each of pellet size and bag weight. This would be practical for a 3 x 3 attribute combination, but would become unwieldy for more choices.

Zen Cart v2.0, due out in public beta any time now, will have the ability to handle multiple attribute combination stock and skus. It might be good to set up your products now with the "combined" attributes; then when the capacity is there, you can easily switch the attributes to the more distinct setup without having to redesign the product page.