Lots of data to import

v1.3.8a - new user
I have 15,000 unique products. Lets say 30 of them are the same product (t-shirts), but different colors. Should I set them up as individual products, or make use of the product options?

I would use attributes.

jmca1968:

v1.3.8a - new user
I have 15,000 unique products. Lets say 30 of them are the same product (t-shirts), but different colors. Should I set them up as individual products, or make use of the product options?

I would set them up as Both.

Customers may only potentially view something if they like the color and design. If they see a T-Shirt thats blue for example. Perhaps they don't like blue and don't realize that they can then view the T-Shirt in more detail and select optional colors. You would potentially be turning customers away.

One Method:

Category: Brand: your brand
Product: T-Shirt
Set up attributes for sizing with drop menu.
Set up attributes for each color.

Do NOT ad image yet for T-Shirt.

Then duplicate the Product (Do NOT link it) the number of times you have colors for that T-Shirt. (Example 3 times)

This means you then have 3 empty T-Shirt lines setup with ALL attributes included.

You then login into each product and upload a specific color for each of the 3.

You set the attributes color default button on (Inside attributes of the individual product) to the relevant color of the product your editing.

Hope thats clear enough.

Muzz:

I would set them up as Both...

I disagree... You'll have big issues with stock management, and you'll also create lots of duplicated work that will get really confusing. Let's say you are out of stock on LARGE, BLUE, GOLF-SHIRT...

... you will need to edit data in TWO OR MORE places! Can get VERY out-of-hand and will take up ALL your time!

Muzz's technique requires you to add the data MANUALLY. When do you want your store to open... ? In 2020 ?

Far better to use attributes - esp. if you have over 15,000 items.

To upload all this data, you'll need to be very organised.

Does the 15,000 include all different sizes and colours?

... or are there 15,000 styles - each in a range of colours and sizes?

Your answer will help me advise you on how to organise the data for mass upload...

Thanks to everyone that replied. Schoolboy, the answer to your question is yes. Let me give you a better example. We will be selling fishing supplies. With that said, the better example is a fishing lure. We have one lure that comes in 5 different sizes and six different colors. Therefore there are 30 unique products just for this one lure. The data from the vendor is just a CSV file of product and price. What I am trying to figure out is:

1. The best way to set the products up in the site (which you have already started advising me on)

2. The best format for the CSV so that I may import the products and not have to do manual data entry for each product. I figured the data structure in the CSV would depend on the answer to number one above.

Thanks for the feedback!

Below you can see an actual example in sizes 4, 6, and 8's and two colors; red and white

Unique ID Desc Price
TD03R-RB4 DAIICHI BLEEDING SABIKI Red $1.44
TD03R-RB6 DAIICHI BLEEDING SABIKI Red $1.44
TD03R-RB8 DAIICHI BLEEDING SABIKI Red $1.44
TD03R-W4 DAIICHI BLEEDING SABIKI White $1.44
TD03R-W6 DAIICHI BLEEDING SABIKI White $1.44
TD03R-W8 DAIICHI BLEEDING SABIKI White $1.44

From your example, it appears that each variant of the lure is being regarded as a unique product, as each variant has its own SKU (Product Code).

EG:-
Product_model = TD03R-RB4
Product_Name = DAIICHI BLEEDING SABIKI - Size 4: Colour Red
Product_price = $1.44

So, the CSV your supplier is providing is actually a list of products and their variants, where each variant is treated as a SEPARATE PRODUCT.

If you decide to SPLIT OUT the size and colour from each product, so that you can later format this as ATTRIBUTES to a single product, you face a difficult choice. Attributes CANNOT have unique product codes, because zencart regards an attribute as a CHARACTERISTIC of a product, and not as a product itself.

So, if you split out these CHARACTERISTICS (size and colour), you are going to also affect the base product code, and this will require a mass edit of the data your supplier provides.

For example (use the same one above):

Product_model = TD03R delete RB4
Product_Name = DAIICHI BLEEDING SABIKI

• Colour Attribute = Red
• Size Attribute = 4
  Product_price = $1.44

If you go this route, a LOT depends on how the supplier has structured their SKU codes. It look like SIZE and COLOUR are indicated by -RB4 and the base product is indicated by TD03R. If this is STANDARD, then reconstructing the SKU's should be achievable using a formula in MSExcel, where you can delete the size and colour defines.

But even if you do decide to do this, and then apply COLOUR and SIZE as attributes, your work is not yet done!

This presents a bit of a challenge, because zencart does not have the capacity to make attributes dependant.

So, your implementation of product stock management (by ITEM, then SIZE, then Colour) can be difficult.

Dependant attributes work like this:

Customer selects a product
Customer is presented with the first option - eg: SIZE
Customer selects desired SIZE, and his selection influences the display of the NEXT option - COLOUR.
If colour RED and WHITE are both in stock, both options are made available to customer, who then chooses a colour.
If WHITE is out of stock for the SIZE initially chosen, then only RED is presented as an option.

Zencart cannot do this in a standard install, but STOCK BY ATTRIBUTES module may offer an option.

Either way, you have THREE variables regarding your product set:-

Product NAME
Product SIZE
Product COLOUR

If you decide to use STOCK BY ATTRIBUTES module, then the following should be possible:

Products are all added to the database by NAME only.
SIZE is allocated to product as an attribute.
COLOUR is allocated to product as an attribute.

If I were you, I would rather get the business going first, and load up all the variants as INDIVIDUAL PRODUCTS, as this is the way your supplier manages their product database.

OKAY... so you have a shedload of products in your store... but at least the shop is open for business and you're getting sales. If you then CATEGORIZE your products carefully, and make use of MANUFACTURER filtering, your customers will not have too much of a challenge finding what they want.

THEN... Set up a test site somewhere, and on the TEST site, play around with the attributes stuff. See what it will entail before you unleash it on your customers and your admin staff!

The best way to load up products en-masse is to use Easy Populate and I have a WIKI tutorial showing people how to use Easy Populate.

You are correct, each variant of the lure is being regarded as a unique product, with the suppliers unique product code.

Because attributes CANNOT have unique product codes, this would screw up the order process with the supplier, so I think I am forced to load up all sku's.

You can see the site at: https://www.saltydogstackle.com/dev/ I have a few products at: Saltwater Fishing :: Reels :: Conventional Reels.

As far as the inventory, we are using just in time inventory, so I want to turn the inventory off. If this is not possible, I will write a script that sets every product to 500 in stock every night???

Once there you can see on the left I have imported all products to a catagory called - Imported (16504). I guess I figured if I didn't use attributes, I would have a load of products on the site that was difficult to navigate through and just piss off my potential clients. Also, I guess I will have to manually categorize each of the 16504 products.

Really appreciate the help,

Joseph

schoolboy:

I disagree... You'll have big issues with stock management, and you'll also create lots of duplicated work that will get really confusing. Let's say you are out of stock on LARGE, BLUE, GOLF-SHIRT...

... you will need to edit data in TWO OR MORE places! Can get VERY out-of-hand and will take up ALL your time!

Muzz's technique requires you to add the data MANUALLY. When do you want your store to open... ? In 2020 ?

Far better to use attributes - esp. if you have over 15,000 items.

To upload all this data, you'll need to be very organised.

Does the 15,000 include all different sizes and colours?

... or are there 15,000 styles - each in a range of colours and sizes?

Your answer will help me advise you on how to organise the data for mass upload...

I agree that my method is not fast.

In regards to stock management 'stock by attributes' Mod would resolve this.

I would get your point across in regards to different color being available ASAP on the website. Stating it somewhere obvious so potential clients do enter the product information page to see they can select other colors and view them live.

I think a lot of users like myself may browse a website looking for something in a particular style and color.. if I don't like the color I won't enter the product information page. If I don't enter the product information page I wont see that you have other colors available.. thus loss of a sale.

Another method I use is that I create attribute templates.

You could do this with various color ranges.
You can do the same with sizing.

Then you can either apply the attributes to an entire category or to individual products as desired.

Not sure what Mods your using but would also suggest you check out EZ populate and AJAX image swapper.

Good luck... just remember the ultimate goal is to create sales. Create a plan for the long term because with that many products turning back the clock will probably make more work than starting over again.

not sure about the comment...

"Because attributes CANNOT have unique product codes, this would screw up the order process with the supplier, so I think I am forced to load up all sku's."

if your codes a relatively uniform (i.e. length and or separators between style/clr) and you have some spreadsheet formula (or macro) skills you should be able to split the data prior to import, and then consolidate it in much the same fashion after export. this would be a far better method as it significantly speeds up your users browsing experience and the flexibility of the data in other environments.

ALiepinieks:

if your codes a relatively uniform (i.e. length and or separators between style/clr) and you have some spreadsheet formula (or macro) skills you should be able to split the data prior to import, and then consolidate it in much the same fashion after export. this would be a far better method as it significantly speeds up your users browsing experience and the flexibility of the data in other environments.

I mention this in my earlier post, and it's a technique we have used before. We have sometimes even used MS-WORD to split text strings, and it could be done in this case - IF all product codes have a hyphen in them...

EG:

Product Codes:

TD03R-RB4
TD03R-RB6
TD03R-RB8
TD03R-W4
TD03R-W6
TD03R-W8

From the excel spreadsheet, highlight the Products_Model column and COPY to clipboard.

Open MS-WORD and PASTE (this should bring up the column in tabular form.

Highlight column and use MS-Word "Convert Table to Text", separate by paragraphs.

Now you have the "table" as a LIST, delimited by Paragraphs.

Use MS-WORD "Replace" function, where you replace:

-

with

^t (tab)

Run the replace.

Now, your list will look like:

TD03R <tab> RB4
TD03R <tab> RB6
TD03R <tab> RB8
TD03R <tab> W4
TD03R <tab> W6
TD03R <tab> W8

HIGHLIGHT the whole list.

Use MS-WORD "Text to Table" feature, this time splitting the strings by TAB and separating the records by PARAGRAPH.

You now have TWO columns. In the FIRST you have the base product code (TD03R), and in the second you have the extention (RB4).

Highlight and COPY the first column and take it back to your spreadsheet...

(To have the second column data - RB4 - included in the product description, bring that column in as well and use CONCATENATE to add it to your product description text.)

personally i have never liked using word processors to format csv files as they can add unwanted/unecessary characters to my output, however this might not be the case here and you may find it suits you perfectly. if however you would like to achieve the same result without leaving your spreadsheet application (i will assume excel here, but the "right", "left", "length" and "search" functions should be available in almost all spreadsheet software), try the folllowing:

1) manipulating import data

**** assuming...**

• product/colour codes are in column "A"
• data starts from the first row (i.e. no titles)
• a hyphen (or some other consistent character) exists as a separator for all codes
• ALL product/colour combinations have colours. if not, the formulas below will fail (they can easily be rewritten to cater for this)

**** steps**

• on the first row in column "B", type the following formula: =LEFT(A1,SEARCH("-",A1,1)-1)
• on the first row in column "C", type the following formula: =RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-SEARCH("-",A1,1))
• fill this formula down the page for as many records as you have
• copy the contents of columns "B" and "C", and perform a "Special Paste" back into the same columns (choosing "values only" when presented with options)
• remove the original product/colour combined code column

2) manipulating export data

**** assuming...**

• product codes are in column "A", colour codes are in column "B"
• data starts from the first row (i.e. no titles)
• a hyphen is required as a separator for all codes
• ALL product/colour combinations have colours. if not, the formula below will add a hyphen unecessarily (it can easily be rewritten to cater for this)

**** steps**

• on the first row in column "C", type the following formula: =A1 & "-" & B1
• fill this formula down the page for as many records as you have
• copy the contents of column "C", and perform a "Special Paste" back into the same column (choosing "values only" when presented with options)
• remove columns "A" and "B"

Note: If this will be a regular task for you, and you use Microsoft Excel (other apps may be able to do this I just don't know), I would recommend you look into creating an "Add-in" to automate these functions. this would a) provide you with the ability to perform all of this with a single click (and probably anything else you want to do such as formatting etc.), and ensure typos don't pollute the data by performing the functions programatically. the add-in would simply appear as two buttons on a new toolbar in Excel, and might save you a significant amount of time.

ALiepinieks:

1) manipulating import data

**** assuming...**

• product/colour codes are in column "A"
• data starts from the first row (i.e. no titles)
• a hyphen (or some other consistent character) exists as a separator for all codes
• ALL product/colour combinations have colours. if not, the formulas below will fail (they can easily be rewritten to cater for this)

**** steps**

• on the first row in column "B", type the following formula: =LEFT(A1,SEARCH("-",A1,1)-1)
• on the first row in column "C", type the following formula: =RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-SEARCH("-",A1,1))
• fill this formula down the page for as many records as you have
• copy the contents of columns "B" and "C", and perform a "Special Paste" back into the same columns (choosing "values only" when presented with options)
• remove the original product/colour combined code column

2) manipulating export data

**** assuming...**

• product codes are in column "A", colour codes are in column "B"
• data starts from the first row (i.e. no titles)
• a hyphen is required as a separator for all codes
• ALL product/colour combinations have colours. if not, the formula below will add a hyphen unecessarily (it can easily be rewritten to cater for this)

**** steps**

• on the first row in column "C", type the following formula: =A1 & "-" & B1
• fill this formula down the page for as many records as you have
• copy the contents of column "C", and perform a "Special Paste" back into the same column (choosing "values only" when presented with options)
• remove columns "A" and "B"

Excellent - I like it... :clap:

As far as toggling stuff between MS applications, the most important thing to remember is to end up with an UNFORMATTED file before you use Easy Populate (or other data upload program)

The best way to load up products en-masse is to use Easy Populate and I have a WIKI tutorial showing people how to use Easy Populate.

Complete newbie here.... floundering in the dark..... Can you supply a link to this tutorial..... I am trying to learn ZenCart from scratch..... I have a product list and a customer list (on Excel) which I managed to salvage and decypher from a previous site we had and I'm looking for the best way to upload / transfer about 700 products and 300 existing customer details to our new site (which isn't live as yet)..... any help appreciated.

I don't know that Easy Populate does client details. I do not know that, though, just know what their default table looks like.

If this is too off-topic, tell me and I'll open a new thread, but when doing en masse uploads via Easy Populate (CSV version), is there a way to add fields for other things like, say, author name? And what about multiple categories? Maybe I'm missing something, but haven't seen this covered.

Resellerwholesale:

...I'm looking for the best way to upload / transfer about 700 products and 300 existing customer details to our new site...

it seems some SQL would be handy here. if you are feeling a bit daring, you could use phpMyAdmin to perform an export of the same table in your database with only a few records (saved to disk as an *.SQL file), and then use the file as a template for populating via import in phpMyAdmin. without SQL skills however, this is at best daring, at worst it is probably madness!

dansicle:

...is there a way to add fields for other things like, say, author name...

can't help you with multiple categories just yet, but i have done additional fields with easy populate with some success. here's the 5c summary...

1. created new XXX_id field in products table to store the index of the new entity, where XXX is the name of the new entity (e.g. author_id)
2. made a copy of of the structure of the manufacturers table in phpMyAdmin, altering indexes and field names appropriately
3. made a copy of of the structure of the manufacturers_info table in phpMyAdmin, altering indexes and field names appropriately
4. opened the relevant easypopulate.php file (under admin directory but can't remember which one sorry!)
5. copied all references to manufacturer, changing it to my field name/heading etc.

this last part obviously took a little time as you have to use some common sense and really understand what you are adding and why you are adding it. you might not want to use manufacturer as your basis for copying either, this typep of data and the way it integrates with other modules of zen-cart just suited me.

lastly, i added a new admin module to allow manual editing of the data in the admin section, but this took a while and i really don't remember how i did it (it was a real fudge anyway!)

if you try all of this however, document your steps so you can easily reproduce them, i would have been able to help you far better if i had done the same!

cheers
andy

Muzz:

I agree that my method is not fast.

In regards to stock management 'stock by attributes' Mod would resolve this.

I would get your point across in regards to different color being available ASAP on the website. Stating it somewhere obvious so potential clients do enter the product information page to see they can select other colors and view them live.

I think a lot of users like myself may browse a website looking for something in a particular style and color.. if I don't like the color I won't enter the product information page. If I don't enter the product information page I wont see that you have other colors available.. thus loss of a sale.

Another method I use is that I create attribute templates.

You could do this with various color ranges.
You can do the same with sizing.

Then you can either apply the attributes to an entire category or to individual products as desired.

Not sure what Mods your using but would also suggest you check out EZ populate and AJAX image swapper.

Good luck... just remember the ultimate goal is to create sales. Create a plan for the long term because with that many products turning back the clock will probably make more work than starting over again.

**Another method I use is that I create attribute templates.

You could do this with various color ranges.
You can do the same with sizing.

Then you can either apply the attributes to an entire category or to individual products as desired.**

How do you set up attribute templates and then how do you apply those to categories? I know that you can create attributes for products, but categories? How, please explain further - I want to learn this! It could be very useful for my site. Thank you.