Similar Products using shop manager.

I am importing my products with a CSV from my supplier. Some products have multiple sizes, so I might have an item that comes in 3 sizes so its on the differnt lines in the csv. The product number is different, the description is the same, but the size is different.

I am importing the items , with the size in the attribute no issue. But I want to display them in my store as one item, with size options. At the moment Im getting the same item listed 3 times, but in the different sizes.

Can anyone help my try to work this, im pullling my hair out !!!

By the way I need to import my stock a couply of times a day and I have over 4000 products so manually doing it isnt an option.

Good Luck...

Doesn't seem that Zen Cart is able to handle attributes easily.

There are 'Stock by Attributes' plugins that help maintain stock levels for each one, but nothing to deal with different SKU's per attribute.

http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?195535-Attributes-Whats-the-best-way-to-deal-with-them

Just commiserating.

Thanks

Its seems you ave the same issue I do. Should be a simple way around it ? YOu would think so.

I don't think at the core ZenCart had it in 'the plan' and that is the issue.

I've seen the explanation was due to the staggering amount of possible combinations, but that doesn't make sense to me, no more so complicated than attributes/options. Would be nice to have different pictures associated with the sku as well.

Most newer carts have it 'built-in', but it would really require a rewrite of most of the current version of ZenCart.

I think it can be sorted within shop manager. Ive put a suggestion forward, that I think would work.

Wont let me post the link here but basically what it says is this !

Ok seems thats your product is brilliant at dealing with product imports. And can cope with attributes and stock levels of attributes easily. But why not combine them at the port of import.

Basically if a description of an item matches another in the csv import, but the attributes do not, then merge them into the attributes of the first item with the stock levels from the proceeding item.

Example. I have 3 items in my csv all red patent leather shoes. I have 50 size 4, 25, size 5 and 15 size 6. When I import it, it makes one item, addes all the attribues and stock levels into the one item as per products with attributes stock.

This feature is deperatly need now !

.

I see you actively browsing the forum which you cannot link.

:*)

I don't think its necessarily a limitation of their software, its more a problem with Zen Cart.

Im looking at some of the showcase carts who do a similar thing, and they all seem to have it working. With the amount of stock some of them have there must be a silution other than manual entry!

did you look at easy populate ? Does that work any better ?

jason.b:

did you look at easy populate ? Does that work any better ?

I have it installed, I have used it, but I do not believe it works better for me.

I have to do a lot of manipulation on some columns/values in various feeds and I am using the Automated Import add-on to keep inventory levels updated automatically several times a day.

If you are willing to use excel to manipulate prices, clean up columns, etc. manually, then it may work for you. I found the built in SQL expressions far easier to deal with the various inconsistencies of the datafeeds I get.

If you are handy with excel macros and whatnot, it may work, but I am far more comfortable with SQL statements.