I need to import many products into Magento for a client.
I am not sure to set the type to Simple or Configurable. In the current state, all products are Simple. But I expect that the client will need some of the products to become "Configurable".
I therefore plan to import all products as Configurable. My question is, what is the downside of only using Configurable products? Are there any advantages with Simple products?
Thanks.
If you have different colors or sizes (or other configurable options) you'll need to create simple products for every combination (small/red, medium/red, small/black, medium/black, etc) which you can do from within the configurable product screen, associated products tab. If your product doesn't have any options, it should just be a simple product.
For reference, here is a page detailing the purpose of each product type: http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/modules_reference/english/mage_adminhtml/catalog_product/producttype
I also suggest to use Magmi for large Magento imports. http://sourceforge.net/projects/magmi/
You can even have it create your configurable products automatically and it goes MUCH faster than magentos standard import. Like 1000's of products in seconds not hours.
My company has SKU101LG, SKU101MD, and SKU101XL (All simple products)
Therefore SKU101 is my configurable product with the above skus as its 'children' or as magento calls them 'associated products', based on their size attribute.
(You have to create attributes such as size or color under CATALOG > ATTRIBUTES )
An Ipad is a simple product. And Ipad with color options is configurable, and has two OTHER skus (the simple skus for each color) associated to it.
Related
On my online store, we sell jeans. The configurable products are the different types of jeans, and the associated simple products are the sizes for each (6,8,10,12,14). When i search for a product or just scroll on the feed it doesnt only show the configurable products and when i click it you can choose the size, but the individual simple products show up too eg:
Skinny Jeans
Skinny Jeans-6
Skinny Jeans-8 etc. How do i fix this?
For your simple products, you can set its Visibility. You can change it under
Product Information > General > Visibility > Not Visible Individually
This way they won't appear on front-end while still being associated with your configurable product.
I sell Pet Supplies. My distributor provides me with a CVS file with all the nessacrty information for me to upload it to my website. I currently upload it as a simple product. But I would like it to be more user friendly. I am using Magento Community 1.7. I have tried messing with the configurable products but this is not possible for the upload I use.
Example: A Dog Cage comes in different sizes. Currently it shows as simple products and shows 5 different sizes. I would like it to show like all the bigger named stores. Basically show a dropdown with the different options. I tried creating a configurable product and associate the products I uploaded as a simple product but this method will not work. Any other ideas of what I can do? I want my customers to be able to click:
iCrate Double Door and have the options 18x24....24x30 etc. How do the other companies get them listed like this?
You are doing the right thing - configurable products will give you what you want to achieve.
You need to install the Magmi configurable product plugin. You also need to set your csv up so the simple products come first, then the configurable. To automatically associate the simple product with the parent configurable on import you need an extra column specifying the configurable attribute (see the Magmi docs) and the skus need set up so the simple skus are extended versions of the configurable's sku. Again, the Magmi wiki on configurables will explain more.
You could also amend your grouped products to do similar and provide the list as a dropdown
check out this thread
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/208482/#t297046
Is there any way to do this with Vanilla magento? I know I can create a configurable product with simple products "Product A - Option1, Product A - Option2 etc". Is it more beneficial to create simple products for colors and sizes? Maybe from a reporting standpoint?
I found this http://www.mageworx.com/advanced-product-options-magento-extension.html
Would there be any drawbacks from using an extension like this?
if you want to be able to properly track stock etc then proper configurable products based on simple products to represent SKUs is the best way.
in my mind, custom options are really meant for non stock related options such as custom printing services, extra gift wrapping or other options like this.
the extension you mention is really for managing sets of custom options across multiple products and makes custom options easier to manage but does not meant that you should use custom options to track different SKUs such as products coming in a variety of colours that you hold in stock.
The quickest way to create the simple products for a configurable product via the Magento admin is to create the configurable product first then use the "quick simple product creator" option to create the simple products quickly and easily.
http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/welcome_to_the_magento_user_s_guide/chapter_3#creating_a_configurable_product (scroll down a bit)
I am using this extension in my magento web store
http://www.manadev.com/seo-layered-navigation-plus (Layered navigation)
This extension working fine for simple products.
But in my case, I have two attributes that would be used to create configurable products, i.e Size and Color. Now when I create my configurable products, and associate my simple products of different sizes and colors to that configurable product and browse the Category Landing page, In layered navigation I don't see any Color or Size from the associated products of configurable products, neither it searches for the selected color or size in the associated child products of a configurable products. This has become a serious problem for me and it seems like this extension doesn't work with configurable products, I have already them too, but no reply as yet.
Has anyone went through the same problem ?
Try to re-index all. That should solve your problem.
This issue is closed for noor. For the record the reason for misbehavior is in attribute setup he had and in general is not related to SEO Layered Navigation Plus. What should be avoided:
Attributes used both in Layered Navigation should be allowed to set either on Configurable Product label or on simple product level. If you have not done it from the beginning, disabling attribute usage in configurable products is not enough as to that moment values can already be stored in database. So after disabling you should additionally delete values of that attribute assigned to all configurable products in catalog_product_entity_int table.
a client has imported 1000 items to magento as simple products. many of these SHOULD be configurable products (ie, 4 yellow dresses of different sizes). the psuedo-configurable products all have the same "Style" number, so our 4 yellow dresses would have different SKU values but all 4 would share the Style. is there a way to program magento on the front end to display these 4 simple products as one configurable products? we need to keep them as simple because of the inventory system the store is using.
thanks very much,
I'm sure there is a way to do it - but I haven't heard of one yet, and I keep up on Magento stuff pretty well.
Unfortunately, Magento does not import configurable products through the backend. Typically what you have to do is write your own script utilizing the Magento API, or import all the simple products, and then manually (or again, using the API) create the configurable products assigning the simple products to them.