Hey folks,
I’m just wondering if anyone here uses an ExpressionEngine commerce package (Cartthrob, Brilliant Retail, Espresso) in such a way that you can do without having a “variations” channel for your “products” channel(s).
What I’m doing now (in Cartthrob) is to have an “items” channel that is related to “variations” of the item. For example, t-shirt designs are related to size, colour and gender variations. I use Playa to relate many variations to one item for sale.
The problem is, especially for t-shirts, this makes data entry needlessly difficult. It means that I have to enter at least NINE entries per t-shirt (1 main design, 4 sizes in men’s cut, then 4 sizes in women’s cut) - and more if there are colour variations. Then I have to go back to the original design entry in the “products” channel and relate them all through Playa. Yuck!
What I’d really like to have happen is have all the variations in a Matrix field, one per row, including variant prices. Then I could enter all the variations in the “product” entry itself… or rather, the client could do it, because all of the product’s variations would be very elegantly attached to the product entry itself, and the variations would be like a table or grid arranged in front of them.
Right now, they have me entering any product with variations because it’s too confusing and data-entry-error-prone for them to have two separate channels. They happily pay me… but I really hate looking after people’s content.
I guess I could ask this question on the Cartthrob support forum but I’m also interested in information along the lines of, “which EE-based commerce package is better for this task of creating product variations?”
Thanks so much for all who can shine light on a better technique than the one I’m using!