We're reviewing the Merchello platform in comparison to uCommerce and a few others, and I think it has a lot of potential. I have a few questions though:
For what I can see, Merchello has no build in support for product categories, and therefor displaying products requires unique content pages to be created for each product? Is this correct? From my standpoint, this is a huge drawback given the amount of double work it gives the e-commerce administrator.
I'm also curious about where products images are edited. Is that also on a content page? If so, how should different images for different variants be handled?
You are correct that to date we have not introduced the notion of product categories into the Merchello back office and they would be done as content nodes and there is a bit of double work. Our approach on this has been to take iterative steps towards making the product UI and the content UI more seemless - but know we have a ways to go. The biggest problem with categories is everyone wants them implemented slightly differently and as such we viewed them as a "merchandising" feature ... and merchandising is something we try not to lock down in terms of an implementation strategy, again because everyone rightly wants to do it slightly differently.
Images, descriptions, warranties, etc. are also something that has been considered merchandising content as again, there are different needs for different product types. That said, I have started prototyping a concept to extend certain classes with a "CustomFieldsCollection" which would include the ProductVariant object. In theory, this will allow a user to create product variant types with a collection of some of the native Umbraco data types. However, this is a ways out - maybe first of the year?
If you have time, it would be great to hear your ideas about categorization and any thoughts you have on how we could implement it generically. Would you see it as a custom Umbraco data type or a formal construct in the Merchello package? We've thrashed on that question quite a few times over the last year =)
I see a couple of benefits of using categories instead av content pages:
All editing of products can be done in one place
Easily add products to multiple categories
No risk of relating a presentation page to the wrong product
Less work
Regarding images, descriptions and so on, I'd like to see that as a tab on the product management area as well. And with the possibility to override images on product variants (for some products, variants all look the same (Iphone 16 GB vs 32 GB) but not all (red vs blue shirt).
Basic concept of adding product pages to display products
Hi,
We're reviewing the Merchello platform in comparison to uCommerce and a few others, and I think it has a lot of potential. I have a few questions though:
For what I can see, Merchello has no build in support for product categories, and therefor displaying products requires unique content pages to be created for each product? Is this correct? From my standpoint, this is a huge drawback given the amount of double work it gives the e-commerce administrator.
I'm also curious about where products images are edited. Is that also on a content page? If so, how should different images for different variants be handled?
Best regards,
Jakob
Hey Jacob,
You are correct that to date we have not introduced the notion of product categories into the Merchello back office and they would be done as content nodes and there is a bit of double work. Our approach on this has been to take iterative steps towards making the product UI and the content UI more seemless - but know we have a ways to go. The biggest problem with categories is everyone wants them implemented slightly differently and as such we viewed them as a "merchandising" feature ... and merchandising is something we try not to lock down in terms of an implementation strategy, again because everyone rightly wants to do it slightly differently.
Images, descriptions, warranties, etc. are also something that has been considered merchandising content as again, there are different needs for different product types. That said, I have started prototyping a concept to extend certain classes with a "CustomFieldsCollection" which would include the ProductVariant object. In theory, this will allow a user to create product variant types with a collection of some of the native Umbraco data types. However, this is a ways out - maybe first of the year?
If you have time, it would be great to hear your ideas about categorization and any thoughts you have on how we could implement it generically. Would you see it as a custom Umbraco data type or a formal construct in the Merchello package? We've thrashed on that question quite a few times over the last year =)
Thanks!
Thanks for your quick reply!
I see a couple of benefits of using categories instead av content pages:
is working on a reply...