We are looking to use TeaCommerce for a new eCommerce store that we are creating, however I have a question mark over how product variants and associated attributes are managed within TeaCommerce.
The product database is quite complex and some products might have around 10 different attributes with different variants under these. So for instance it has a Colour of Red, Green, Blue, etc, and for each of those you could choose a Bezel that is Chrome, Aluminium, Plain, etc. etc
How does TeaCommerce handle this complexity, would speed be an issue and how would you manage the product database. Could you use a tool such as CMSImport to be able to import a master spreadsheet with all of the product data within it?
Any insights, comments or solutions would be helpful.
Classic Umbraco problem when you have a complex node structure. If you need to have stock control, then you need a unique node per variant (lots of nodes), but performance should not be a problem - but still depends on how many products as Umbraco isn't that great with really large numbers of nodes without writing custom indexes rtc.
Apologies for the late reply concerning this, I have been gathering additional information regarding what is required.
If you look at the screenshot below, this shows the way in which a product detail page needs to look. As you can see this is a specific product but the product can have multiple variants and each of these variants can have up to 5 different options (e.g. color, bezel, etc).
To complicate matters further, the SKU is actually different depending on which option is selected for the variant, so for example:
3-3751-R is for the variant in Red
3-3751-A would be the variant in Amber
Now based on what you have said above, how would you go about storing this type of information in Umbraco, would it still be by using a custom property editor? If so, what would this editor entail and/or how would you envisage it working?
Any help/oversight you can give would be helpful as always!
Then it is quite simple as you just make the UI and Umbraco how you want and then add the variant choosen as order line properties. Then use the order line uniqueness setting at the store in Tea Commerce and type these property alias's in. When a product is then added with other options for the same main product - Tea Commerce will know its unique and add it as a new order line.
Thanks Anders for the information. Are you able to give an example of what the product uniqueness aliases could look like and are you able to enter more than one alias, if so what format?
It could be color,size. Then if you have a product with two dropdowns with those aliases in the UI the customer can select it and you add them as order line properties with the AddOrUpdateOrderLine HTML API method. Then Tea Commerce will look at them and make a unique order line based on the properties values.
After further discussions with the client it appears there might be certain products where there might be different prices and sku for each variant and colour/bezel, etc. combination, no stock control needed still though.
How much does this complicate it and how would you go about getting this information stored within Umbraco?
Thanks for the insight into the best way of doing this. Do you have an example available of a custom property editor you have created in the past for a similar scenario or point me in the right direction of how the editor might look? Thanks in advance.
Product variants
We are looking to use TeaCommerce for a new eCommerce store that we are creating, however I have a question mark over how product variants and associated attributes are managed within TeaCommerce.
The product database is quite complex and some products might have around 10 different attributes with different variants under these. So for instance it has a Colour of Red, Green, Blue, etc, and for each of those you could choose a Bezel that is Chrome, Aluminium, Plain, etc. etc
How does TeaCommerce handle this complexity, would speed be an issue and how would you manage the product database. Could you use a tool such as CMSImport to be able to import a master spreadsheet with all of the product data within it?
Any insights, comments or solutions would be helpful.
Hi Graham
Classic Umbraco problem when you have a complex node structure. If you need to have stock control, then you need a unique node per variant (lots of nodes), but performance should not be a problem - but still depends on how many products as Umbraco isn't that great with really large numbers of nodes without writing custom indexes rtc.
Or you could make a custom property editor to handle this and then write your own ProductInformationExtractor for Tea Commerce to fetch the right product info. https://documentation.teacommerce.net/net-api/product-information-extractor/
Kind regards Anders
Hi,
Apologies for the late reply concerning this, I have been gathering additional information regarding what is required.
If you look at the screenshot below, this shows the way in which a product detail page needs to look. As you can see this is a specific product but the product can have multiple variants and each of these variants can have up to 5 different options (e.g. color, bezel, etc).
To complicate matters further, the SKU is actually different depending on which option is selected for the variant, so for example:
3-3751-R is for the variant in Red 3-3751-A would be the variant in Amber
Now based on what you have said above, how would you go about storing this type of information in Umbraco, would it still be by using a custom property editor? If so, what would this editor entail and/or how would you envisage it working?
Any help/oversight you can give would be helpful as always!
Thanks,
Graham
First thing - do you need stock and/or custom prices for each variant and colour/bezel etc. combination? Because that will complicate it a lot :)
Hi Anders,
No stock control is needed and the price for a particular variant will be the same regardless of what options are chosen.
For example, in the screenshot above, 3-3751-EA might have five different colour options but they will all have the same price.
Thanks,
Graham
Then it is quite simple as you just make the UI and Umbraco how you want and then add the variant choosen as order line properties. Then use the order line uniqueness setting at the store in Tea Commerce and type these property alias's in. When a product is then added with other options for the same main product - Tea Commerce will know its unique and add it as a new order line.
Kind regards
Anders
Thanks Anders for the information. Are you able to give an example of what the product uniqueness aliases could look like and are you able to enter more than one alias, if so what format?
It could be color,size. Then if you have a product with two dropdowns with those aliases in the UI the customer can select it and you add them as order line properties with the AddOrUpdateOrderLine HTML API method. Then Tea Commerce will look at them and make a unique order line based on the properties values.
Hi Anders,
After further discussions with the client it appears there might be certain products where there might be different prices and sku for each variant and colour/bezel, etc. combination, no stock control needed still though.
How much does this complicate it and how would you go about getting this information stored within Umbraco?
Thanks,
Graham
If you need custom pricing or stock - then you have to make a custom property editor to hold this info and then make a custom ProductInformationExtractor for TeaCommerce to get the data in a different way than normal. https://documentation.teacommerce.net/net-api/product-information-extractor/customizing-umbraco/
Kind regards
Anders
Thanks for the insight into the best way of doing this. Do you have an example available of a custom property editor you have created in the past for a similar scenario or point me in the right direction of how the editor might look? Thanks in advance.
Hi Graham
Dont have examples of this as we have not done it before like this.
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