| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
chrisbreault
Starting Member
USA
16 Posts |
 Posted - March 28 2005 : 08:53:12
|
Hi,
I'm developing a school uniform online store but I'm not quite clear on how to create the products catalog since these products are to be seen by different people. The store sells to different schools, and each school has their own product catalog. Although the products all come from a general catalog (also to be created for the general public), when one product is designated to a specific school it will differ as to an embroidery logo on the garment and specific colors. How should I go about creating these product catalogs so that each school/student is be able to access his/her own product catalog?
Thanks for your help.
Christina Breault
Christina Breault |
|
|
apswater
VP-CART Super User
444 Posts |
Posted - March 28 2005 : 09:40:57
|
I would just make categories and sub categories... ie .. Make a main category "uniforms" then subs for "Johnson high school" and so on.. you can have a sub for Misc uniforms too for those who dont have custom logos.
Put the uniforms in all the categories that fit including the "uniforms" category so when they list products there they will get all uniforms.
|
 |
|
|
chrisbreault
Starting Member
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - March 28 2005 : 11:30:16
|
Hum... that sounds a little odd. Considering that this is a uniform store (it doesn't sell anything else but uniforms) it seems odd to categorize the products by school. What happens when a school goes away, or no longer contracts with this uniform provider? I thought I would categorize the uniforms as "boys," "girls," "unisex," and "accessories", place the all the products divided under these categories, and then mark specific products that specific schools use so when a school member goes shopping he/she will see all the products that his/her school uses in a separate catalog/listing. My doubt is how I will accomplish that.
Any ideas?
Christina Breault |
|
|
|
apswater
VP-CART Super User
444 Posts |
Posted - March 28 2005 : 12:36:05
|
if the school goes away, then you just hide the category. THe way I discussed it, the person looking for uniforms would click uniforms, then you could have boys. gorls, misc and by school catagories. (the same prduct can be in multiple ctegories. to in the case they want a list of all items availible for their school, they would click uniforms, by school, and then waht ever subs you want to that like girls, boys etc...
|
|
|
|
chrisbreault
Starting Member
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - March 28 2005 : 13:10:30
|
I guess you have a good point here. It may be the best way for me to go on this since the site owner is more concerned to sell to her contracted schools than the general public, although she would like a catalog of uniforms (without school logos) available to the general public as well.
Let's say I make my highest categories the schools names and also one for "general public," and subcategories as "boys," "girls," "unisex," and "accessories," how do I make the categories to show as drop-down list, instead of images looped in a table such as the one shown in the "showroom" page? Meaning, when a prospective buyer goes to the site, he/she can pick his/her school catalog from a dropdown list.
Many thanks!
Christina Breault |
|
|
|
apswater
VP-CART Super User
444 Posts |
Posted - March 28 2005 : 17:48:36
|
Once you make your category structure, then you can write static pages with lnks to the categories and or product lists. THat way you can more suctomeize the look based on how you want to sell a given product. I would start with 2 main categories. 1 - Browse All Products 2- Browse Products By School
In the category descriptions you can go on to further explain what each category is for.
If you had a static page you can say have one or more columns...
BROWSE ALL PRODUCTS
- product Name
- More Products
- More Products
Browse Products by School
- School Name
- School Name
- School Name
Specials
- Closeout 1
- Closeout 2
I am sure that there is a way to do that dynamically but the fast easy way if to make the static page and link the specific categories or products you want them to go to. You dont have to send them through shopdisplaycateogies.
I use 4.5, so if you have a different version, there might be better things you can do.
Edited by - apswater on March 28 2005 17:50:33 |
|
|
|
chrisbreault
Starting Member
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - March 29 2005 : 10:02:24
|
Thanks for all the help you have given me so far.
I'm still not 100% sure what's the best way for me to create these catalogs. I just uploaded the products for 1 school (site owner has 11 schools, with a bunch of products under each), but still not working as I need. Another thing is that I realized that I can't have "search" function otherwise visitors will see things randomly, not by school and that will be a problem. I wish I could change the title at the top of the catalog from "products" to the actual school that the products belong to. Right now I can't even browse the products by clicking on the categories (some thing is not working) but only if I do a search, using keyword "jumper," "skirt," "shorts" etc. So, I have a lot of figuring out to do and at this point I'm not sure VPASP will be the best choice for this shopping cart. I may need something more "simple" or less dynamic, so I can touch the code to make things display the way I want. I'm not a programmer, I'm a web designer, although I know some basic programming to get me around. I'm totally confused right now. You can view what I'm doing at http://www.digitalboutique.net/shopping/rcuniforms. If this works, then the site owner will purchase the shopping cart license. If it doesn't, I will have to look around for something else until I find what will work for my client. I wish there was a shopping cart out there that is designed specifically for school uniform businesses. They would make big bucks as I see a big need for that.
Many thanks!
Christina Breault |
|
|
|
chrisbreault
Starting Member
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - March 29 2005 : 22:42:19
|
I think I'm kinda of figuring out a bit more now. Because I'm one of those perfectionist designers, I want control of every piece of the page, to look as I want it to look. One of the things that are bugging me right now is that I don't know how to control the top title. For example, when a user clicks on a subcategory, I would like the top to show where that subcategory belongs to (like a hierarchy), and perhaps a link to go back to it, instead of having to click in the whole cateogory page again and see all of them. Meaning, I wish I could put a link on the top title to go back to the higher category, not just all the categories page. Any way... I'm trying to figure this out. The cart is great indeed, as to the functions, but I'm troubled with some of the design control that I just don't know how to achieve through the codes.
I gave you the wrong link before. Here's the right one for the testing site: http://www.digitalboutique.net/shopping/rcuniforms/
Christina Breault |
|
|
|
apswater
VP-CART Super User
444 Posts |
Posted - March 30 2005 : 22:16:19
|
I dont know what version you are using, but I started with 4.5.
(your link is dead by the way)
http://www.apswater.com/shopdisplaycategories.asp
I have added the dynamic titling you talk about along with a bunch of other stuff. We have ours laid out as a guide where we give extensive comentary using the category memos to get people to go where they need. We have over 1000 products but will have many more as time allows.
As far as the search, I dumped the VP-asp search infavor of another. The reason being is we have a lot of stuff not cart related but wanted our search engine to grab products, cateogry, docs and even pages off our old site. If you search on softener you will see all of these pages with dynamic meta titles and descriptions, the search engine works very well.
(I used Zoom Search engine http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/)
If you have a category with say. Clark High School then if you type clark high school or even just clark, you will get a list of all cateogies, sub categories, product pages and extended product pages.
We talked about the title tags here
http://www.vp-asp.com/virtprog/vpaspforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3576
and here
http://www.vp-asp.com/virtprog/vpaspforum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3398
hope it helps... if you have 4.5 I would be happy to share my files with you.
|
|
|
|
chrisbreault
Starting Member
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - March 31 2005 : 13:24:48
|
Thank you for all your help. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain all of this to me. :)
One more question: How do I change the order of my features? let's say, "sizes", keeping getting alphabetically ordered if it's in text. How can I change that to list in ascending order based on table ID?
Thanks!
Christina Breault |
|
|
|
chrisbreault
Starting Member
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - March 31 2005 : 19:58:49
|
Never mind! I found the answer by searching the forum.
:)
Christina Breault |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
All Forums
Different Product Catalog to Different Customers
New Topic
Printer Friendly
TrustGuard - PCI Security Scanner
