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Products as permutation options - what happens with search?

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    Products as permutation options - what happens with search?

    Hello

    Our site used to list all products on big long listings, but last year I finally bit the bullet and started creating product pages.

    At the same time I decided to regroup near identical products together as options for one "master" product. Followed the instructions:
    - created a new product
    - created an option (in my case, vintage, for a wine)
    - add existing products as permutations
    - hide original products

    I set it so the shopping cart would show the permutation in the order and hide the parent, to keep it tidy, so that orders show the SKU (stored as product reference) we need (that of the individual hidden permutation product)

    But I notice now that if you search for the SKU (reference) of the hidden products, the site now says "no match found". Even though that is shown in the product information page as part of the permutation list. That seems like an oversight to me - surely a parent product should be returned when one searches for a permutation SKU (reference), rather than "no result"?

    Before I embark on manually plonking these values in my descriptions so search behaves accordingly - or looking into PHP hacks to add the permutation SKUs to the index at upload, is there a way built in that I haven't noticed?

    PS: besides basic search, feefo reviews (you lose them), stock information (not always enforced and not visible to customer anymore?) and search-by-attribute (attributes specific to hidden products) also don't seem to quite function in a consistent manner when one uses product-as-options , but the impact and tradeoffs here are not described or discussed anywhere in the documentation.
    Last edited by NickD; 01-Feb-2014, 12:52 PM. Reason: title unclear
    Fighting with sellerdeck on http://www.nickdobsonwines.co.uk

    #2
    I gather nobody uses products as permutation options, like sizes/colour etc?

    Just to rephrase:

    Product
    >>> option
    >>>>>> value -> other (hidden) product
    >>>>>> value -> other (hidden) product

    This is described in the help/manuals. Price always set as "sum of permutation prices" and each set up to use tax/shipping of related product

    What is never described:

    - if I want stock to show for each option, do I need to enable stock on the parent (even though "parent" has no stock of its own?) I've changed the templates to show stock of individual options but it doesn't always do it

    - if I want to have a special offer on some or all the options:
    - is it enough to just put the individual "hidden" products in the right product groups?
    - how can the "parent" product show this?

    - how can the parent product be returned in search results if one of the hidden "permutations" matches?
    Fighting with sellerdeck on http://www.nickdobsonwines.co.uk

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