Link to products from multiple sections with addtocart, RRP / Our Price

[Univiz]

I've several sites still running quite happily on v7.
Recently purchased v9 and still getting to grips with it - lack of time being the main hinderance.

I've one v7 site in particular that as the product ranges have grown over time the up keep is now far too time consuming and I'm hoping that v9 might resolve the issues.

First Issue
Each product has been duplicated (in its own section) and is shown in the catalog at least four times
- By brand
- By type (and may be in more than one type)
- By activity
- By price
Initially all this duplicating was workable but as the product range is now over five times the size, it is far too time consuming plus I'm probably being penalised for all the duplicate content within the site.

Is it possible in v9 to have each product in it's own section (page) listed just once but to be linked to by each of the other categories (brand / type / activity / price)? i.e. avoid all the product duplication.

Yes, I could do this with sections and fragments linked to the individual product pages but then I couldn't (?) automatically show the RRP, Our Price and add to cart buttons on the fragments.

Second Issue
Each product has a 'RRP' and 'Our Price' which has been manually added to the section page/s containing each product. As everything is duplicated at least four times this is now too consuming to do and update. The 'RRP' has been also been manually added to the actual product - should have done this as a variable from the start

Is it possibile for the price (Our Price) to be automatically pulled from the product and shown on the section page/s so that they auto update from changes to the actual product price?

Similarly, is it possible for the RRP (presumably via a custom variable) on the product to be also shown on the product category page/s so that that too automatically updates?

I think the prob here, assuming that the variable can be listed on the category page/s, might be the association of the custom variable from the section page back to the appropriate product

I've seem a similar thread regarding droplists but this was for searches whereas these are actual sections (pages) hardcoded into the nav that I've re-done separately in dreamweaver.

Interestingly, a well known open source program does exactly what I want straight out of the box. i.e. each product can be linked to as many categories/sections as required just by ticking the relevant category boxes. RRP and Our Price (specials) can be set to automatically display on category / section pages.

Although I'm still getting to grips with v9 I have a feeling that it won't do what I want for this particular site, unless I can't see the wood for the trees. Any pointers in the right direction would be very much appreciated.

[NormanRouxel]

You ask so many things that it's unlikely that someone will answer all. Here's just two.

Is it possibile for the price (Our Price) to be automatically pulled from the product and shown on the section page/s so that they auto update from changes to the actual product price?

Yes, assuming there's one product per Section. This is on the forum. You could show your RRP there too (once you get it into a Variable).

Is it possible in v9 to have each product in it's own section (page) listed just once but to be linked to by each of the other categories (brand / type / activity / price)? i.e. avoid all the product duplication.

Possible but tricky.

Make a dummy Section for each specific category.

Then, in that Section put a fragment that uses a unique Layout - "Widgets".

In that Widgets fragment layout replace the usual fragment details with something like (pseudo code):

<actinic:block type="EntireSectionList">
  <actinic:block type="ProductList">
    <actinic:blockif CATEGORY == "Widget">
      PRODUCT LAYOUT
    </actinic:block>
  </actinic:block>
</actinic:block>

And repeat for each category. Note that you'll be increasing your processing time greatly if you have a lot of categories.

[leehack]

How many master products are we talking?

[Univiz]

Norman - Many thanks for your feeback. I'll try the section mod that you refer to but think the linking of multiple sections to one product page is a non-starter if it's going to increase processing / page load time.

LeeHack - About 1500 products and this willcontinue to increase. Not all are on the site yet and of those that are, not all have been replicated into the various sections. Didn't want to continue if I'm going to have to jump ship to the open source system that does it all straight out of the box.

Thanks again to you both - very much appreciated.

[NormanRouxel]

if it's going to increase processing / page load time

It won't increase page upload time (or customer download time).

It's backoffice processing time when you add new products or sections that will be increased.

It will depend on how many such catgories you have as we're repeatedly looping through all sections / products for each category that you've defined and picking out only the relevant products.