Best way to deal with large number of items?

[JMK2]

I'm importing about 3000 items of computer equipment from a suppliers csv file. They do not come with any assigned categories so they must all be lumped into one. However, I see that makes it almost impossible to do a search, which is the only way to offer the items because a list of 3,000 items is simply too long.

About All I can think of is making up a category header and in it assigning some sort of categories that will make each group smaller. E.G. the first category would consist of 250 items and be called "1-250".

There must be a better way to design it, what have others done with similar situations?

[Jan]

There is an option in catalog to use the search page as the primary interface into catalog, you could have them a single sections and then just let people to search for the products they want to use - if you do this it would be worth installing Norman Rouxel's solution that allows images to be added to the search results.

The setting is on View/Search Settings/Search option tab.

Norman's solution is at http://www.rouxel.cwc.net/actinicstuff.html

Regards

[JMK2]

Thanks Jan,

I did notice that option so for now I am in fact using it. But the problem with placing them all in the same category is you can get search results, but if you try to click on the item to continue with it from the results page the operation times out because it would seem that 3000 items in the same category are simply too many. The only way I can make it work for now is to break the items up into smaller arbitrary sub categories, which is certainly not ideal.

I'll have a look at that link, as the csv file is updated daily images probably won;t be an option for me.

[Jan]

How about putting each item into it's own section - that would make it fairly easy to generate.

Regards,

[JMK2]

Good thought Jan. I was trying to think what to use for the sections. All I have is a date, a short description, part number, stock status and price. I suppose I could always generate a unique ID number for each. It seems the problem with sections is when you click on an item you get all the sections listed in a column down the left side of the page do you not?

Thanks for the idea.

[NormanRouxel]

Why not use the part number for both the section name and the product reference. Just duplicate the field and use the duplicate as the section name.

If your part numbers are numeric you may want to drop the last few digits and this will then place a group of parts together (drop 1 digit and you'll have 300 sections each with 10 parts, etc). This may help with the search speed.

If you use a generated number it may go out of sync when a new list turns up from the manufacturer.

Another thing to watch out for is that in View / Search Settings there is a list of things to ignore. Make sure none of these affect your part numbers.

Norman

[JMK2]

One glitch I just thoguht of. Eventually I need to add some real categories. If I have a bunch of psuedo-categories it will probably interfere with that.

[chrisbrown]

Categories are hierachical. When you get around to adding some real ones you should put them above the pseudo ones.