Product duplication(?) & navigation

[Jaguar]

Hello there

I'm a new user with no web development experience and a few questions...

We will be supplying car parts for 2 specific models of car which have undergone changes over their 20 years in production. The majority of parts that we supply are used in more than one model and in more than one upgraded version of that model. It would be good to offer the facility for a customer to search for parts relevant to his car only (especially when they may not always know part numbers) so I went down the path of a section for each version of each car with product duplicates for each part (I also have a section hidden on the web with all of the original parts in it). Is this the right way to go or am I unnecessarily complicating things? Any suggestions? I have also noticed that the product reference does not come up in a search if the original product is hidden so when they do know the part numbers the customer can't find them on the site...

Next question - is there a way to globally update product duplicates from the original - or is exporting & importing the only way?

I would like my customers to be able to see the top menu and section list at all times wherever they are in the page - is there a way to 'freeze panes' as you would in MS Excel?

Sorry this is so long

Thank you for any advice or help you can give

[jont]

Hi,

sections with duplicates is probably the easiest and most sensible way to go. You could look at using a CUSTOMVAR against the products to include Model A, Model B, Model C etc and set that as a searchable variable.

Freezing the top frame a la Excel would either need to the use of frames (avoid at all costs) or use a floating navigation bar... the latter is a nightmare from a usability point of view as invariable hides part of the page info. Best to keep pages (sections) short as more users will scroll 2-3 page folds without a problem.

Some of the fields do auto update when the master changes - usually the greyed out in the duplicate - make a small change in the master and see what occurs in the dupliacte.

HTH

[Jaguar]

Thank you - it's good to know I'm not wasting my time building all these sections!
Thanks also for the advice re frames etc, I won't be going down that route.

[jont]

Trying to make your products found on the site is the goal to any navigation system so if the users are going to be looking via model and type then thats the way you need to go.

Often worth asking others who are not involved with the site how they navigate around and ask them to find a specific product and see how they fare. The beauty of duplicates is that you can place the products in different and many sections to hopefully let everyone find what they are looking for