Advice on how to set up my products in VM 2

[davojeddy]

Hi,

I've been running a Virtuemart shop for the last few years using the old version.  It's at http://www.drawnwild.com/ if you need to take a look.

I'm moving to the new version and I think I'm having some conceptual problems with the new product configuration.

The shop is for artwork for my partner and we sell originals (obviously only 1 off) and limited edition giclee prints (A4 and A3) so we need stock control on all variants. 

In the old version, we had a parent product (just a shell) and up to three children (original, A4 limited edition and A3 limited edition).  This worked ok but I was never really happy with it as customers had to drill down to see prices.

So, I'm looking for some advice on how to set it up in the new version.  I've started playing around with version 2 and I can't see any way to set it up in the same way as the original shop anyway.

It might be best to go for just three categories, Originals, A4 Prints and A3 prints and ignore the issue of children entirely.  But that is likely to mean quite a bit of extra work and it would be nice if a customer could still choose a link from (say) a gallery and have the three options presented to them on one page if that makes sense.

How would you advise I set it up?

Thanks in advance and I have to say thanks to everyone involved with Virtuemart.  Having such a professional product to present Terry's work is just awesome.

Thanks!

dave

[jenkinhill]

I have a commission to set up a similar site for a local artist selling originals with prints and framed prints taken from the original.

There is to be a category for each subject area (eg landscape, animals) and then I will be using a sub-category for each work of art, so each category usually contains the three products, with stock control only for the original, as prints can quickly be made and framed as needed. Just a few are limited editions and for those prints stock control will be used at 50/50 framed/unframed with the stock setting for each adjusted as necessary.

This is just one way to handle this and does provide for your ideal: "it would be nice if a customer could still choose a link from (say) a gallery and have the three options presented to them on one page if that makes sense."  - the gallery is the main category, each sub-category image is of the painting, open that and have the choice of three products (or two is the original is already sold). 

To simplify entering the products, I intend to use the Content Templater component to provide a consistent layout, and product cloning will also speed the process of entry.

[davojeddy]

Thanks!

That's a good explanation and I think it will work well.  I never thought of using categories in that way.  I think I was getting too stuck with how I put it together with the old version so missed the nice features of version 2 such as products linked to multiple categories.

My next problem is to export all the products from version 1 and munge it to fit the new version and the new scheme.

I'll be having some fun with perl over the next few days I think :-)

Thanks again.
dave