Understanding Products

[crthorn]

Hope this question doesn't seem to strange but perhaps I'm just thinking too much or not enough. I've been trying to figure out how to structure the products. I'm selling items that have purchasers will have to know Manufacturer, Model and Finally Chuck Type before they even get a list of purchasable products.

For Instance:

I'm a customer look for a turbine. First I need to know the manufacturer of my drill, then the specific model number and finally the chuck type. Once all these parameters are satisfied, I'm offered a list of 3 types turbines that can be purchased.

So how do I handle these kinds of information that are important but not specifically relative to just one product?


TIA,
Chris

[Jim]

You need to show the information at the top levels as pages not products. Only when you get to the bottom level are the products listed. For example
Have a main page that lists all of the manufacturers. Then pages for each class of item being sold, and another set of pages for model and another set of pages for chuck. Each upper level page has links to the hierarchy of pages that fall under it.

So your main page would list Manufacturers

Black and decker

Bosch

Craftsman

etc.

each of those manufacturers name would be a link to a list of product types that they make like

Drills

Saws

Sanders

etc
Each of the product type names would be a link to a page that describes the models

1/4 in drill
3 /8 in drill
1/2 in drill
etc

each of those names would be a link to a page for the specific model

Model xyz keyed chuck
Model xyz keyless chuck
Model yyy keyed chuck
Model yyy keyless chuck


On each of these pages you could put the individual product parts. For the parts you could list the various items as individual products or subproducts or order options depending on what best fits the product.