Product with variations

[Peter_G]

I am currently starting to enter a 'product with variations' in my eShop.  I can't quite seem to achieve the look and feel that I think I want - indeed, I'm not sure that the look I am aiming for is sensible and achievable.  In order that I can get an idea of what can be done, would any eShop users out there care to point me to some good examples of their implementations of 'products with variations'?

Regards

Peter_G

qgifts.co.uk

[westcountryclog]

Hi Peter,

Welcome to BT eshop, I've been using this system for nearly 6 years and in my opinion it does everything I want it to do.

Feel free to look at my site www.westcountryclogs.co.uk to see products with variations "in action"

I use it to allow me to have differnet sizes of the same product, in the past I have also listed different colours combinations of the same product along with extra pictures using the gallery feature.

I hope this helps

Regards

Simon Jones

Westcountry Clogs

[Peter_G]

Simon

Thanks for your response - and my compliments on your website.  I am very impressed by the presentation throughout.

I can see that, in your case, the straightforward facilities of product with variations (PwV) work very well.  When the customer selects a size variation, the new page he sees is exactly the same as the original product page (ie the default variation), apart from the variation sub-title.  The image and description remain unaltered and the selection box is still available.

With the PwV I am working on, each variation requires a new image and an extra couple of sentences of descriptive and marketing text.  It doesn't feel quite right to have the page changing to what is clearly a specific variation and yet having the drop-down selection box still available for use.  The page becomes a bit of a mish-mash of the general and the particular.

I think the structure I am after is as follows.

1. General product page with overall description and marketing text, images of all the variations and the drop-down variation selection box.

2. Product variation page, brought up by the selection box on the general page, containing the variation-specific image and text, but no selection box, and maybe a button to return to the general page.

Maybe I'm mistaken in using PwV for this range of products.  Perhaps I should just have lots of separate products.

Again, thanks for your interest.

Regards

Peter_G

www.qgifts.co.uk

[graemewilliams]

Hello Peter once again

It's straightforward to have a specific product description and images for each individual product variation. You can see this example on the Rikki's Music website:

http://www.rikkismusic.com/Shine-Frontier-SI-30-Electric-Guitar-Pack

This product has 16 variations (4x guitar colour, 4x amplifier pack) and it became quite tedious to upload individual text and images for each variation.

I see what you are trying to do with your variations but don't quite understand why. As I'm sure you know you must set one of your product variations to default. This is usually a purchasable product. However, you could try setting the List Price for this product only to zero (possibly also set Own Price to "Yes"), add all your variation images and general marketing text to this variation only. Other variation products could have specific text and images applicable to that variation only.

As for the drop-down variation selection box, I don't see any way of getting rid of it.

Rgds. Graeme

[Peter_G]

Thanks, Graeme, for your comments, helpful and informative, as always. 

I agree that the web page you referenced looks good and clearly does the job of describing the choices and making each one available for the customer to buy.  However, the page does also illustrate the minor irritations that I perceive the customer might encounter when using the ePages variation selection process.

Lets suppose I’m a customer looking to investigate and maybe buy a Shine Frontier SI-30 "Tele" Electric Guitar Pack, 60 amp, red.

1. I get to your ‘Electric Guitar Packs’ page and see you do the SI-30 in a choice of colours and amp packs.
2. I select the SI-30 option on this page and expect to get a general description of the product and a straightforward route into specific variations.  I get the general description but then a detailed description and image of the default, 10 amp, sunburst - I didn’t ask for this!
3. At the bottom of the page I see I can select my required options, so I start by selecting red and am immediately faced with an irritating delay (I’m on my 5-year-old clapped-out shop PC) whilst the site retrieves and displays the page for the 10 amp red variation - I didn’t want this!
4. I then select the 60 amp version and get to the required page, which still gives me the same general description and, just in case I can’t make up my mind, the full set of option selections.

As a customer, what I really want is the general product page, with general descriptions and images and a process that allows me to make a choice from both variations and then drops straight into the particular detailed variation page.  The latter should have no extraneous information about other options, nor wholesale repetition of material I have already viewed on the general page - merely a back button if I want to explore other options.

OK, that’s my whinge over for today.  I think I’ll accept that, without a good deal of fiddling about, ePages won’t do precisely what I think I want to do.  The variation facilities that are there are maybe not optimal, but quite acceptable and I will operate within the constraints imposed.

Thanks for tolerating my ramblings.

Regards

Peter_G

www.qgifts.co.uk

[graemewilliams · Accepted solution]

I see what you are saying but I've never considered it to be a major inconvenience. All variations are still only one or two mouse clicks away.

Instead of using the drop-down menu option for selcting variations you could try the list view. This presents all variations in a table, which could get quite big depending on your number of variations. Alternatively there is the image selection or even coverflow.

BTW - When I test on my computer the pages load very quickly so I don't experience any kind of irritating delay. To help with this I suggest you try using Firefox. It loads pages significantly quicker than IE.