Need to enhance the use of attribute templates

[mdurkee]

I have a store that sells t-shirts. I opted to use the attribute templates when I set up the store thinking it would be the most efficient. When a size/color combination sells out, it does not show up as a choice for the customer to select.
So far, pretty good.
I have had many customer complaints because they have a hard time understanding how to navigate this. It's a little difficult to explain but say the choices upon page load s blue but is only available in M, L, XL - The next color is white and it does not have any of the M, L, XL but only Sm and XXL so the color swatch doesn't even show up upon page load. Once the customer figures out how to get all the color swatches to come up, they are able to find the size they want.
Not sure how to overcome all this.

Next, I hear almost every single day!! "I just want to see all the white t-shirts that are available in my size. I tried to get some help with a custom search module (Thanks Kent M.) but it is difficult to search on template attribute fields and include whether the items are in stock or not.
Is there a way that I could just create a new page that has only white shirts in stock for every style number in the store??
From a customer's point of view, this is a reasonable request but from the point of view of selecting this from the database it is pretty tricky.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[nottheusual1]

Re: Need to enhance the use of attribute templates

These guys do a very good job:

http://www.blankapparel.com/T-Shirts_100-Cotton.htm

They show available colors on the cat page with a drop down, but it's how they handle the product page that's notable.

http://www.blankapparel.com/Jerzees_363.htm

The availability info changes in a tabular format.

[mdurkee]

Re: Need to enhance the use of attribute templates

Ok - Well if the Miva Merchant system is not able to do a search on these types of things, do you think there is a way to build a page that would have the attribute template on it to use as a filter and only show what the customer selects in the filter?
For instance - if they choose size Medium - we could populate the page with all the styles in the category that are available in size Medium (that have available inventory).

Searching and/or filtering by size, color and price range is a hugely common thing in ecommerce sites and we should figure out some way to do it.

Should I move this thread over to the dream features?
Maxanne

[anne226]

Re: Need to enhance the use of attribute templates

We are in need of this search by size also, especially with awareness of inventory.

Anne

[Kent Multer]

Re: Need to enhance the use of attribute templates

We are in need of this search by size also, especially with awareness of inventory.
Anne

I've written modules to do this for a number of stores. Maxanne's is more complex than most, because she uses attribute templates and also inventory variants; all of that together makes for some tricky database lookups. But your store may not be so difficult. You can drop me a line by email to discuss a module for your store.

Thanks --