Alternative to filtering categories

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I have already seen that filtering is only possible on Products. But in my case it would be a great feature. So looking for a solution/workaround. (Any ideas might help, but changing existing code is one I would not prefer, as this would give problems when updating !)

To clarify my situation:
I have 30 bike-brands, each bike brand has multiple engine sizes, and for each brand-enginesize there are multiple production years, finally resulting in a specific biketype
I will create a category (alias) like bikebrand-enginesize-buildyear (which will contain the articles that can be used on that particular bike), which will (for now) be a total of 2500 categories !!
I would just love to have a filter option for each bikebrand, to select enginesize and/or buildyear.

Alternative would be to have each bikebrand have different category (engine size), followed by buildyear in that specific engine size category. But this would generate a major tree, and customer would be required to go through it (or free search) to find his/her bike.
Apart from the huge amount of additional categories, this will result in an aditional issue in displaying, as the selection of enginesize and buildyear only require a title to be shown, but the final category for the bike I would like to show the additional info (enginesize, buildyear and some other information). So the final list of categories to chooze from should be a table, with specific fields shown.
(Hope I have explained my issue clearly enough).

One of the possible solutions that popped in my mind, was to build a product, which links directly to the specific bike category. Hence I could use filtering. But I don't know if/how that would be possible.
Another option would be to just build an html page with filters, but that would require extra steps when bike types are added or removed. (Perhaps I could find a way to build it dynamically, but even then it's not really a nice solution when you have a supurb shop software product at hand)

Any hints or tips are welcome..

Hi,

Reading your post, it appears as if you were about to create a (sub)category for each and every product feature and/or combinations thereof.

Have you considered using custom fields of the type "product" for these features instead? Actually, that's what they're for...

You'd use brands as intended, maybe a few categories for the most basic distinct product differentiations, and for everything else product custom fields.
You could then create (dynamic) filters for all this including the custom fields, providing both, you a comfortable, easily manageable way for product entering and administration, and your customers a comfortable way of filtering/finding products.

www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/i...shop-field-form.html
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/i...hop-filter-form.html

I think you missed the point (or I'm missing yours ).
These are not yet products !!!!

I will have about 2000 products. Each product fits on one or more of the bike-types.
I have the relationship of product to bike type. e.g. ProductA can fit on BMW-600c-1999, BMW-600cc-2000, HONDA-650-2002,HONDA-65-2003. But not on other bikes.
Once the final bike selection is done based on BikeBrand, Engine Size and build year, the products are listed. And then I will use a filter to be able to filter those on e.g. brake pads, battery, wheel bearings etc....

In your suggestion I would have to create products based on brand, engine size and build year, which would imply that I would end up with ProductA haveing 4 entries.

As stated, perhaps I misunderstand this....

I can add custom field to categories & products. But I cannot filter in categories .... right ?
So what you are saying is that I should add my info in custom fields in the product itself. BUT. one product can belong to several motorbiketypes, so I would be entering EACH specific bike type into that custom field. I want to select on 'BikeBrand' 'cc' and 'year'.... however, that should then be in one custom field ! That could imply some (probably a lot of) products having over 100 entries in that custom field.......

Perhaps if you check the file I attached it would clarify my issue a bit more. The file contains a list of Honda bikes (type,year,cc) that this part fits on. As you can see this part fits on 117 Honda bikes (different build years). And than I did not yet have the same list for any of the other 29 bike brands....

Hi,

If I'm not completely mistaken, I see in your file only one single product: MOT_07-HQ2711

Correct me if I'm wrong, but:

1. It's the same single product which fits 117 bike types. Yet, it's only one product (not 117 different ones).
2. You want your customers to find it easily, e.g. by product brand, bike brand, bike type/model, build year, etc. Categories and filters seem to be the appropriate way.

So, you'll probably want product brands (here it's "Brembo"), product categories (here it's "Remblokken"), and a couple of custom fields (of type "product") for the rest of the columns such as bike brand, type, etc. Any and all of this can be filtered, mostly or all even dynamically.

From your list I'm assuming that you don't need one custom field for each of the columns, but "Honda CB 250 F Hornet 1996-2001" could actually be a single option in a custom field labeled e.g. "Bike model & year". Except, if you want people to start filtering with "CC" or "Year" only - sure, then make it individual custom fields.

You can limit custom fields to certain categories, products, etc, though with dynamic filtering that's not even really necessary. But it might help for your management of custom fields. However, depending on those limitations you'll fewer or more fields, but basically only one per filter type you want and limitation you set.
Again, the number of values in a field depends on e.g. if you (for some reason) want to have a custom field for build year and make each year an option (1996, 1997, 1998, ...), or make it year ranges (1996-2001, 1989-1990, ...), or include it with the bike type/model as shown above.

It really depends on how complicated you want to make it. But in fact, it looks - and could be - very simple. Which is what most customers prefer, actually.

Just keep in mind that your list example is only one single product...

Let's start with a thank you for the quick response and being patient with me in explaining things. (And hopefully stay that patient )

You are correct that the file contains 1 single article. Fitting 117 different bike types (even more, once all other bike brands are added).
(there will be a few thousand articles, and each fitting a different group of bike types, so one product might fit bike A,B and C, where another product can fit bike B and D whereas product 3 can fit A and D)

Customer will want to have an easy way of finding the/all products for their bike, so intuitively they will select their bike brand, engine size and build year, which then presents them with one or more models that fit those values....
In case of the example file you have, if they select Honda, 650cc, 1990 they will be presented with two bike types

Honda NTV 650 Reverse 1988-1997
Honda NX 650 Dominator 1988-1999

They then select their appropriate bike and will then be presented with the full list of products that fit that particular bike and specific build year. As that list might be large as well, they could then filter on things like "remblokken", which will then present them with several brands and types of "remblokken".

I still believe, from what I know so far, that I will have to build a category tree (or something similar), which navigates the customer from their bike brand, to the different engine sizes, followed by their possible build years then presenting them with a list of bike models, and after selecting the approrpiote model give them the product listing.

I must admit, I have not yet looked really deep into the filtering part. I hope to start experimenting with this soon. But in theory I still don't see that it would fit my full needs.

Hi again,

"Patience" = no problem here. "Fun" would be a better term - it's an interesting case.

Would it work with categories? Sure. Except, the tree would indeed get both long and wide. And so would be the "trip" a customer would be required to take: from "main category" (bike brand) to "sub cat level 1" (engine) to "sub cat level 2" (year) to "sub cat level 3" (bike types) to "sub cat level 4" (part type), and that doesn't even separate "part type brands", yet...

Filters, mostly built on custom fields: You'd have a few dropdowns in the frontend, that's all. Can be of type "single" or "multiple" - the latter for even greater flexibility. One for each: bike brand, engine, year (or year range), part type, part type brand. Plus maybe one for "Sort by". Customer starts with whatever he wants: some might prefer bike brand, others maybe year... doesn't matter, the remaining ones will then only show what's available based on the choice(s) made thanks to dynamic filtering. Upon clicking the "Filter button" he gets exactly what he chose, fewer or more products, or eventually the one he was looking for. No risk of "getting lost" while clicking through lists of (sub)categories with mostly stuff he doesn't need or want to see. Highly intuitive and effective. And a piece of cake for you to set up and administer.

Actually, you could do both!

Just my 2 cents. Your call.

Haha... "Fun" it is then
And I love the challange as well.....

Ok. The category setup would indeed result in a 'trip' to take by the customer.

I'm just looking into the custom fields.... but don't yet see that this could help.
Think I will have to start playing with it and some articles to see how that would actually work for me.......

Oke.... think I have an example to show my problem with the filtering......

I created custom fields BikeBrand, EngineSize and BuildYear. (Not even bothering about the part type)
I have a product 07-HO26SD which fits on :
HM Moto - 125 - 2005 through 2007
Honda - 125 - 1984 through 2007
Honda - 650 - 1993 through 2007

So I added the product and checked HM Moto and Honda as brands, 125 and 650 cc for engine sizes, and 1993 through 2007 for years.

If I would now select HM Moto, 650cc, 2005 I will get this product listed, but it will sure not fit the bike !!

Can you post some screenshots of what you did/created?

See attachement.....

Brief wrap-up in case the official support crew is wondering:

After brief communication per PM the custom fields and filters are basically working. The rest is probably for @storeitonline to continue reviewing structure plus some more trial & error, but ultimately he'll succeed.