We all love fast development. Clients want to have the team who will be able to finalize their online store as soon as possible. They define the design, add a few test products, set up transaction emails and are anxious to see their online store online. In some cases, one week before the launch, client starts to input the products. If he is unfamiliar with Magento, there is a high chance he will focus on “Add Product” button first. Woah… We missed one step before this: Attributes and Attribute sets.
As defined on Magento site, an attribute set is a collection of attributes. Let’s imagine we are selling a shirt. In addition to the default Magento attributes, you want to show your customers some extra information in the front-end:
- Color
- Shirt Size
- Manufacturer (Brand)
- Material (ex. Cotton, wool, …)
Attribute set is nothing more than product type in your online store. Shirts will have different attributes than watches or sunglasses. So, before you stat inserting the products directly under “Default” attribute set where you will put them all in the same group, try to think about what attribute sets will you have. Assign relevant attributes to the relevant attribute sets and only than start adding products.
Do not do this too fast because you might end doing something that is not logical. One of the common example is the “Size” attribute. When a merchant sells Shoes and Shirts, he usually uses the same attribute “Size” there. However, it would be much better to separate those and have “Shoe Size” and “Shirt Size” attribute since those have different values. They both can be labeled the same, but we must be sure they will be separate entities in the database.
To summarize the point: Do not start adding products before you created the attribute sets you will use. If you are interested how to create attribute sets, check Magento’s knowledge base.
Thanks for your article.
But how add the Shirt Size (XX,XXl, ect) using installer from app/code/local folder(module) ?
Hey Igor,
I am not sure what exactly are you wishing to do? Can you be more specific? If you refer to attribute creation, adding those and their values should be an easy task to do even manually. I don’t think that you need import script for this. Or you mean something else?
Is it possible to create checkboxes and if they are ticked images will show?
I need help with Managing Attribute and Managing Attribute Set—
My doubt is that if i have 2 or more products where there is a common attribute, then magento doesnt allow the common attribute to be used.
Eg: now Shirt and Pant have different tables but the color column can be same like ‘Black, White’
also i am trying to this with configurable product
The error is ‘Value must be unique’
Advice needed ASAP
i created Attributes and Attribute sets . but product attribute not displaying on product page .
someone has an idea ?
The analytical part of my mind was very much agree with your proposal: with these distinctions “shoe_size” and “shirt_size” we get a more analitic model, and also the person who creates a product has only the options appropriate for the type of product : very good.
However (motivated by a hard migration OSC), I’ve been thinking a bit more, aided by the synthesizer part of my mind, and I wonder:
In addition to the possible confusion for the product creator (ie: assuming for granted that he will choose the appropriate options in each case), what problems might arise from set an attribute “size” common to all products that need?.
For example, there magento demo of the attribute “color”, common to the entire catalog. In category navigation there isn’t inconsistencies: if we looking at the category “shoes”, layered navigation panel only shows the options of the shoes.
On this demo there are “shoe_size” and “shirt_size”
Finally: Does anyone could point out a case that definitely (apart from the above case the creation of a product) prove that is functionally convenient (because advantages or disadvantages) to perform these differences on the design of the attributes?
- An advantage of non-distinguished “color”: we can search green products in full catalg
thank you very much!
Hello,
I have added manufacturer as an attribute. Also i would like to know whether it is possible to upload an image to the each manufacturer and display it in page manufacturers
Looking for your reply!!!!!!!!!!!!!!