[Solved] Which module to use for thousands of products?

[ameagher]

Hi All,

How do the 'Products', 'Cataloger' and 'Shop Made Simple' modules stack up when you need to (eventually) have thousands of products listed, but with no ecommerce - i.e. no shopping cart or payments etc... just a very big catalog really?

I also need to create small groups of related products when a product is selected for viewing. Think this would be simple enough, just not sure how efficient it will be!

I also need to have a good few custom fields, and for this reason, I'm leaning towards 'Products'.

I know this is a very general question. I just want to know if anybody has tried large numbers of products with any of the above modules, or if you'd recommend something else!

Thanks,
Anthony

[Duketown]

I speak only for the Shop Made Simple situation:
Within this module there is no limit to the number of products. Some remarks are however:
- Grouping is done in categories. There are 3 levels of categories;
- It is with the current version (0.1.4) not possible to easily search for one specific product (not by id nor by description);
- Loading of image can be done using FTP, but the link between image and product must be clear (since you will have to type in the correct image name;
- Per product it is up to you how many attributes you will define.
- There is no fixed set of attributes per category (leaving you with the flexibility to either use a lot of attributes for one product in one category but another product in the same category without any attributes);
- There is no upload facility for product;

Although the above is not available, I will be happy to help out and prepare some additional functions.

Duketown

[ameagher]

Hi Duketown!

Thanks for your quick response.

I need to look at how search will interact with the products catalog. I definitely need to be able to search products by description at a minimum.

Thanks, for your offer of help. I need to explore a bit and think about what exactly I need.

It's hard to know without prior experience what the performance hit with any of the modules would be if there were many products. I don't expect to have too many users searching at exactly the same time, but I still expect that the queries could be slow!

Anthony

[calguy1000]

The 'Products'  module has no limit to the number of products.  Though we haven't really tested with hundreds or thousands of products.  It supports both 'flat' categories, and a product can be a member of any number of those, and 'hierarchical' categories, of which it can only be a member of one location in the hierarchy.  There is a method to browse products by hierarchy, and by category.

Some optimization may need to be done at the database level to ensure that indexes are properly created, etc.  I currently only create keys for the product id.... so it may be necessary to create indexes on product name, etc.  but this can be done at any time.

Products module does integrate with the CMS Search module and you can search by description, name, or any of the text type custom fields (iirc).

[ameagher]

Hi Calguy,

Thanks for replying.

Well, given the search module integration, Products seems like my only option.

I understand what you are saying about the optimisation of the indexes. However, I'm a little confused with the flat category idea! Is this a category with no sub-categories and which contains only products?

I need hierarchical categories! And I think I need to have some products as a member of different categories. I need to do some more work on this aspect of the design.

I'll let you know what I come up  with!


Thanks,
Anthony

[calguy1000]

In products module there is a 'categories' tab, there you can define multiple flat categories.  Then when you edit or create a product there will be a checkbox field for each category, allowing a product to be a member of multiple flat categories.  it's a form of 'tagging'.  I took this idea from 'CompanyDirectory'.  so a product can be for example a 'an adult product', and a 'youth product'

There is also a 'hierarchy' tab where you can define a product hierarchy, and when editing or creating a product you can select which position in the hierarchy the product lies under.... it's a method of 'sorting'.  I got this code from News.  So a product can be inside the 'Clothing > Shirts > Sweaters > Turtleneck' hierarchy.

[ameagher]

Hi Duketown, Calguy,

Thanks, for your feedback.

I was using the Cataloger module for another small project and I was originally thinking of using this, but i don't see it having the flexibility of Products. Having installed the Products module it seems to be what I need.

Shop Made Simple doesn't have some of the functions I need yet. But it seems suitable for another project I know of.

Thanks for your comments and thanks for the module.

I'll post when the project is finished. And if there's anything interesting I'll post on that too.

Thanks,
Anthony