Re-use Variants

-- HikaShop version -- : HikaShop [1407140009]
-- Joomla version -- : 3.3.3
-- PHP version -- : 5.3.18

Hi,

I have products from different manufacturers. each manufacturer has up to 30 color variants. Not all colors will be available to all products. As I start to build out the products I realized that the system is creating a lot of variants that are in reality the same.

The variants for each manufacturer will have the same code and the same image regardless of product. Can one set of variants for manufacturer "A" be used on all of manufacturer "A's" products without creating 20-30 variant per product?

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks for your help and advice

Mike

Hi,

In you case I think that using "options" could be a better solution.
Create one option per manufacturer with a set of colors, and add the option to the products.
This way no variants will be created.

If the color don't change the price value, you can potentially use custom fields instead of variants or options.

Thank you I will investigate that. As I was moving forward I realized I could not find a way to make the selection of a variant required. Is this possible?

One is already pre-selected by default. So there is no need for that usually. Unless you create an extra variant called "please select something" that you set as default value. In that case, just set the "quantity" of that variant to 0 and/or disable it via the "manage variants" area of the product and the "add to cart" button won't display for it until you select another variant.