Product Custom Field / Characteristic display

-- HikaShop version -- : 4.2.2
-- Joomla version -- : 3.9.13
-- PHP version -- : 5.6.40
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Firefox
-- Error-message(debug-mod must be tuned on) -- : there's no error display. this is a conceptual question

Hello,

The link provided is to our dev instance but there's nothing there you need to see. This question is conceptual in nature and not about a specific bug/problem.

I'm porting a client's old custom-built e-commerce website to Joomla and Hikashop business edition. Great software btw! The old site has product custom fields (kind of like product characteristics or product custom fields in Hikashop). The old site has a total of 90 fields (displayed as a multi-select field) that display in the backend of a product. However, the only fields that show up are fields that are assigned to the product's parent category.

As I was conceptualizing how to bring this data over, into the Joomla Hikashop site... I found that it doesn't seem like Hikashop is structurally suited to store data this way. If I create a product custom field I'll see all 90 of these fields in the backend of every product. If I create category custom fields then the fields will only show up in the backend of the category and not on the product where they need to be.

Do you have any suggestions about how I could achieve this type of hierarchy using the built-in features of Hikashop?

Yes, we don't want to have 90 custom fields in the backend of every product. a) it'll make the custom fields area too big as you mentioned and b) none of the 90 fields are relevant to all products. Some of the fields pertain to T-shirts, while others pertain to Safety glasses, or Safety showers. Having all 90 display will make product administration very difficult as the admin will not know which fields should pertain to a given product. If hikashop custom fields aren't the right fit, is there another part of hikashop that could fill this purpose?