Browsing and organizing categories

[albertoglo061a]

We re migrating from a custom solution to Magento.

Everything looks on place, except for our categories organization. As our catalog is a bit complex.

An example, easy to understand, motorbike parts:

Categories: brakes an tires.

Right now we offer to browse our catalog first by brand and model and version.

Example:
Yamaha -> YZF-R1 -> 2020 Version -> Brakes
Harley-Davison -> Street -> Street Rod 2019 -> Brakes

The same brake part is shared between both bikes.

If we create Yamaha as Categorie -> Street as Categorie, etc... we will have thousands and thousands of categories and will have to add the same parts to dozens / hundreds of categories. Maybe not practical and not performant?

If there a way we can keep only basic categories ( Brakes, Tyres ), and use another property, solution to browse our catalog per brand / model, etc...?

In our custom solution we keep two separate trees, one for categories , and another one for motorbikes. When you have selected your motorbikes we display all Categories for thay motorbike.

Thnx for your help!

PS: Motorbikes is only an example that helps to understand our situation.

[Robert Rand]

What you're describing is usually addressed by a Year Make Model addon. There are Magento extensions that can provide this functionality: https://marketplace.magento.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=year%20make%20model&ext_platform=Magento%202...

These are also sometimes listed as Parts Finders: https://marketplace.magento.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=parts%20finder&ext_platform=Magento%202&ext_...

So, while the main product might live in a category called Motorcycle --> Brakes, most users would filter down by their year+make+model to see which products in your store would fit their needs. This is different from general filtering, which uses slightly different logic. That's because these attributes needed to be interwoven. Otherwise, if you tried to use Magento's native attributing and tried to tag a product as being a fit for a "2010" "Toyota" "Camry" and a "2011" "Honda" "Accord",  by tagging the product as good for both 2010 and 2011, you'd get mismatches of a 2010 Accord and 2011 Camry.

There are also SaaS solutions that can do a good job of managing this for your site. Examples include Nextopia/Searchspring (two great companies that recently merged), and InstantSearch+. 

Best of luck!

[madhuresan_ramanan]

Hello @albertoglo061a,

I think your talking about the Magento 2 part finder module it allows you to browse the product by choosing Make, Model, Variant and year then fetch related products based on your selection.

Maybe my solution here in the link will help as to accomplish your goals.

If my answer is useful, then give kudos and accept as solution

Best regards
Madhuresan