Considering Magento -- few functionality questions.

[Naldinho]

I'm considering Magento for the next store but I have a couple of basic questions.

1) Does Magento allow for fixed quantities rather than the normal text box that accepts any numeric value?

I saw an extension that offers that as an option but I was hoping that extension was for previous versions and that feature would be part of native Magento in a more recent edition -- I have no problem paying for modules but I want to import the product catalog and I'm assuming that import feature will be limited to Magento native data.


2) Does Magento have an upper limit on product combinations?

Other platforms I've used start having issues with the number of combinations gets too high -- typically something like ~3500 combinations starts to cause problems. 3500 might sound like a lot but if you have a product with 6+ attributes and 2 to 8 options per attribute you get to 3500 pretty easily. 

3) Are conditional attributes possible? Basically changing the product customization options based on choices customers make -- either native or as an add-on extension is fine.

Thanks in advance for taking the time. If I end up going with Magento once I know enough to be helpful I'll contribute to the community.

[Tom Robertshaw · Accepted solution]

Hi there, and welcome to the world of Magento!

1) Possibly, depending on your exact requirements. You can't disable the quantity box from within the admin area but you can restrict on each product the number that are able to be added to the basket, and also specify the qty increments if that's helpful.  You would need to edit the theme to remove the qty box so it's not shown on the product page. 

2) From my experience with Magento 1, product pages with a large number of product options can slow down the page load. Loading information about 3500 variants could well be straining it in some areas. Do all options eventually map down to a physical stock item or are they just custom options/personalistions on a product?

3) I've not seen conditional options out of the box before. How I've known this to be implemented is to have all options configured on a product in admin and then code the logic over when each option should be shown as part of the store code/theme logic. 

[Naldinho]

Thank you. Those are pretty much the same as the platform I've been using with the exception that they do have an extension that allows or conditional attributes.

That is pretty much how I address the fixed quantities problem -- edit template to hide the quantity box on the product page and everywhere else it appeared and then create a quantity attribute so the sale is always for 1 but since the customer never see that and only sees the quantity attribute to them it looks like an order of that quantity. It is not the most elegant solution and it feeds into the too many combinations problem but it works. I assume the same approach would be possible with Magento once I get familiar with how Magento works. 

[Tom Robertshaw]

Yeah, I'm sure something similar would be possible in Magento. If one thing Magento is good at is being customised. It'll take a little bit of development effort and so the most difficult part of the task if it's something you're going to take on yourself is getting up to speed with how to develop for it.