Usability issue: separate products vs products with attribute

[ultimatebondagerope]

Hi everyone, I'm in the process of creating my first site with Prestashop. 

I would like to receive some feedbacks and tips/suggestion about one issue. This one in particulare is not a technical one, but rather a conceptual one.

Let's go step by step.

I am creating the site www.ultimatebondagerope.com.

I will not have a huge turnover in terms of products, so I might decide to have special offers now and then, expecially on rope kits.

That said, the question is this.

Let's take, for example, asanawa jute rope. I can have that rope in 3 diameters (5mm, 6mm and 7mm) and the kits can be made of 6, 8 or 10 pieces of rope. Each rope can be 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5 or 9 meter long. So if I create each set singularly (ie as a product group of ropes). Last, but not least, each kit can come untreated (ie as it comes out from the reel) or pre-treated.

So I'll end up having 90 distinct combinations (3x3x5x2).

This might end up clogging the page with products that in the end might look "too" similar to each other (expecially considering that there will be virtually no turnover in the products), but would give me the possibility to create special offers on a single combination (ie. I want to "push" on all the 10 ropes sets).

 

The other option is to create products with attributes and that would simplify the page (if going that way, I would create rope kits like "Asanawa 5 mm - 6 ropes kit" and then add the attribute regarding the number of ropes (6, 8 or 10) and the length of each rope.

But  I don't know if it is possible (and how) to promote special offers on specific combinations, ie all pre-treated ropes, in a way that is easily visible (just changing the price of that attribute is not as appealing, isn't it?)

 

Have you had to face similar choices before? Which option would you recommend and why?

[Paulito]

Hello

If you are not bothered about stock control then:

Use attributes/values on all your products and when you want to have an offer, you can create these products seperately to appear on your Specials/Price drop page.

 

Paul

[ultimatebondagerope]

Hello

If you are not bothered about stock control then:

Use attributes/values on all your products and when you want to have an offer, you can create these products seperately to appear on your Specials/Price drop page.

 

Paul

But then wouldn't it mean that users can find the same product with two different prices? I would like to minimize the misunderstandings...

[Paulito]

Hello

 

Yes it would, but you only need to remove the Attributes/Values from the products to are giving  Special offers on.

 

You said you offers will be infrequent, so, perhaps, not a big problem

 

paul

[ultimatebondagerope]

I said that the products will not change (rope is rope... it doesn't go out of fashion every 4 months). So I will have to work quite a bit with special offers, ie. this month there will be a 20% off on 6mm jute rope sets of 8 or 10 pieces of any lenght (which means 10 different products since I have 5 possible rope lenghts...)

what would you suggest?