Magento Color Attributes

Question

Color Attribute Explanation

Attribute understanding / explanation

I have read a lot about attributes but I am struggling with a bit of understanding in how they will work with my particular setup.

I have a product database with 10 configurable products each with 3 sizes (S, M, and L) and each with 3 colors. The problem is that some of them have the same colors others are different. For example:

Product 1 (Red, Blue, Green)
Product 2 (Red, Brown, Yellow)

In total I have 90 sku's. and about 18 colors. When setting up the atrributes I would like color to be a filterable attribute on the front end and it is a variable used in purchasing the configurable product.

I am trying to better understand how the attributes work. Should I create all 18 options for color and then Magento will only display the options available based on the simple products attached?

Any help or insight here would be greatly apprechiated.

Answer 1

Product attributes are global. This means that color, for example, appears on all your products. So, you have to define all your colors ( 18 colors) and for every product to choose the correct colors.

Answer 2

1) You will need to create all possible options for the color attribute.

2) You would then create a configurable product, and save it.

3) Edit the configurable product, and click Associated products. You then quick create child products from here for each variation of the product you have.

Magento will then only show these variations on the frontend and ignore any options for which there are no variations, or which have no items in stock.