Is it possible to copy product pages?

I'm building products into my PowerStore. Each product is a picture (photograph) and depending on whether the product is a paper print or a canvas print the product page and options are the same for every product. The only thing that changes is the picture thumbnail and a larger image inserted into the large description. As an example with paper prints I set up the product page with checkout description, short description and long description. I then have 3 selectable options, 12x19 inch, 18x24 inch and 24x36 inch. Each of these options has a different price and the pricing is the same independent of the picture being sold. A second option set is applied which applies a print coating with 3 options, none, gloss and semi-matte. Each of these again changes the price of the product. In all cases these options and prices are the same for ever paper print product. What I'd like to do is just copy an existing product and then go into the new copy and change out the unique product title and the image thumbnail and larger embedded image. This would save a huge amount of time from having to add six options and prices for each product page when they are all the same with the exception of the title and picture.

Is this possible? Can I somehow duplicate an existing product somehow to shortcut all the setup time involved in entering each product?

I'm still in the process of evaluating PowerStore. I've been working on it for a couple of days now having installed it Monday and purchased it late last Thurs. night. So far, I've made a fair amount of progress in my evaluation and assuming the back end works as expected with PayPal when I get to the point of testing it I will probably keep the product. What I'm requesting above would go a large way to convincing me that it's reasonably easy to work with. I have to say that I'm a bit freaked out in that you only provide post-installation support for free through forums. Assuming a quick response to questions like these I don't think that will be a problem but I find the one-time charges for support on a product of this cost prohibitive and obviously when working with software that's involved in the transaction of money and selling products, one really doesn't want problems.

Thanks for your response in advance!

~Kim

Just to speed up the answers to this problem, assuming there is no way to actually duplicate a product inside PowerStore 4, is it possible to use an SQL tool to open the data table for the products directly, insert rows with the updated information that copied from prior product entries and have PowerStore render the product pages directly from manipulating the data table data? Hopefully I'm making myself clear. I have a tool called Navicat that allows me to open the PowerStore 4 data tables and view the raw data stored in the product table. I can see the single product I've created as 9 records based on the options available and each field is filled with the appropriate information. Is it possible to replicate those rows in the table by creating new blank records and copying the similar information to all products to the new records, fill in the information that's different and then go back into PowerStore 4 and see the product in the product listing inside the store? Will PowerStore take a raw data record entry and create a new product page around that data without having to actually set up the page in PowerStore?

Thanks for your response to this request. I really need to find a way to duplicate product records more easily than going through the brute force method of creating each product individually. It's going to take a huge amount of time doing each individually when so many of the products are really the exact same product template and the only change is the associated picture.

power store 4 does not have the ability to duplicate products.


It is feasible to copy a product record directly in the database using an sql query, you will need to know the productID of the record you wish to copy, the query would look like:

INSERT INTO ps4_products (ProductSKU,
  ProductName,
  ProductPrice,
  ProductRetailPrice,
  ProductShipping,
  ProductWeight,
  ProductCartDesc,
  ProductShortDesc,
  ProductLongDesc,
  ProductThumb,
  ProductImage,
  ProductUpdateDate,
  ProductStock,
  ProductLive,
  ProductUnlimited,
  ProductStartDate,
  ProductEndDate,
  ProductDigital,
  ProductMaxDownloads)
SELECT ProductSKU,
  ProductName,
  ProductPrice,
  ProductRetailPrice,
  ProductShipping,
  ProductWeight,
  ProductCartDesc,
  ProductShortDesc,
  ProductLongDesc,
  ProductThumb,
  ProductImage,
  ProductUpdateDate,
  ProductStock,
  ProductLive,
  ProductUnlimited,
  ProductStartDate,
  ProductEndDate,
  ProductDigital,
  ProductMaxDownloads FROM ps4_products WHERE ProductID = 1210

I would strongly suggest making a backup of your database before trying this though.


This wont have any bearing on product options, you will need to manually add any options for the new product record that is created.

I kind of suspected that was the case and to be truthful it doesn't really help much to just be able to create a new product record without the options. It's the options that require so much deliberate attention in creating each product. It gets time consuming and rather complicated the more options you make available. In my case, based on the product I'm offering it could be very involved. I could even add an option for the type of paper.

That said, would you please consider passing this on to the developers as a possible update/upgrade development project. I'm sure that it's within their power to make that an easy update to the code base and it would greatly serve a purpose. In general, it's like being able to set up a product template to work off of where all like products inherit the same properties (options) so all you have to do is swap out the actual product ID and picture and you've created another entry. I'm sure you're following my drift here. Anyone working with a large product offering and complicated option set is spending inordinate amounts of time doing the same thing over and over, when it would be easy to automate that process in the code and save hours and hours of time setting up the store. PLEASE!! Let them know this is a request for a new feature. It's worth money...because time is precious.

Thanks for the quick response!!

~Kim

I have added a feature request for this.