Possible to group multiple similar colors for search purposes?

[CrystalPhoenix]

We use dozens of subtly different colors in our work, with names that are not readily searchable - for example we have about six different palettes that all fit roughly into Purple.

This is all relating to variable products.

Is there a way to create a script that will connect each color to its basic umbrella color for search purposes? For example Scarlet=Red, Merlot=Red, Sangria=Red and so on.

thanks in advance!

[ThePrimeWeb]

Hey @CrystalPhoenix,

In the individual product's page. If you add the tag "Red" for example on a Scarlet Product, it will appear in the search when you search for Red. For those grouped products you can add the tag "Red" for all of them

[CrystalPhoenix]

These are all variable products. I may be missing something here, but if I have, say 10 color options on the product, and I add 10 color tags, that seems like it’s going to gum up the search. Right now for ex the ones that do have “red” in the color name show up in a search for “red” - but of course “lemon” doesn’t show up for “yellow”.

We’ve considered switching to simple products but the database would be enormous. We’re about 600 items with up to 20 variations each. Really not sure of the best way to go here as search is vital. So open to suggestions.

….if there’s a way to tag a color, I’m missing it completely!

[ThePrimeWeb]

@CrystalPhoenix 

Let's say you have 1 product with 20 different colours that belong in the Green, Yellow and Red groups. If you place the "Green", "Yellow" and "Red" tags in the product. When the user searches for "Red" that product comes up, if the user searches "Yellow", that product comes up, Also if the user searches "Green", that product comes up. I think this might work for you. 

Else, the other "hack" solution is to rename your variants in the "group: colour" format. So your variants will be 

"Red: Scarlet"

"Red: Merlot"

I think the first option will work for you. Try it and see. This would be best way to fix this issue without apps or code change.

[CrystalPhoenix]

Tried it - yes and no.

Take the Lemon variation; it returns in a search for "yellow", but it returns the featured image, which isn't the yellow image. That's what I was afraid of (same result we get in Wordpress, we're coming from, without scripting) 

For our branding we don't want to compromise our color naming conventions, so I'm hoping very hard there's a way around this. 

[ThePrimeWeb]

Hey @CrystalPhoenix,

I wasn't aware of the requirement to have the featured image change. That is not going to be possible without seperating the variants into their own products. Because the single product only has one featured image and that's going to be shown at all times no matter what you search for. On either WooCommerce or Shopify, or any other platform, this particular requirement of having one product with multiple variants, grouping variants to a single search term, and returning the relevant image as the featured image is not a normal scenario because once this feature is implemented, the variant related features that exist now will have to be removed as they are conflicting (in a code perspective). So this would definitely need custom development. But you have to understand what you'll be losing to gain this feature. 

The normal way to do this is to split the variants into their own products. There are apps in the marketplace that help you group products. When a customer selects one of the products and goes into the product page, there will be swatches to click on "variants" which are actually populated by grouping them on the app. With these apps, the catalog, search, and collections will treat the products as individual products and the product page will group them (according to your settings) and show them as variants. 

Hope this helps!

[CrystalPhoenix]

Yes, I'm aware of this.. for the most part,,,, and I was surprised when searching for Red actually returned the Red image, and not the featured one. I was hoping the recent upgrades may have made this possible. We added a custom field in WP to make that filtering work.

I have seen the apps you're referring to but was unsure how they work. This is becoming a bit clearer. So we will need to use simple products, and then use an app to group them as "pseudo variants"... do I have that right?

I really appreciate this, I'm learning quite a bit here.

[ThePrimeWeb]

Hey @CrystalPhoenix,

Yes exactly! Basically if the customer searches for "Yellow" and see's the simple "Lemon" product. They can click into the product and have the "pseudo-variants" be displayed so that they know this isn't just a one colour product and there are actually other colours in the yellow range and other colours as well. That way the options are given to the customer in one page and the single search also works. 

I will send you an example in PM.