We have a lot of simple products imported into Magento.
There is a new section of the store that allows to configure some of these products. More specific: They can be rented and we ask the user to select the duration.
How best to achieve it without creating new products and manually copying the product contents?
We found an extension that changes the attribute set, but still we should change the product type from simple to configurable…
Any advices?
Best Answer
Considering your requirements, I do not think configurable products is in fact what you are after. You just want to flag an item as 'rented'.
You do not want / or have a seperate line item for the rentable product, as opposed to non-rentable. It is teh same product, same sku.
I suspect you are not 100% familiar with what configurable products are, and when to use them. This will help you:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/difference-between-custom-variants-options-and-configurable-product-type
In my opinion, you want to simply use custom option, and have no need to go change your entire catalog to configurables. (unless you intend to sell a separate sku'd item for the choices)
I have not used custom options in a long time, but I do think they alter the price of the product.
see: http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/create-custom-variants-and-options-of-a-product
Surely you have a test environment where you can actually go test this? and see if it does?