AbleCommerce Shopping Cart Software

Our client has a fishing tackle store. He wants to be able to let clients order reels that he will customize with the line/tackle of their choice. He already has all the reels in his store. The line has 3 options each with almost a dozen variants. I am under the impression that instead of simply adding the fishing line product to the kit and automatically have the options and variants show up, I will need to add all possible combinations of variants (over 600) individually, and then repeat that task for EVERY reel. Is that correct? If so, is there any component, third-party or otherwise, that will simplify this products. Apart from being a data-input problem, it seems like it could lead to maintenance nightmares if the client needs to revise any of variants in the future. Any help will be MUCH appreciated!

Unfortunately it is a maintenance nightmare any way you look at it. Since different reels will probably offer different line/tackle choices, there's really no way around it. There's just that many possible combinations.

The only solution I can think of is something custom-written than can work with a template product. Then the template product gets copied to the rest of the fishing-reel products in the store.

At least that way when a revision is necessary, you're left with modifying just the template and then hit a custom-written "update all" routine to do the grunt work.....