Adding products with options to kits

[earthSky]

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!

[AbleMods]

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.....