Database design help - product database 2

[LGJ]

Hello all,

Please can anyone help me with designing a database schema that I am having some difficulties with?

What I have is a load of products that are offered by different shops, like a price comparison website. What I have at present is one table with a row for each product with the following columns:

shop, category, sub-category, productName, manufacturer, description, shopLink, price.

So when you choose a sub category to view ie shoes then all the shoes in the database under sub category shoes are shown on a webpage. In the current design you could then click the shoe name to take you to a page containing further information such as description, price and where you can buy the product.

This is all quite easy but what I ideally would like to do is that if I have the same shoes twice in the DB (different shops sell it) the link on the results page is only shown once and then the detailed page gives the generic description and the two diffent prices offered.

What normalization do I need on my data to enable me to link up a product (name & manufacturer) to many different shops and both with the same product description.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks all

 

[ceh4702]

There are some industry standards for product codes you need to look into. You need to think about using industry standard coding systems before you go off into the deep end.

This is just a suggestion.

I forget what the coding system is for products. Someone may have other suggestions. It breaks down products by types of industries. I forget what they call this coding system. I think We discussed this in a marketing class.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[ceh4702]

Here is an interesting website:

http://www.uc-council.org/upc_background.html

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[LGJ]

thanks for the reply, I was just looking into that page before you posted it.

I cant find anywhere on the web to enter product names and get the UPC codes? It may not exist?

 

[ZmrAbdulla]

Here is a huge collection of free data models

http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/index.htm

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