How to tackle this product / catalog structure

Currently working with a client selling a “hardware” type product and wants the flow to be as follows:

User chooses a door style [multiple styles, could be categories]
User then chooses a “finish” [multiple finishes]
User then chooses product type [multiple types]
User then gets to the list of actual products

The issue is, the same product types appear in every different finish, so my structure would look something like this:

– style A
– finish A
– product type A
+ Product with size/hinge variations
+ Product with size/hinge variations
+ Product with size/hinge variations
– product type B
– etc..
– finish B
– product type A
+ Product with size/hinge variations
+ Product with size/hinge variations
+ Product with size/hinge variations
– product type B
– etc..
– style B
– finish A
– product type A
+ Product with size/hinge variations
+ Product with size/hinge variations
+ Product with size/hinge variations
– product type B
– etc..
– finish B
– product type A
+ Product with size/hinge variations
+ Product with size/hinge variations
+ Product with size/hinge variations
– product type B
– etc..

So, this will create a large amount of essentially duplicate products, for example, one basic product type will appear in a product type under each different finish and under each style. It just seems like a lot of repetitive work.

I also thought of creating the physical product with the finish and the style simply being variations along with size and hinge variations, but then it gets very complicated with tons of variations to manage.

I did not know if there was a simple way to set some global variables, such as “choose a style” and “choose a finish” with some sort of global toggle, so that when a product is added to the cart it has this additional information by default?

Any advice on the best way to handle this? There is a large amount of products in a spreadsheet, so I was looking at using a CSV import tool. The project has a very small budget and really I’m only laying the groundwork so the client can start populating the site on his own.

Very new to woocommerce so any advice would be helpful.

Charles

https://wordpress.org/plugins/woocommerce/