I used to read and contribute at DP about a decade ago but have lost my old account details. So this is technically my first post I collect and trade used video games (mainly older retro titles). I am in the process of creating an e-commerce website using Wordpress & WooCommerce. However I'm very green when it comes to E-Commerce so my biggest question is about how to go about the product listings. I may have 5 copies of one game title. However each copy is in different condition while some may include a manual or original box. Therefore they are really 5 unique products with up to 5 different prices. It would therefore be simpler just to add each copy as a unique product. But I would imagine this will damage SEO since products will come and go rather than having one static product page for each item that stays and is either just in stock or out of stock. So I'm thinking the best option would be to create "variations" such as very good condition, good condition, acceptable condition, etc. Then have stock levels and some pics for each different condition. That way customers will only have the one product to view while being able to choose from different condition items within that product. Search engines will also get to see one page that stays around instead of many duplicate type content pages that come and go. Just wanting to make sure I'm on the right track. It would be simpler and easier for me just to create individual products for each copy but I want to do what is best for user experience and search engines, not me.
You are surely thinking in the right direction, having varients on one product page, but I don't know if woocommerce supports that or not.
Not sure why there is a need, but if there will be a lot of duplicated content and you assume they will simply browse it then show for google only something like canonical url each time and you would be good to go anyway on many things absolutely.