Does anyone know how to display certain categories by SKU and others by description?

We have thousands of products in hundreds of categories and would like to be able to control our display options a bit more.

Product Cart currently has some display options that can be modified on a per category basis, but displaying the products by SKU versus Description is not one of them (although the customer is able to toggle between the two if the optional SKU/Description display drop-down toggle is displayed).

 

We would like to be able to force the default product display of any given category by SKU or description. Our storewise defualt product display is by Description since it is the best overall choice between the two, however we have many categories that are much better suited to be displayed by SKU. (Many manufaturers group similar products within consecutive SKUs)

 

Please see the links below for an illustration of our problem:

 

(Default display is by Description...now choose SKU from the "Sort by" drop down...in this case the products are better off displayed alphabetically (by Description)

 

Now go to this category:

 

(Default display is still by Description...take a look and then choose SKU from the "Sort by" drop down menu. Can you see that when displayed by SKU, these products are grouped together in similar styles and are much more ealisy viewed.)

 

Is there anyone else out there who has a similar need?

Does anyone have a simple solution to this?

If you have a need for this sort of intuitive display option in your own store, please reply to this message so Early Impact can become aware of the need for this type of option.