Creating Product Collections

Collections are primarily used to be displayed on your website and on the POS, but they can also be used within Commerce7 for configuring promotions and coupons.

A product can belong to multiple Collections at once and you can create as many Collections as you'd like.

When you create a Collection, a page for that Collection will be created on your website to display all of the products that it contains. (If the Collection is not showing up on your website, contact your designer.)

In this article:

• Manual Collections: Custom Collections where you select which products you want it to contain. 

• Dynamic Collections: Collections where the system automatically groups products based on the criteria that you set. (ie. All products with a "Product Type" of "Wine".)

• Personal Collections: Collections where the system uses an algorithm to suggest products to your customers based on their recent orders and past buying. (This Collection type is only used for your website, not the POS.)

• Editing 'Featured' Products (VIDEO): Changing the Display Order of your Collection so that specific Products are featured at the top.

Creating a Manual Collection

1. Go to Store > Collections and then click Add Collection
   
   
2. Give your Collection a Title.
   For an example, I'll create a "Staff Picks" collection. You can also add content to explain the collection.
   
3. Under Collection Type, select Manual
4. Click Add Collection at the bottom of the page.

Adding Products to your Collection

You can do this either through the Collection itself, or by editing your specific product.

1. In the Collection, scroll to the bottom of the page and search for your product to add. You can easily add and remove products with the plus or minus sign on the right of each product. 
   
   
2. Change the order the products appear on your website by dragging and dropping each product. Select the cross arrow to the left of the product, hold and drag to the position you want.
   

You can also add products to a collection from the individual product page.

1. In your product, on the right-hand side, find the Manual Collections field
2. Select your new Collection and click Save Product
   

Viewing your Collection on your Website

1. Inside your collection (under Store > Collections), at the bottom of the page you'll see a URL.
2. You can go to this page on your website, to see all products applied to the Collection.
   If you don't see any products, this just means that you need to add some. You can do this either on the Collection page or when editing a specific product.
   
   
   

Viewing your Collection on the POS

1. If you have a Collection that you want to use as a category on the POS, go to Settings > POS Profiles.
2. Here, you can add the Collections that you want to display and drag and drop them to change the display order.
3. When you're done click Save, and go to the POS to see your new Collections in action.
   If you don't see any products, this just means that you need to add some. You can do this either on the Collection page or when editing a specific product.

Creating a Dynamic Collection

Dynamic Collections automatically display and group your products based on specific criteria that you set.

1. To create a dynamic collection, go to Store > Collections and click Add Collection
   
   
2. Give your Collection a Title
   For an example, "Red" collection.
3. Use the Type dropdown and select Dynamic
   
4. Select the Conditions that a product must meet in order to automatically be assigned to your new collection.
   For our example, I'm selecting Wine Type, is equal to, Red.
   
   
5. Save your collection
6. Now that it's created, any products that have a "Wine Type" of "Red", will automatically be added to this product Collection.

Click here to learn how to add, remove and sort collections on your POS.

Creating a Personal Collection

Personal Collections are used to display a personalized set of products specific to each individual customer on your website. We highly recommend setting up personalized collections as part of your Commerce7 setup.

Although there is a bit of design work involved, we feel that personalizing the shopping experience for your customers, right on the homepage, is worth it for both improved customer experience and increased wine sales.

How it works

The system's algorithm uses the customer's recent orders and past buying behaviour to suggest similar products that the customer is most likely to purchase. In the case where there is no customer record (i.e. an anonymous user), the system will use the last 50 web orders to suggest the most popular products.

Setting up a Personal Collection

1. To create a Personal Collection, go to Store > Collections and then click Add Collection
   
   
2. Add a Title
3. Under Type, select Personal
   
4. Decide if you only want it to display products that currently have inventory
5. Set a number for Maximum products to return
   Since Personal Collections are best used on the Homepage of your website, you won't want this number to be too high. Also, keep in mind that you want to offer the most recommended products, so displaying too large a number, makes the recommendations less targeted, depending on how many products you offer.
   
   
6. Click Save and setup is complete!
7. Now that your collection is all set up, you'll want to work with your designer to add it to your website in a key place such as the Homepage so that customers can see right away their recommended products and lead them to a purchase.

Featured Items: Changing the Collection Display Order

Here's how you change the Display Order to define which Products are 'Featured' online:

Featured products appear first in the Collection and have a background color:

Change the order the Products appear on your website by dragging and dropping each Product. Select the cross arrow to the left of the Product, hold and drag to the position you want. The Products that you place at the top will be the ones that display in the featured boxes.