Merchandising
Explore tools and features you can use to merchandise your products, such as creating dynamic Product Listing Pages (PLPs), automated Callouts and Sorting strategies.
Before we start, what is a Product Listing Page?
Product Listing Pages, or PLPs, display a curated list of products within a specific group or theme. They help customers browse and discover items relevant to their needs or interests. Depending on your current platform, you may know them as 'collections', 'categories' or simply 'listings' pages.
Create PLPs and populate them with Display Groups
Venditan Commerce includes a dedicated Product Listing Page Creation System, enabling you to:
Generate new PLPs on demand.
Control the products that will be featured on the page.
Display Groups
You define the products within the PLP by setting up a Display Group.
Display Groups give you the flexibility to display products that belong to one or multiple combinations of:
Product Categories
Brands
Departments
Sales Audiences
Product Tags
For example, you could set up a Display Group to use products that contain the following information:
Men (Sales Audience)
Adidas (Brand)
Trainers (Product Categories)
The result would be a PLP containing all Mens' Adidas Trainers.
This functionality allows you to create custom PLPs that aren't restricted to a single data point, such as a Product Category or Department.
Instead, you can combine multiple criteria to create dynamic PLPs aligned with how your customer searches.
PLPs automatically populate with products that match your strategy and continue to update in real-time as product eligibility and availability change.
You can create an unlimited number of PLPs.
Managing your PLPs
Created PLPs are organised into a tree system.
You can expand and collapse the rooted structure to manage the content and products within the PLP.
You can manage a PLP in the following ways.
Content
Populate the PLP’s marketing content. This will change depending on your website design, but it will likely include the H1 heading, Short Description, Meta Title and Meta Description.
Product Quantity
Control the number of products that should appear on each page of the PLP.
Ordering
Control the order that the products are displayed in. Read the next feature for more information about this.
URL
Control and edit the PLP's URL.
Image Control
Opt to include products that do not have an Image. They will be excluded by default as they do not pass Vendian Commerce's eligibility criteria.
Sale Control
Opt to include or exclude sale products from the PLP.
Indexability
Opt to include or exclude the PLP from your website's search engine.
Set the order of products on your PLP
Use rules to control the order in which products appear when your customer loads a PLP.
This allows you to highlight products strategically and reduces the workload of manually arranging your PLP.
Available Ordering Rules:
Newest products first
Sale products first
Relevance
Retail price (Descending or Ascending)
Random
Enhanced Ordering with Product Tags
Implement custom strategies by using a Product Tag to mark items you want to promote, they will then appear at the top of the PLP.
Manually arrange our PLP using drag-and-drop
Take full control over the order of your PLP with a convenient drag-and-drop interface.
This feature is as simple as dragging the ‘Unmerchandised’ products to ‘Merchandised’ and arranging them in the desired order.
There may be times when you need manual control over the order of your PLP.
With this flexibility, you can highlight the most essential products precisely where you want them.
We're now getting into Product Display Pages, let's quickly explain what they are.
Product Display Pages, or PDPs, are individual pages dedicated to showcasing a single product. These pages provide detailed information, including images, descriptions, specifications, pricing, and availability.
Manually link products for controlled product relationships
Set up Related Products to link products as part of your promotional strategies.
How this appears on your website will entirely depend on how we have configured the feature for you. This functionality drives useful front-end messaging and functionality, including:
Manual Product Recommendations
Product Add-Ons
Specialised Promotions
Available linking strategies are:
Cross-sell: Link to
The product will appear as a related product on the corresponding product.
A customer viewing a laptop sees a suggestion for a wireless mouse as a related product.
Cross-sell: Link to and from
The products will reciprocate and correspond with each other.
A customer viewing a smartphone sees a phone case as a related product, and vice versa.
Up-sell: Link to
The product will be offered as an upsell against the corresponding product.
A customer viewing a 32-inch TV is offered a 55-inch TV with enhanced features as an upgrade.
Accessories: Link to
The product will be offered as an accessory to the linked product.
A DSLR camera PDP suggests a compatible camera bag as an accessory.
Accessories: Link to and from
The products will reciprocate and accessorise each other.
A gaming console PDP suggests a compatible controller as an accessory, and the controller’s PDP suggests the gaming console.
Merchandise products with Product Callouts
Enhance your PLPs and PDPs by displaying Product Callouts highlighting important product information.
Product Callouts can be:
Automated based on Product, Stock and Pricing Data
Managed manually using Product Tags.
Examples of Automated Product Callouts:
'-X%' to promote the percentage discount applied to a product.
'Selling fast' when the low stock threshold is reached.
'Last one left' when only one item is in stock.
Automated Product Callouts are ideal for managing widespread promotions and urgent stock alerts.
Examples of Manual Product Callouts, driven by Product Tagging:
'Suitable for outdoors'
'As seen on TV'
'Eco-friendly’
‘Customer favourite’
‘Handmade’
This functionality is fully customisable, and if you have an intended use, it can be built for you as part of your switch to Venditan Commerce.
Bundle two or more products together
Use the Product Bundle Product Type to combine two or more products at a Member level.
Customers can then select from their associated variations on the PDP page (such as Colour and Size) and purchase their chosen combination as one, bundled product.
Interested in our other Product Types? Read the full section for more information.
Set up Volume Pricing for your products
Offer customers a decreased unit cost as their order quantity increases.
You can implement unlimited price breaks (the quantity at which the price changes) across any structure of unit quantities.
Interested in Product Pricing? Read the full section for more information.
Run Offers and Promotions
Venditan Commerce has a powerful offers and promotions engine. It’s covered in detail in our Offers & Vouchers section.
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