Getting Started with Result Modifications

Your Merchandising Studio product catalogue consists of items. There are two ways a shopper can find items inside the catalogue: by searching or by navigating, which returns items as a list. With result modifications, you can move one or more items (as a group) to a specific position within this list or block one or more items from appearing on this list.

Result modifications allow you to create multiple groups of products, which supports responsive row-based merchandising. In one result modification, you can block and move products. Also, multiple modifications can be applied to the same location. Applying result modifications will supersede any other rules set up within rankings. 

This fine-tuning can boost or bury certain products on your product listing page.

Modifying results across your site using the Merchandising Studio gives you the freedom to override rules, giving you full control and allowing you to make your site completely bespoke to suit your shoppers and eCommerce Strategy.

Overview

• A result modification allows you to apply one or more modifications to a product listing page, creating dynamic content for visual merchandising.
• Modifications can be triggered on: locations, searches, keywords, number of navigation steps, query types, dates and custom trigger values.
• The configuration of modifications can be set up in your Merchandising Studio as well as directly on your preview page.
• If one or more modification configurations are triggered on a query, they are applied in the order that they are ranked within the scope.
• A modification may move one or more items to any position of the product listing page.
• A modification may block one or more items from the product listing page.
• The set of items can be grouped using a facet.
• Result modifications will supersede any rules set up within rankings. Therefore always check what result modifications are set up if your lister pages are not displaying items as you are expecting.

When to use result modifications

• Block some products in case they pop up in an undesirable location. For example 'Men's' products appearing 'Boys' catalogue or 'School wear' products appearing in 'Mens wear' location.
• Move some products to appear at the top or the bottom (to make product/s less prominent) of the product listing page. For example, show running shoes first if a customer searches for a well-known sports brand, rather than socks or bags.
• Group-specific product/s (based on specific product information/attributes) into one or more rows. For example, group the first row to show a certain colour of products, ranked by price.

This feature should not be used to compensate for poor search results that could be improved with rankings, data improvements, synonyms, redirects, or a change in the search configuration.

Result modification priorities & scopes

When you create a result modification you will need to choose a scope. A scope is a mapping of your organisational structure in your Merchandising Studio, and allows you to form 'areas of effect' for your modification.

You can set up as many result modifications as required to one or more scopes. These should be prioritised accordingly, to align with your business strategy, but also taking into account your scope structure and hierarchy.

Let's take an example from ABC Company scope structure, note that 'ABC Company' is the parent scope and the sub-scopes are its children; 'ABC GB', 'ABC GB Womens', 'ABC GB Womens Dresses' and so on:

If a result modification was applied to the scope; ABC GB Womens Dresses, Skirts, Tops or Trousers, this will take priority over a result modification using ABC GB Womens, here is an example:

In another scenario, we use the same scope and the same user location as below:

From the result modifications overview page you can change the priority as needed, remember to check which scope you have selected from the dropdown menu on the top left of the screen as shown below:

When creating a result modification, only one scope can be selected and therefore applied to. Modifications can be copied to other scopes once created:

1. Select the modification(s) using the checkbox on the left-hand side.
2. Click more actions in the menu above.
3. Select Copy.

Users can be granted permissions to one or a number of scopes. It is important when troubleshooting, that you consider other scopes you have access to, as well as other result modifications that may be published to a scope lower in the hierarchy that may have an impact on your result modification.

Scopes can be modified in your Merchandising Studio in System > Management:

Triggers

What is a trigger?

Triggers define, where, when or under what circumstances an action occurs in your Merchandising Studio. An action is something a customer does when they are looking for products or items in your catalogue. This could be a search in your site or navigating to a product listing page. Therefore, add a result modification that matches your strategy for that product listing page.

• Triggers are 'conjunctive', used when a trigger AND an action have been configured. When a user reaches landing page A AND show them X products
• All trigger conditions must be satisfied to result in the action

Triggers are selected from the dropdown (this list is taken from a demo site):