Explore product assortments
Assortments are used to define which products are available to sell in which channels during specific periods of time.
The overall product mix of a channel is determined by the published assortments that are assigned to the channel. Therefore, you can configure multiple active assortments per channel.
Basic assortment setup
In the following example, a unique assortment is configured for each store. In this case, only product 1 is available at store 1, and only product 2 is available at store 2.
To make product 2 available at store 1, you can add the product to assortment 1.
Instead, you can add store 1 to assortment 2.
Organization hierarchies
In situations where multiple channels share the same product assortments, you can configure the assortments by using the Commerce assortment organization hierarchy. When nodes from this hierarchy are added, all channels in that node and its child nodes will be included.
Product categories
Similarly, on the product side, you can include groups of products by using product category hierarchies. You can configure assortments by including one or more category hierarchy nodes. In this case, the assortment will include all products in that category node and its child nodes.
Excluded products or categories
In addition to including products and categories in assortments, you can use the Exclude option to define specific products or categories that should be excluded from assortments. In the following example, you want to include all the products in a specific category, except product 2. In this case, you don't have to define the assortment product by product or create more category nodes. Instead, you can just include the category but exclude the product.
Global and released products
Assortments are defined at a global level and can contain channels from multiple legal entities. The products and categories that are included in assortments are also shared across legal entities. However, a product must be released before it can actually be sold, ordered, counted, or received in the channel (for example, in the point of sale [POS]). Therefore, although two stores in different legal entities can share an assortment that contains the same products, the products are available only if they have been released to those legal entities.
Dynamic and static assortments
Assortments can be defined with specific channels and products or by including organization units and categories. Assortments including references to these groups are considered dynamic assortments. If the definition or contents of those groups change while the assortment is active, the definition of the assortment will also change.
For example, an assortment is originally defined and published so that it references a category of products. If other products are later added to the category, those products are automatically included in the definition of the existing assortment. You don't have to manually add the products to the assortment. Similarly, if an organization unit is added to a different node, the organization unit's assortment is automatically adjusted based on that definition.
Stopped products
You can "stop" released products for the sales process by turning on a setting in the Default order settings. This setting is most often used when a product is at the end of its life and should not be sold at any channel. Assortments respect this setting, and stopped products won't be assorted, regardless of the assortment configuration.
Blocked products
In addition to stopping sales of a product, you can temporarily block sales of a product. You can configure this setting on the Commerce tab of a released product. Blocked products are still assorted, but you will receive a message in the POS that states that the product can't be sold.
Date effectivity
Assortments are date-effective. Therefore, retailers can configure when products should or should not be available per channel. You can define and publish assortments ahead of time and specify the start and end dates. The products will automatically become available or unavailable on the specified dates.
Assign products to assortments
Commerce offers flexible options for assigning products to an assortment. You can add individual products or an entire category of products to a particular assortment. Using a category allows you to quickly add the products in that category (and any sub-nodes underneath of that category), to the assortment. Using the exclusion feature will allow you to remove specific products from the assortment, if necessary, even though the product may be part of a category group that was included in the assortment.
The following screenshot is an example of the category selection when you add a new category to an assortment for inclusion that is found under Retail and Commerce > Catalogs and assortments > Assortments.
If a product needs to be explicitly added, the Add products feature allows you to search for items by product category for bulk inclusion. Multiple product categories can be used when you are searching for these items.
When an assortment is created, it must be published. Whenever a change is made to a category that is used within an assortment, the Process assortments job needs to be run to pick up any changes in the category hierarchy. This periodic job can be run manually, or it can be set up to run on a schedule. Publishing the assortment will automatically run the Process assortments job at that time.
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