Shop collections: direct and indirect products

Two ways in

Open a shop, then Catalogue → Collections, and open a collection. Its Products tab is the list that matters, and every product there arrived one of two ways:

• Direct. Someone added the product itself with Add products to collection. It stays until someone removes it.
• Indirect. Someone added its family with Add families to collection. The product is there because of the family, and aiku keeps the two in step: a product moved into that family shows up, one moved out disappears, and removing the family removes every product it brought.

A product can be both at once. Then it stays even if the family is removed, because the direct link remains.

Collections can also contain other collections, with Add collections to collection, which is a shelf pointing at other shelves rather than a merge of their products.

Linked to a master, or the shop's own

If the collection was created from a master collection you see a Go to Master collection link on it. Members arrive from the master, matched to this shop's own version of each product or family, so the shop copy can be smaller than the master when this shop does not sell everything. Anything the master removes disappears from the shop copy as well. While the collection follows its master you cannot add or remove its families and products in the shop.

To make the shop copy different, press Edit on the collection and look at the Master section. It has two switches, and each one asks you to confirm before it saves:

• Do not follow master items. Turn it on and the families and products are yours: Attach families and Attach products appear on those tabs, each row gets a remove button, and whatever the master adds or removes later no longer reaches this collection. Turn it off again and the collection is made to match the master exactly: families and products you added in the shop are removed and everything the master has is put back.
• Do not follow master content. Turn it on and the name and descriptions are yours: changes on the master no longer overwrite them, and what you type is no longer sent to the master as its translation for your language. Turn it off again and they are taken from the master once more, using the master's translation for your shop's language when there is one.

The two switches are independent. The collection's code always follows the master, and collections placed inside this collection keep following the master either way.

A collection created in the shop itself has no master and is yours to fill.

The tabs

• Details shows the collection and its counts.
• Sales shows what the collection's products sold.
• Families, Products and Collections list the members, with a count in the tab title.
• History lists every change.

A collection is In Process until it has an active product or family in it, then Active. An Inactive one is kept but not shown.

Webpage

A collection has no page on the website until you give it one. On the collection press Create Webpage, and once it exists the button reads To Webpage. A collection used only for a discount does not need a webpage, and a collection used for a promotion usually does, because that page is where the customer sees the shelf.

Checking a collection before a discount

Open the Products tab and read the list once. Look for products that belong to a family you attached but should not get the discount, and for products you expected that are not there. Fix the list before you create the offer, because the offer applies to whatever the collection holds on the day the basket is priced, not on the day the offer was created.