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Set up product finders

A product finder helps buyers find the right items by answering a few quick questions — for example, brand, then phone model — instead of scrolling the whole catalog. At the end they see only the items that match, and add them to the basket in one go.

Before you start​

  • Product finders ask about details your products already carry, such as brand, model, colour or material. Fill those details in on your products first: a buyer only reaches items that have the detail a question asks about.
  • You need permission to change organization settings.

Create a product finder​

  1. Go to Storefront > Product Finders and click New Finder.
  2. With Home tile selected on the left, give the finder a name. Buyers see it on the home screen tile and at the top of the finder.
  3. Click Add a step and choose what to ask:
    • Ask about a product detail — such as brand, model or colour.
    • Ask for a category — buyers pick one of a category's subcategories.
    • Ask about a brand — buyers pick one of your brands, shown with its logo from Catalog › Brands.
    • Ask with your own answers — you type the answers, and each one can lead to different steps.
  4. For each step, choose what buyers pick, write the screen title, and choose tiles or a list. Drag steps on the left to change their order.
  5. Select Products on the left and choose how items are told apart at the end, for example by Colour.
  6. Check the phone on the right. This screen shows the selected step; Try it lets you walk the finder with your real catalog.
  7. When To Finish This Finder is empty, click Save Finder.

Add pictures to the choices​

Pictures are optional. The buyer app decides how a question looks from the pictures you give it:

  • No choice has a picture: buyers see clean text cards.
  • Some choices have a picture: every choice shows as a picture tile. Choices without a picture show their initials on a plain tile, never your store logo. A picture that fails to load also falls back to initials.
  • In a list, a choice with a picture gets a small thumbnail beside its name.

To add pictures, select a question:

  • Default Picture fills every choice that has no picture of its own, for example one phone icon for all phone models. It works for every kind of question.
  • For a product detail, click the dashed square beside a choice to give it its own picture, such as a brand logo.
  • For your own answers, click the dashed square beside each answer.
  • For a category question, pictures come from Catalog › Categories; the default picture fills any category without one.

Under the question, a note tells you how buyers will see it: text cards, or how many choices will show initials.

Choose what opens a product finder​

A product finder can open when a buyer taps something in the buyer app — a category, a brand, a home tile that links to a tag, or one value of a product detail (for example Compatible Brand: Apple). The buyer lands in the finder instead of the usual screen, and the finder offers a View all link back to the plain list. Anything that opens no finder works exactly as before.

  1. Open the finder and select Home tile on the left.
  2. Under Open From, click Add a Rule and choose what kind of thing opens it:
    • Categories — category tiles, Discover and category links. Every category inside the ones you pick opens the finder too: if it opens from Phone Cases, a buyer who taps Silicone Cases also lands in it.
    • Brands — brand logos and brand pages.
    • Tags — home tiles and links that point at a tag. Type a tag and press Enter.
    • Product Detail — home tiles and links that point at one value of a detail. Choose the detail, then its values.
  3. For each rule, choose These and pick the values, or All Except to open the finder from every value of that kind, except the ones you list.
  4. Save the finder. With no rules, the finder opens only from links and home tiles.

You can have one rule per kind, and one per product detail.

When a buyer arrives from something they tapped​

The finder starts already narrowed to what the buyer tapped, and skips the question it answers. A buyer who taps Silicone Cases in a finder that asks for the case type goes straight through brand and model to silicone cases. A buyer who taps a brand skips Ask about a brand. A tag only narrows the products; it answers no question.

Rules​

  • Only finders shown in the Buyer App (under Show In) open from taps. If Buyer App is off, the rules are kept but ignored.
  • A value can be listed by only one finder. If another finder already lists it, the To Finish This Finder list names that finder, and you can't save until you remove it from one of them.
  • Only one finder can use All Except for each kind (and each product detail). A second one is named in the To Finish This Finder list.
  • For categories, when one finder lists a category and another lists a category inside it, the one inside wins for its own branch.
  • If a chosen category or brand is inactive or deleted, the rule shows a warning: buyers can't tap it. Remove it, or reactivate it in the catalog.
  • On the Product Finders list, each finder says where it opens from, for example "Opens from Phone Cases (and 7 inside) · Acme, Bolt".

Try it as a buyer who tapped something​

On the phone's Try it tab, choose what the buyer tapped under Opened From. You can pick from the kinds of thing the finder's rules name. Answered questions are skipped and the choices are limited the same way. If what you picked wouldn't open this finder, a note says so and the walk starts as it would from a link.

Put a product finder on the storefront​

  1. In Storefront > Product Finders, click Add to Storefront next to the finder.
  2. Choose As a Quick Link or As a Promo Tile. Storefront > Themes opens and shows the tile it will add to your home page.
  3. Click Add to draft, then Publish when you're ready for buyers to see it.

You can also link any theme section to a finder: in a tile's Link field, choose Product Finder and pick the finder. Product finders open in the buyer app only, so a finder link works in the app and not on the web portal.

Tips​

  • Under each product detail, N choices · on N items tells you how much of your catalog a question covers. A warning appears when a detail is missing on most items.
  • Order a detail's choices the way buyers expect (for example, your best-selling brands first).
  • Before deleting a finder, check Used by on the list: it counts the storefront sections that link to the finder, and those links stop working once it's deleted.