Dynamic Category: Add a Seasonal Feature Page e.g. Christmas or Mother's Day

There are certain times of year when you may wish to display products which aren't normally grouped together in one place. For example, a Christmas or Mother's Day shop section.

There are a few ways to do this, and each have their pros and cons. The method which is right for you will depend on the goals you have for the section and the resources available to maintain it.

Types of Seasonal Shop Setups

• Using Product/Promotion Group(s)
• Simple single page Dynamic Category
• Using a Gift Recipient filter on its own or in conjunction with other categories

All products, regardless of their seasonality, should still be assigned to a single primary category (what the item is) and a brand category. This classification will help us to create and manage the various options above.

Using a Product / Promotion Group

While this option requires slightly more management, there is more flexibility in terms of what can be added and the page can stay online in the background even when removed from the navigation as a link. In this case a Product / Promotion group gets created and then links can be added from the navigation or from feature widgets throughout the site.

This options works best when you want to select specific items to highlight from across multiple categories on your site.

View video on YouTube >

Set up a new Product / Promotion Group

1. When logged into your admin screens, browse to Catalogue > Categories & Navigation
2. In the Product Catalogue & Navigation section, browse to the Product / Promotion Groups section from the side navigation.
3. Click the Add New Group button
   
   
4. Call your product group what you like, e.g. Christmas Collection, and set the sort order so that it will appear where you want in the navigation
5. Click Finish and your page has been added
6. Click to Settings > Clear Cache to ensure this new page will appear on your website

Adding Products to the Product / Promotion Group

1. When logged into your admin screens, browse to Catalogue > Categories & Navigation
2. In the Product Catalogue & Navigation section, browse to the Product / Promotion Groups section from the side navigation
3. Click the View Products link in the table row of the group you'd like to view or add products to
   
4. Click the Add Existing Products button
5. Enter the products you'd like to include for this filter value via a comma-separated list of product codes (no spaces)
6. Click Finish
7. Click to Settings > Clear Cache to ensure the site is updated

Adding Links to the Product / Promotion Group

The link to the product group is /c/name-of-product-group/CODE where the name is the group title words separated by hyphens, and the code at the end if the numeric code found in the product group table. In the example, the link is /c/christmas-collection/64

This URL can be used in a feature widget anywhere on the site to link directly to this page, and/or a link can be added to the navigation by using this URL in the Override Link URL field in the settings for a new page. Additionally, you can link directly to this product group from social promotions, Google Ads and emails.

Ensure Product List is Displayed

When you browse to the product group URL the first time, you may notice that the products are not appearing. This is because the default setting for a product/promotion group is to have the Product List inactive. To activate, follow these steps:

1. Browse to product group URL by adding the link to the group after your main domain, in the example above this would be https://abcdemoshop.com/c/christmas-collection/64
2. Click the Edit Category/Page link in the landing page, this opens the category admin panel
   
3. Change the Show Product List option to be Active
   
   
4. Click Save
5. Click Settings > Clear Cache to ensure the site it updated

On-Page Sub-Links

If you would like to create an on-page feature which has sub-links within your seasonal feature page, please contact helpdesk@magico.com and we can assist you with the set up.

Pros

• Displays a highly curated selection of products which may help customers with purchasing decisions
• Page can stay active in the background even when links are removed from navigation or features meaning that search engines can crawl the page even off season - good for SEO
• Promotions can be applied directly to this as a group of products

Cons

• Not automated, products must be added manually to be included
• Could be time consuming if it needs to include a large amount of product

Simple Single Page Dynamic Category

View video on YouTube >

This is the lowest maintenance and ongoing overhead option on the list. In this method, all that is required is to set up a single page for the seasonal section, e.g. Christmas Shop, following the steps below, and using either existing brands or site categories to dynamically display product.

For example, if there are already a few categories on the site (e.g. Candles & Diffusers, Fragrance Gift Sets, Jewellery & Accessories, etc.) which would contain the products you wish to display in a Christmas (or Mother's Day and more) shop, then make note of the category codes for these.

Finding the Category or Brand Category Codes

1. When logged into your admin screens, browse to Catalogue > Categories & Navigation
2. Select either Product Catalogue & Navigation or Brands from the support navigation
3. Once viewing the category table, make note of the numeric code in the Code column, associated with any of the brands or categories you wish to include on your seasonal page
   
   

Set up the Seasonal Feature Page

1. When logged into your admin screens, browse to Catalogue > Categories & Navigation
2. In the Product Catalogue & Navigation section, decide whether you are adding your seasonal page at the top level or as a sub-section of a top-level category
   • If adding the seasonal page to the top level of your navigation, then complete the next step from the main Product Catalogue & Navigation table page
   • If adding the seasonal page as a sub-section, find the relevant category in the table and click the View Pages / Sub-categories link in that row
3. Click the Add New Page/Category button
   
   
4. Call your page what you like, e.g. Christmas Shop, and set the sort order so that it will appear where you want in the navigation
5. Click Finish and your page has been added
6. Click to Settings > Clear Cache to ensure this new page will appear on your website

Adding Products Dynamically to the Seasonal Feature Page

1. Browse to the new Seasonal Feature page on the front-end of your site
2. This page will be empty initially. Click on the Edit Category / Page link just above the page title
   
   
3. This will open the page admin panel on the left. Ensure that both the Active and Show Product List are ticked
4. Scroll down and click on Advanced Settings
5. Add the comma-separated list of the Category or Brand Category codes you noted earlier in the Category Codes text field
   
   
6. Click Save
7. Click Settings > Clear Cache to active those categories or brands on your new seasonal page
8. Browse back to the Seasonal Feature page page and it will be populated with products from all the categories and/or brands you've included

This page can be added to in future simply by adding the code(s) for new categories or brands added to the site in the the Category Codes field for the seasonal landing page.

Pros

• Low Maintenance
• Automatically adds new products from listed categories/brands
• Large number of products

Cons

• Only exists in navigation, so needs to be deactivated when not in use meaning SEO needs to be managed via 301 redirect while offline
• No way to filter out a sub-set of products from the categories/brands - all or nothing

Using a Gift Recipient Filter

An example of a Gift Recipient Filter can be found at https://www.danfitzgeralds.com/ See Gift Finder

If you don't already have a Gift Recipient/Gift Finder filter set up on your site, please contact helpdesk@magico.com and we will guide you through creating this. 

Once this filter is set up and has products assigned to it, again please get in touch and we can assist with setting up the page(s) and links to filtered product lists on your site.

Pros

• Option for customers to refine by gift recipient throughout the site
• Not tied to specific season, evergreen
• Highly curated list of items

Cons

• Requires guidance / assistance from Magico to set up
• No option to link directly to a page in some cases

Further Information

If you would like more information or assistance on these options, or with how to highlight them on-site, please get in touch with helpdesk@magico.com and we are happy to guide you further.