Visual Merchandising (Product Pinning)

Overview

Visual Merchandising lets you pin specific products to exact positions in search results for given queries. Use it to promote bestsellers, clear seasonal stock, or surface high-margin items at the top of relevant searches. Navigate to Merchandising > Visual Merchandising in your ExpertRec dashboard (route: /ecom/merchandise/pin-slot/table).

Pinning Types

• Search result pinning: Pin a product to a fixed position for a specific search query.
• Collection pinning: Pin products within a collection page to control their display order.
• Position pinning: Lock a product to slot 1, 2, 3, or any defined position regardless of organic ranking.

Campaign-Based Workflow

Visual Merchandising is managed through campaigns. Each campaign targets one or more queries and defines the pinning rules for those queries.

1. Create: Click New Campaign, give it a name, and select the target query or queries.
2. Configure: Drag products into your preferred slot positions, or enter a product ID and assign it to a slot number manually.
3. Activate: Toggle the campaign status to Active. Pinned positions take effect immediately for live searches.
4. Monitor: Review impression and click data for pinned products from the campaign detail view.
5. Deactivate: Toggle the campaign to Inactive when the promotion period ends. Products return to organic ranking automatically.

Tips and Best Practices

• Use short, focused campaigns tied to specific promotions or sale periods so they are easy to manage and deactivate on time.
• Avoid pinning too many products per query. Pinning more than 4 to 5 items per query can suppress organic results and reduce overall search quality.
• Combine visual merchandising with boost rules for a layered strategy: pin your top 2 hero products and let boost rules elevate the rest.
• Check analytics after 7 days to confirm that pinned products are receiving clicks at higher rates than before.

Common Questions

Does pinning override all other ranking rules?

Yes. A pinned product always occupies its assigned slot regardless of relevance score, boost rules, or click-based ranking.

What happens if a pinned product goes out of stock?

Out-of-stock behavior follows your global stock filtering settings. If you have out-of-stock products hidden, the pinned slot is vacated and the next organic result fills the gap.