Please help me understand cross-sell

[nsd999]

There are a number of different cross-sell options available in shop site.

global cross sell
product cross sell
--> more information pages
--> shopping cart
products --> assign sub-products
products --> assign cross-sell products
products --> product options (included because sub-products overlap this functionality?)
etc.

It's all a bit confusing.

I know what I'm trying to accomplish but I don't know exactly how to get there.

1. I'd like to display a list of "best-selling products" on the home page.
2. I'd like to display "similar items to consider" on the more information pages.
3. And I'd like to display "customers who purchased this also purchased" in the shopping cart.

Option one I understand, I can do this using the global cross-sell feature. Option two and three are more confusing though.

Can anyone offer advice?

Thanks,
Joe

[ShopSite Lauren]

Option 2 and three are both setup using the product cross sell options. However, if you would like those to be separate/different products listed in both places, then you would need to setup a custom product template which displays the subproducts as similar items at the bottom of the more information page, and use the product cross sell regularly, where the items assigned per product are displayed in the cart when a product is added.

[nsd999]

Hi Lauren,

Thanks for the reply. I'm using a custom version of Ship Shape that I'm hacking my way through. (Is that yours by the way?)

I do want to have three different lists of products as you suspected..

***** Shopsite Help:

"Subproducts let you list related products underneath a "main" product wherever the main product appears in your store. You can use this feature in two ways:

To encourage customers to buy the subproducts when buying the main product
Use the main product to provide a description for a category of related products, such as different sizes of the same item."

*****

So *it appears* that I can use a combination of global cross-sell products, sub-products and cross-sell products to get where I want. I'm just not entirely sure how... Is that correct or am I mistaken?

Thanks,
Joe

[ShopSite Lauren]

global cross sell is used for best sellers. You can go to Merchandising > Cross Sell, and enable the global cross sell. Select the global cross sell products that you want, then select the radio button to only display those products if a product does not have per-product cross sell items assigned. Save changes. Then you can go to Pages > highlight your home page > Edit Page Layout, and check the checkbox to display the global cross sell products. This will add your global cross sell products to your home page.

For the per product cross sell, make sure you have enabled it (Merchandising > Cross Sell) and that you have specified the the link location should be the more information page. After saving changes, go to Products > Edit Product Info, and assign the cross sell products that you want on a per product basis. These products will show up in the cart when a customer adds the product to the cart. If you also want these products to be listed at the bottom of the product more information page you can go to Products > Edit Product Info, and in the more information page section you can check the checkbox to display the cross sell products. Now the product cross sell items will be listed at the bottom of the more information page AND in the cart when a customer adds the main product to the cart.

Subproducts are often setup as alternate choices or to upsell items. For example, if you have a drill and an optional additional battery, you may list the drill and the optional battery as subproducts of the parent product. This will make both checkboxes (in many templates, not all templates) so that customers can add both products to the cart at once.