Example: Promoting or excluding products using inventory data

In this example, we want to create a search rule by using inventory data to promote overstock products, or exclude out-of-stock products.

Before beginning

Ensure that your IT administrator enabled the WebSphere Commerce search inventory index.

Procedure

• Promoting overstocked items.

  We can promote overstocked items in search results by ranking products with high inventory counts higher than other products.

  For example, to promote products with inventory counts that are greater than 9000:

  1. Open the Marketing tool.

  2. Create and activate a search rule that uses the Change Search Result Order action.

  3. Filter search results using the following criteria:

     Change Search Result Order ranking criteria

     Ranking Criteria	Value
     Ranking action	Promote
     Ranking factor	75
     Type	Property
     Name	Inventory
     Matching rule	Greater than
     Value	9000

     Note: The higher the Ranking Factor value, the closer the items move to the top of the search results.

  4. Save and activate our search rule.

  5. Use store preview to see how the search rule has elevated products with high inventory counts in the search results.

• Excluding out-of-stock products

  We can exclude out-of-stock products from search results by displaying only products with sufficient inventory.

  For example, to show only products that have an inventory count greater than 0:

  1. Open the Marketing tool.

  2. Create and activate a search rule that uses the Add or Replace Search Criteria action.

  3. Filter search results using the following criteria:

     Add or Replace Search Criteria search filters

     Search filter	Value
     Type	Property
     Name	Inventory
     Matching rule	Greater than
     Value	0

  4. Save and activate our search rule.

  5. Use store preview to see how the search rule excludes products with low inventory counts from the search results.

Results

By analyzing inventory counts, we can create search rules that promote overstock products, or exclude out-of-stock products in the storefront.

Related concepts
Actions in search rules

Related tasks
Manage search rules
Manage search rule experiments