Guide for Visual Merchandiser Extension for Magento 2

Employ a wide range of options to manage product listing of the catalog pages in various ways. Reach your marketing aims using configurable product sorting.

Reorder products via handy drag-and-drop function
Apply various sorting options
Create multiple virtual categories
Add products to virtual categories automatically
Specify the order number for every single product

How to enable the extension?

Just install the extension and go to any category to adjust its merchandising. When the Visual Merchandiser module is installed, it automatically replaces the Magento default product merchandising. All further settings are performed inside the categories.

In Visual Merchandiser FAQ you can find answers to the most popular questions about the extension functionality.

Creating a Category

Please note, that for the correct extension work, all indexes must be set in the same update mode (Update On Save or Update on Schedule). Otherwise, changes made to categorie will not be displayed on the frontend. You can check all indexes update mode on the Index Management Grid: System → Tools → Index Management.

With the Magento category page builder extension, you are able to create various catalog pages with any sorting order you need.

To create a new virtual category or edit the existing one, go to Admin Panel → Catalog → Categories.

Choose the category you want to edit or create a new one via Add Root Category/Add Subcategory buttons.

First, configure the general settings of the category.

Enable Category - set to Yes to make a category visible on the frontend.

Include in Menu - enable this option to add the category to your storefront menu.

Category Name - specify the title of the category.

Automatic Category - enable this functionality to collect and display only those products that match the specified conditions.

Our Visual Merchandiser extension is built on the approaches used by Magento 2 for catalog filtering, namely: it displays all configurable product options if at least one option matches the filter criteria.

In a configurable product, all options of its simples are indexed, after which filtering is performed based on them. So, when a customer sets a filter for a specific option, every product containing that option is displayed, along with other options that our module does not hide.

Product Conditions

Expand this tab to set conditions based on the attributes to display only the desired group of products.

Use the Conditions Tree to specify the necessary conditions or their combinations. After you click the Apply Conditions button, the category will display only the products that are matching the conditions.

Now you can use categories as a condition for assigning products to Automatic Category. Kindly note: only categories with physically assigned products will participate in condition applying.

To avoid common mistakes while setting the conditions, check this post.

You may also save time by duplicating the conditions of a particular category and moderate them if needed. Use the Import conditions from dropdown menu to choose the category which conditions you want to reproduce. The conditions will be retrieved to the current automatic category, afterwards you can modify them.

Any time there is an inventory update, the category page will be updated automatically.

Invisible Items

When the conditions are set, go to Products Merchandising section to see the products that are automatically retrieved by the applied conditions. You will also see the number of invisible items:

Items can become invisible in the following cases:

products are invisible in the selected store view;
products have Not Visible Individually\Search only visibility settings;
products that are out of stock if their display is disabled in the General Settings (to make these products visible, navigate to Stores → Configuration → Catalog → Inventory and set the Display Out of Stock Products option to Yes).

Products Merchandising

Once you set the conditions, go to Products Merchandising section to see the products that are automatically retrieved. Magento 2 category page builder extension allows to customize all categories, including dynamic and ordinary ones.

Sort Order - select from the dropdown the preferable way of the automatic ordering of the product listing.

Available options:

Move out of stock to the bottom
Newest products first
Name: Ascending
Name: Descending
Price: Ascending
Price: Descending

Expand the sorting options of your Visual Merchandiser extension by adding Magento 2 Improved Sorting module. Due to the synergetic work of these 2 modules, you will be able to sort products by 'Top Rated', 'Most Viewed', 'Best Sellers', 'Biggest Saving', 'Reviews Count' and 'Now in Wishlists'.

Search Products - find products within one current automatic category selection by SKU or name. Employ a search box at the top of the products merchandising listing.

In the Visible Items tab all the products that fall under the specified conditions are displayed. You can check their title, SKU, variation (color or size), price and stock availability. Due to this functionality, you can, for example, easily move out of stock products to the end of the list.

Drag-and-drop Magento items via page builder the way that is aligned with your current marketing needs.

Move to Top - simply click the button to send a particular product to the first position in the product listing.

Once you drag and drop a particular product using Magento category page builder, its mode is switched to Manual and it is “pinned” to a particular location. Which means it will remain in the same position even after the automatic sorting is applied.

For your convenience, the number of products per page in the admin panel equals the number of products customers see on the frontend. Thus, you will see how the products will be displayed to customers on each page.

In order to move products through the pages change the page number per the product you want to move to another page. As the page number is changed, the product becomes last on this page.