# Catalog Page Type

The Catalog Page Type is designed to allow your Customers to browse and search your online catalogs of Products and Product Groups, from a single Page.

Here are the Page Type Properties available to this Page Type:

Product Group: | The Catalog Page will start with this Product Group as the parent when the Page is first displayed. Leave this field unselected if you want to start with the top-most Product Group of the website as the parent when the Page is first displayed.
Enable Menu: | Select this if you want a menu to appear on the Catalog page that allows Customers to quickly browse to a Product Group. All Product Groups, starting with the Product Group that was selected above, where the Display Type is "Display contents for browsing on catalog page" will be included in the menu. Products are not included in the menu.
Enable Search: | Select this if you want a search field to appear on the Catalog page that allows Customers to quickly find Product Groups and Products. The search feature will only search for items under the Product Group that was selected above. Also, it will only search for items that appear on Catalog Detail pages (i.e. Product Groups where the Display Type is "Display contents for selection on catalog detail page" and Products). The following fields for Product Groups and Products are searched. Search Keywords Name/ID/SKU Short Description Full Description Details Web Browser Keywords The fields above are listed in order of importance in determining search relevance, from most important to least important. For example, if the search feature finds a match in Search Keywords for Product A and a match in Details for Product B, then Product A will appear in the search results before Product B, because Search Keywords is more important than Details. In order to generate a match, the keywords that the Customer enters only have to match part of the data in a field, so, for example, if a Customer searches for "shirt" and a Product contains "t-shirt" for Search Keywords, then that will result in a match. TIP: If you want to improve the quality of the search results for your Customers we recommend that you add Search Keywords to your Product Groups and Products that match the types of keywords that your Customers might enter to find a Product. If the search feature finds a match for a Product that is in a Product Group, where the Display Type is "Display contents for selection on catalog detail page", then the Product Group will appear in the search results instead of the Product. If a Product Group or Product has Search Keywords, then the keywords will be displayed on the Catalog Detail Page with links to search results for each keyword, even if search is disabled for the Catalog Page. If you want to fully disable search then you should uncheck this check box and remove search keywords from Product Groups and Products.
Number of Featured Items: | Specify the maximum number of featured Product Groups and Products to display. You may set the value to 0 to disable this feature. Featured items are set on the Edit Featured & New Items screen in the Commerce tab.
Number of New Items: | Specify the maximum number of new Product Groups and Products to display. You may set the value to 0 to disable this feature. New items are set on the Edit Featured & New Items screen in the Commerce tab.
Number of Columns: | Specify the number of columns to display the children Products & Product Groups found within the parent Product Group.
Image Width: | Specify the width that each thumbnail image generated for each Product & Product Group displayed. TIP: For the best thumbnail rendering, make the Image Width evenly divisible by 2 in relation to the original Product & Product Group images.
Image Height: | Specify the height that each thumbnail image generated for each Product & Product Group displayed. TIP: For the best thumbnail rendering, make the Image Height evenly divisible by 2 in relation to the original Product & Product Group images.
Back Button Label: | Specify the text that will be displayed to the "Back" button on the Page.
Catalog Detail Page: | Sometimes browsing a Catalog is all you need your Customers to do. However, if you want to allow your Customers to also purchase online, you will need to connect your Catalog Page to a Catalog Detail Page. This will allow them to reach the Add to Cart features.

## Setting up a Catalog

The Catalog Page is a powerful feature that lets your Customers browse and search an unlimited number Product Groups and Products. All the display and navigation is built-in, so you don't have to create a Page for each and every Product and Product Group. Instead, a single Catalog Page can list and navigate through an unlimited number of Product Groups and Products.

Browsing a Catalog: When you create a Catalog Page, you specify the starting, or parent Product Group. Product Groups for Products are like Folders are to Pages. You can place children Product Groups and Products into a parent Product Group. This relationship is used by the Catalog Page to first display the parent Product Group and then allow the Customer to drill down into it's children Product Groups and Products. If you want to change the way a Catalog Page navigates or the Products it displays, simply move the Products and Product Groups around. You must have Commerce Manager rights to do this.

Buying from a Catalog: When you create a Catalog Page, you can optionally specify a Catalog Detail Page. If you do this, the Customer will be able to not only browse the Catalog, but also add any Products in the Catalog to their Cart.

TIP: Since the logic that drives the browsing/buying is defined within each Catalog Page, you can create unlimited Catalog Pages, each with different features. If you then put these Pages into access-controlled Folders, you can create catalogs for different audiences. For example, a catalog for public shopping, and a private catalog for members or resellers only, and even a catalog unique to a specialized customer.

TIP: You can also use a Catalog Page to create a dynamically changing catalog of media! To do this, simply create a Product for each media item, set it's Price to $0.00, and set it's Selection Type to "Donation". This will surpress the ecommerce features for the Page.

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