Catalog assets and merchandising associations - Part-4

Catalog groups and catalog entries are related by merchandising associations.

Here are some examples:

Cross-sell: 

                 For example, “If you liked this book, you may like these other books in the same genre.”
Up-sell: 

              For example, “If you like this computer, here is a slightly more expensive model with these extra   features.”
Accessory: 

               For example, “If you order this camera, you may be interested in these batteries, cases, and tripods”.

For each association, additional semantics can be used to refine the relationship.

Here are some examples.

Required: 

               For example, “You must have this game program in order to use this game expansion accessory.” 

Comes with: 

           For example, “This case is included with this laptop package and you can follow this link to see a detailed display.”
Optional: 

              For example, “This power supply is an optional accessory for this battery-powered MP3 player.”

It is important to note that the business objects used to represent the merchandising associations do not include language-dependent text suitable for building a shopper's view. The assumption is that a store developer, while adding logic to the Java server pages used to build the shopper's view, searches for a particular type of association. Since the association is precisely chosen, the store developer can easily pull descriptive text from the store's language-dependent properties file if a matching association is found.

The following tables includes catalog assets and merchandising associations.

• Merchandising association (MASSOC)
• Merchandising association type (MASSOCTYPE)
• Related catalog group (MASSOCGPGP)
• Related catalog entry (MASSOCCECE)

Merchandising association (MASSOC)

The merchandising association object defines a value used to refine the meaning of a type of merchandising association. Default values include REQUIRED, COMES_WITH, and TEMP. Note that the description field in this object is not language dependent and should not be used when building a shopper's view.

Merchandising association type (MASSOCTYPE)

The merchandising association type object defines a value used to associate different catalog groups or different catalog entries. Default values include X-SELL, UPSELL, and ACCESSORY. Note that the description field in this object is not language dependent and should not be used when building a shopper's
view.

Related catalog group (MASSOCGPGP)

The related catalog group, held in the MASSOCGPGP table, contains the merchandising associations that exist between CatalogGroups.

Related catalog entry (MASSOCCECE)

The related catalog entry, held in the MASSOCCECE table, contains the merchandising associations that exist between catalog entries.