Controlling order of collections shown beneath product?

[Barbara]

Typical scenario: I have product labels dedicated to a specific type, but they also fit into a slightly broader category of labels, so I've placed the dedicated labels in there too. Now what shows up first beneath these dedicated products is the more general collection, not the specific one.

This hasn't been talked about in a while, and so I thought I'd ask if anyone knows how to choose which collection shows up first, short of deleting all products in the collection that shows up first instead of second the way you'd much prefer it.

Do the collections show up in order of first created to last, and is that the problem? If so, and if I deleted the collection I want showing up second, then recreated it, would this solve the issue?

Colorwash's Home

[Sara_H]

@Barbara 

From my memory, the first collection that shows is the first collection that the product was added to (unless it's a cross sell then that type takes priority above all other types)

It used to be alphapetical if it was in multiple collections (eg 'All The Labels', 'Best Labels', 'Cute labels') but that seems to have been supersceded by which collection it was put in first, second and third etc not necessarily when the collection was created.

I would do some testing by just removing it from the collection you don't want to show first under the product - then add it to the collection you do want it to show then wait at least a week and see the results.

[Barbara]

@Sara_H  I added my labels to the more general collection only after having added them to the dedicated collection, which didn't work and may be a matter of not waiting. Given that I'll be removing the labels from the general collection anyway, I'll wait before adding one or two labels back into it to see what happens. Thanks for the suggestions, and I'll report back after doing the wait-and-see method.

I wish Zazzle would give us the ability to put collections like this into our preferred order of appearance.

Colorwash's Home

[DesertSky]

I've often wondered this also. I've never tested it, but I also always assumed it was in the order in which you added the product to the collection. It would be really nice if we could choose the order in which collections display. 

[Barbara]

It took 24 hours for the preferred collection to show up beneath my products. I'm currently hesitant to add even one of the products back to the more general collection because, essentially, that's what I'd done the first time around--added the products to a newly created and dedicated collection before adding anything to the general one. I'm wondering if it's done alphabetically. The general collections title comes before the other one alphabetically.

EDIT: I looked at several products that I know are in more than one collection, and in every case, the first collection to show came alphabetically before the second one. Now the test will be to change the name of the general collection so it comes alphabetically after the dedicated one. First things first, however: I'll have to wait for the new name to be indexed.

Colorwash's Home

[Barbara]

Looking at the collection list that comes up when adding a product to the list, I noticed a yellow star and "preferred collection" at the bottom of the popup screen. Isn't active, can't click it, but has this been there for a while, and does it mean Zazzle meant to activate it but never did?

Colorwash's Home

[Sara_H]

@Barbara There's an explanation here about preferred collections  https://www.zazzle.com/creators/playbook/collection+types#preferred-collections

You can't add a product to a cross sell collection that has been created by another store (even if you are the owner of that other store/collection)

They are live collections and activated just not able to accept new products from a store it's not officially associated with (ie created by store name)

To get round this - change the type from cross sell to gifts/similar/different style then you should be able to add your product then change it back to cross sell and it should stay in that collection (if that's what you want)

If you go into the cross sell collection, you should see an orange i next to the product that's in multiple cross sells

 - which if you click into, you can make that product be in the preferred collection

This only works in a cross sell type of collection

Hope I've made sense - I haven't had enough coffee (or maybe too much)

[Barbara]

@Sara_H 

Thanks for suggesting a possibility, but reading through what you linked to makes me think that the "preferred" designation is of no use to me. I don't create products for events or anything of that ilk, and thus I have almost 100% "Other" collections. it appears the "preferred" designation is only for cross-sell types. I do wish Zazzle would give a little love to the huge number of us who focus on specific types of designs for specific products like I do with clocks, labels, note cards, Post-its, and such. The little they've said about "Other" is, well, very little.

Colorwash's Home

[Barbara]

I've proven myself wrong. It has nothing to do with alphabetical order. I changed the name of the offending label collection that was showing up first, having it begin with a 'w', then added one of the products to it that was consistently bringing up that secondary collection first. I waited for indexing to occur, and you guessed it: the wrong, now renamed collection, STILL shows up first. So, if the collections aren't in alphabetical order, the only thing I can think of is date order. However, I'm not about to check this out by deleting the secondary collection and then remaking it. What a shame that we can't control the order ourselves.

Colorwash's Home

[ColsCreations]

One Product in Two Collections - Which Collection is shown as "Other products from this collection"?

Back in July 2023, James said

On the product pages, we can show up to three of your collections. The order is determined by an algorithm that ranks the collections by how related they are to the primary product on that page, as well as to the popularity of the design.

If that's still true a year later, than one can't control it.

[Barbara]

@ColsCreations 

Thank you. You're the queen of search-and-find. It's a shame you found precisely what none of us wants, which is control. We can't control an algorithm. The algorithm is doing the flat-out wrong thing in my case, given that the primary collection is the one most related to the specific products, whereas the secondary one has a far broader scope: all food labels. I've been selling food labels for quite some time, which means that collection will continue to be in first place.

I give up.

Colorwash's Home

[posyrosie]

I get so confused with a Wedding Collection, as the products never go in the right place, I'm about ready to give up on the Fall Wedding Collection I am trying to do, nothing seems to work right.  Where are all the good people we used to deal with on Zazzle, did they quit?