Guide
What a branded collection page has to get right
The page you send a buyer has one job: let them decide without asking you a question first. That sets four requirements, and most of them are about what the page tells the truth about.
- The job of the page
- Let the buyer decide without a follow-up email
- The four requirements
- Price, minimum, real imagery, and a way to respond
- Not the same thing
- A company store, which has accounts and standing inventory
First requirement
Show the price the buyer would pay
A page with products and no prices is a request for a meeting. The buyer has a budget and a boss, and the first thing they will do with a priced page is forward it. That means your margin has to be applied before publishing, and it means the supplier's cost has to stay on your side of the page.
- Margin and pricing policy applied before the collection is published
- Supplier cost never appears on the buyer-facing page
- The number shown is the one the cart will charge
Second requirement
Show the minimum, and mean it
Minimum quantities are the single most common reason a merch conversation goes backwards. A page that lets a buyer build a basket of twelve units against a forty-eight-piece minimum has not saved anyone time. The minimum should come from the supplier listing and the cart should refuse the line before any money moves.
- The minimum comes from the listing, not from a typed column
- An under-minimum line is refused with the required quantity named
- It happens before payment, while the buyer can still adjust
Third requirement
Show the product they would actually receive
Blank product photography asks the buyer to imagine the decoration, and they will imagine it wrong in both directions. A decorated render on the supplier's own photograph, per colorway, is what makes the page decidable — and a person should have approved it before it appeared there.
- Decorated renders on the real product photo, per colorway
- Reviewed and accepted before the collection is published
- Colorways and sizes that exist in the listing, not a swatch library
Fourth requirement
Give them somewhere to answer
If the only way to respond is a reply-all, you will get one paragraph about three products. Reactions and comments on the item itself turn feedback into something you can act on line by line, and guest checkout means the buyer who is ready can simply buy.
- Reactions and comments attached to the item they are about
- Guest checkout by card, with no account for the buyer to make
- A new revision when things change, on the same link
Questions
Is this the same as a company store?
No. A company store has buyer accounts, standing inventory and reorder history. A collection is a curated page for one client conversation, published when you say so.
Why does guest checkout matter so much?
Because the buyer is frequently one person doing this once. An account-creation step at the end is the cheapest possible way to lose a decided order.
What does MerchMaker's version support?
Card payment through Stripe, in US dollars, shipping to United States addresses, with the supplier's minimum enforced in the cart.
See the logo on the product first.
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