Pinned Products
The Pinned Products functionality in Hello Retail allows you to fine-tune product recommendations by pinning or blacklisting specific products. This ensures that the most relevant items appear together, improving customer experience and conversions. It can be found within the Product Lookup feature.
When to Use This
Use Pinned Products when you want more control over the recommendations shown in the Alternatives and Bought Together boxes.
This is valuable if the automatically generated results are not fully relevant (e.g., showing shoes as alternatives to jeans instead of other types of pants).
Avoid using this if the automatic algorithm already provides accurate recommendations, as manual overrides take precedence.
Examples
Alternatives: Pin different T-shirt designs to always show together as alternatives.
Bought Together: Pin matching hoodies with a T-shirt to promote cross-selling.
Blacklisting: Exclude outdated or irrelevant products (e.g., old models or items from a different brand).
Algorithm Filters
When applying either global or local filters to an algorithm box, certain filter logics may come into play — for example, an InStock filter. If you are using pinned products, it’s important to know that filters are applied after the pinned products are added. This means a pinned product might be included initially but then removed by a filter. Keep this in mind when setting up new pins to ensure they remain visible as intended. Learn more about how filters in Hello Retail work here.
Functionalities
Accessing Pinned Products
Go to Products in the Hello Retail dashboard.
Select a product to open its Product Information page.
Navigate to the Settings tab.
Scroll to the sections Algorithm Overrides: Alternatives and Algorithm Overrides: Bought Together.
These sections show the automatically suggested products by the two Algorithms.
Pinning Products
In the relevant section (Alternatives or Bought Together), click the Edit (
) icon.Use the search bar to find the product(s) you want to pin.
Select the product(s) and click Save.
The pinned products will appear at the top of the recommendation list.
You can reorder them to control the display order.
Note: Pinned products will always be shown first.
Blacklisting Products
In the same section, locate the Blacklisted products box.
Click Add, search for the product you want to exclude, and click Save.
Once blacklisted, the product will no longer appear in recommendations for the selected product.
Example: Blacklist older console models (e.g., PlayStation 4) when displaying recommendations for a newer product (e.g., PlayStation 5).
Viewing Relationships
At the bottom of the product’s settings, you’ll see a list of Algorithm Overrides with this product.
This helps you track how the product is pinned or blacklisted in relation to others.
Common Issues & Troubleshooting
Pinned product not appearing:
Check if the product is active and visible in recommendations.
Ensure it hasn’t been blacklisted elsewhere.
Blacklisted product still visible:
Refresh or reload the product page.
Confirm that the blacklist rule was saved correctly.
Too many overrides:
Keep manual pins and blacklists limited to ensure the algorithm can still optimize dynamically.