Not Available Products

ASA2 has the ability to detect unavailable products and automatically replace them with an available one. This behavior must be activated in the options in the “Products” area (option “Auto-replace”).

Basic mechanics

If this option is enabled, ASA2 will try to find a replacement product if it detects that a product is not available when updating it.

When a replacement product is found, ASA2 stores it in the products section and saves its unique ID on the unavailable product. The replacement product is displayed in a metabox on the product page.

There you can remove it via the “Clear” button if you are not satisfied, e.g. to adjust the search criteria afterwards (see below).

The association with a replacement product is automatically removed when a product is updated. So, to test the search criteria adjustment, you can remove the replacement product and force the update using the checkbox “Refresh item data”.

Influencing the search for the replacement product

The search for the replacement product can be influenced in several ways.

Search term

A search term must be used to search for a replacement product. By default, ASA2 uses the title of the unavailable product for this purpose. If this leads to unwanted results, you can store an individual search term for each product.

The text field for this is located on the product editor page.

Note

By default, ASA2 uses the product title for the search of a replacement product. An individual search term can be added to each product.

In the following example, this is used so that the product title does not restrict the search to the PlayStation 5, of which no alternative was available at all at the time of writing.

Search in same category

This option is recommended. It causes the replacement product to be searched in the category of the unavailable product. This increases the probability of getting a comparable product. For Amazon products, ASA2 uses the BrowseNodeId for this purpose.

Search for same brand

This option is useful if you don’t want replacement products from other brands to be used. For example, if you are promoting Apple products on a page, you should not display a smartphone from another manufacturer as a replacement for an iPhone.

Search for same author

If a site features books by a specific author, replacement products should not be by other authors. In such cases, this option is advisable.

Search for same actor

This option is useful when it comes to movies or music. It ensures that the search will try to find a replacement product from the same actor/artist.

Handling replacement products

Assigning tag and / or category

With the “Tag” and “Category” options you can set which tag or category a replacement product should be assigned to.

This makes it easier to list and delete replacement products in the product area at a later date.

Monitoring

In the options of ASA2 you will find a dedicated logging option for the exchange products feature. If you enable it, you will find detailed information about the search for replacement products in the log section.