4. What dealers can see: guardrails, hidden items, groups and the storefront

Who this is for: owners, admins and sales managers who decide what dealers see.

Where to find it

Dealer Portal › Setup, then Guardrails, Hidden items, Product groups or Storefront.

Guardrails

Rules the portal applies everywhere a dealer sees products: the product pages, search, checkout, and their CSV, API and feeds.

What dealers can see

• Hide products with no sell price: on to start with, and best left on. A product with no price would show as $0.00 and can't be ordered.
• Hide products with no image: off to start with. Leave it off to keep everything orderable, and use the No image list below to add photos.

Each shows how many products it affects.

Minimum dealer margin

1. Tick Never sell to dealers under a minimum margin.
2. Type the Minimum margin %, or press Use my quote GP floor to use the floor your quotes already use.
3. Before you save, the line beside it shows what would happen: how many products would be held at the floor, and how many are under it (need repricing).
4. Press Save guardrails. Dealers see the change straight away.

How the floor works:

• It's worked out from the product's cost: average cost, or else last cost, or else unit cost. A product with no cost can't be checked, so its price is left alone.
• Floor = cost ÷ (1 − margin). At 20%, a product costing $80 has a floor of $100.
• It applies to tier discounts, group discounts and plain retail (lesson 3). It never takes a price above retail.
• Prices you set by hand for a dealer are left alone.

Needs attention lists the products to look at, with a search box and Export CSV:

Hidden items

Turn things off for dealers without deactivating them for the rest of the business. They stay on sale in the POS, quotes and Shopify.

1. Go to Dealer Portal › Setup › Hidden items.
2. Pick Products, Categories, Brands or Suppliers.
3. Search or filter, then press Hide on the one you want.

• Hiding a top-level category hides its sub-categories too.
• A brand matches whatever capitals the products use.
• A supplier hides every product it's the main supplier of.

Hidden things are gone from everywhere a dealer looks: search, the product pages, category and brand cards, quick order, and their CSV, API and feeds. A dealer who already had one in their cart sees it as no longer available and has to remove it before checking out.

Hidden now lists everything hidden and how many products each takes out. Press Show again to undo.

Cost and margin columns only show to people allowed to see costs.

Product groups

A product group is a set of products you choose, such as a brand or a range. Groups do two jobs: a tier discount for the group (lesson 3), and a collection card on the dealer dashboard (below).

1. Press Add Group. A group called "New group" is made and opens.
2. Fill in Name, Description and Sort order, tick Active and press Save.
3. Under Add products, search, tick the products and press Add N to group.
4. Products in this group lists what's in it. Remove takes one out.

A product is in one group at most. The search only shows products that aren't in a group yet. To move one, remove it from its old group first.

Storefront

Unlike the theme, the storefront has no draft: each part goes live when you save it.

Layout. Tick the sections dealers see:

• Collection cards on Products page, "Vehicle" filter (turn it off if your range isn't vehicle-specific), "Wheels & tyres" filter (turn it off if you don't sell wheels or tyres), Brand cards on Products page, Category cards on brand pages.
• On the dashboard: Brand strip on dashboard, Promotions on dashboard, Collection strip on dashboard, "Buy again" on dashboard and "New arrivals" on dashboard.

Then the words: Welcome line (under the greeting), Announcement strip (top of dashboard) (such as a public holiday closure) and Heading over the brand cards.

Announcement button puts a button on the strip: Download their price list (CSV, their prices), A file or resource (pick one, or upload a price file or flyer here and it becomes a published resource), or A web link. Set its Button text. Press Save layout.

Collection cards. Choose where the cards come from: Product groups or Categories (the same Category › Sub-category tree as the Showroom POS). Pick a Look (Cards, Tiles, Circles or Chips), Photos (Fill the card or Show whole photo) and how the Dashboard shows them (Scrolling row or Grid (show all)). Then, on each card:

• add a Card image (landscape 4:3, about 800 × 600 pixels) and a short description;
• switch it between Shown in portal and Hidden from portal.

Hiding a collection hides its card. It doesn't hide the products: dealers can still find them by search. To keep products away from dealers, use Guardrails or make the product inactive.

Shop by brand. Pick a brand from Choose a brand… and press Feature brand. Give it a display name, a tagline, a story for its brand page, a Logo and a Brand page banner. Tick Exclusive to badge the brand and every one of its products (you can change the badge text). The arrows reorder the brands; the bin stops featuring one. Pick a Look for the brand cards: Cards, Logo wall, Spotlight or Chips. A brand with no active products stays hidden.

Products page filters. Layout: Filter bar, Sidebar, Sidebar, all open or Filters button. On a phone every layout shows a Filters button.

Product cards. Look: Standard (photo, name, SKU, price and Add to cart) or Trade (SKU first, a big price over the RRP, and a quantity box). The looks, filters and cards save as soon as you pick them.

Promotions. Press Add promotion:

1. Placement: Dashboard hero (the big banner; the first active one shows), Dashboard banner (slim strips; all active ones show) or Products header (above the product grid).
2. Headline, Supporting text, a Button label and where Button links to (Nothing (no button), Products page, A collection, Quotes, Orders, Invoices or External URL).
3. A Background image or Background colour, and the Text colour.
4. Starts (optional) and Ends (optional) to schedule it, and Order.
5. Show only to these pricing tiers to target it; leave it empty for all dealers.
6. Tick Active and press Create promotion.

What happens by itself

• Guardrails and the margin floor apply to the CSV, API and feeds too, not just the portal screens.
• A scheduled promotion appears and disappears on its dates.
• A featured brand with no active products stays hidden until it has some.

Where it ends

Dealers only see products with a price, nothing sells under your margin, and their dashboard shows the collections, brands and promotions you chose.