Understanding Product Groups in Your Catalog

Initial Catalog Synchronization

When you first set up Rep AI, the system begins synchronizing with your product catalog. During this process:

• You'll see a "Launch in progress" message in your dashboard

• A progress indicator will show how many products have been synced (e.g., "27 of 515 products")

• For larger catalogs, this initial synchronization may take some time to complete

• The Rep widget will become live on your website once the synchronization is finished if you launched it so don’t worry

This initial sync ensures that your AI Assistant has accurate information about all your products before interacting with customers.

What Are Product Groups?

Product groups are collections of products in your Rep AI catalog that reflect your Shopify collections and tags. These groups are automatically synchronized with your Shopify store and help your AI Sales Assistant understand how your products are organized.

Product groups enable your AI to recommend related products and provide an intuitive shopping experience for your customers. They're maintained automatically by Rep AI, requiring minimal management from you.

How Product Groups Work

Product groups are:

• Automatically Synchronized: Your Shopify collections and tags are automatically imported and kept up-to-date

• AI-Integrated: Your AI Assistant uses these groups to understand product relationships

• Self-Maintaining: The system intelligently manages which groups are active based on customer behavior

The Product Groups page in your Rep AI dashboard provides visibility into how your catalog is organized, but you typically won't need to make changes here.

When to Use the Product Groups Page

In most cases, you don't need to interact with the Product Groups page. The system handles synchronization and management automatically. However, you might need to check this page if:

• Your AI isn't recommending products from a specific collection that exists in Shopify

• You notice outdated collections being suggested to customers

• You need to temporarily disable a specific collection from being recommended

• You want your AI to keep answering questions about a collection's products, but not add them to a shopper's cart

Viewing Your Product Groups

If you need to check your product groups:

1. Navigate to the AI Sales section in the sidebar of your Rep AI dashboard

2. Select the Catalog tab

3. The Product Groups view is displayed by default

Understanding the Product Groups Table

The Product Groups table shows how your catalog is organized:

Automatic Browsable Feature

Rep AI intelligently manages which product groups your AI can recommend based on customer activity:

• Groups that customers actively visit on your store automatically become browsable

• Groups that aren't visited by customers within a certain timeframe automatically become unbrowsable

This automation keeps your AI's recommendations current with customer shopping behavior without requiring your intervention.

Let Your AI Discuss Products Without Adding Them to the Cart

Some products are meant to be talked about, not bought in chat. Examples are auction items, made-to-order products, quote-only items, and products that need add-ons picked on the product page. Turn off Add-to-cart on their product group, and your AI still finds these products, describes them, gives their price and links to them, but never adds them to a shopper's cart.

Turn off Add-to-cart for a product group

1. Go to AI Sales → Catalog and open the Product groups tab

2. Find the group (a collection or a tag) in the list

3. Switch Add-to-cart off in that group's row. The change takes effect within seconds

To change several groups at once, select them with the checkboxes and click Disable add-to-cart (or Enable add-to-cart to turn it back on). You can also open a group, clear the Add-to-cart checkbox next to Browsable, and save the page.

What shoppers experience

• Your AI still answers questions about these products, recommends them, and links to their product pages

• Their product cards in chat show Learn more instead of Add to cart

• If a shopper asks your AI to add one to their cart, the AI explains that it can't add it through the chat and that they can continue on the product page

• Your AI doesn't call these products out of stock, and doesn't offer a different variant as a way around the setting

How it works with each product's own setting

• The stricter setting wins. A product can be added to the cart only when its own Add-to-cart switch on the Products tab is on and none of its product groups has Add-to-cart off

• One blocked group is enough. If a product is in several groups, it's blocked as soon as any one of them has Add-to-cart off

• New products follow the group automatically. When a product joins a blocked group in your store, it's blocked after the next catalog sync

• Turning a group back on keeps your own choices. A product you switched off yourself stays off

• Browsable and Add-to-cart are separate. Changing one never changes the other

On the Products tab, a product blocked by a group shows its Add-to-cart switch off and locked. Hover over it to see which group turned it off.

Good to know

• Archived groups can't be changed

• If your catalog's products aren't organised into collections, the Add-to-cart switch on this tab is disabled and its tooltip explains why. You can still turn off Add-to-cart for single products on the Products tab

• The setting controls what your AI does in chat. It doesn't change your store's own Add to cart button or your checkout

• Add-to-cart is on for every group by default

Ongoing Synchronization

After the initial setup:

• Rep AI continues to listen for changes in your Shopify catalog

• Updates to your collections and products are automatically synchronized

• You may notice a brief delay as changes propagate through the system

• No manual action is required for routine catalog updates

Troubleshooting Issues

If you notice any issues with how your AI is recommending products:

Problem: AI isn't recommending products from a specific collection that exists in Shopify
Solution: Check if the collection appears on the Product Groups page and verify it's marked as browsable (green toggle). Allow some time for synchronization if you've recently created the collection.

Problem: AI is recommending products from outdated collections
Solution: These collections should automatically become unbrowsable after a period of inactivity. If they persist, you can manually toggle them off.

Problem: Need to stop your AI from suggesting a collection
Solution: Find the collection in the Product Groups table and toggle its browsable status off (gray). This stops your AI from suggesting the group itself. Its products can still come up in answers. To stop the AI from recommending specific products, turn off Available for them on the Products tab.

Problem: You want your AI to answer questions about a collection's products, but not add them to the cart
Solution: Leave Browsable as it is and switch the group's Add-to-cart off. See Let Your AI Discuss Products Without Adding Them to the Cart above.

When to Contact Support

If you experience any of these issues with your product groups:

• Product groups are not synchronizing with your Shopify collections

• Manually toggling browsable status isn't affecting AI recommendations

• Important collections are consistently missing from your Product Groups

• Initial sync does not finish

Contact Rep AI support for assistance with resolving these technical issues.