Full Text
The user wants to exclude specific large appliances (refrigerators, ACs, washing machines) from being displayed on their e-commerce store during a temporary discount sale. The solution needs to be scalable, minimize manual intervention, and be easily reversible.
Here's a breakdown of possible solutions and a recommended combined approach:
---
### Possible Solutions
1. **Category-based Exclusion:**
* **Mechanism:** Tag or flag entire product categories (e.g., "Refrigerators", "Air Conditioners", "Washing Machines") as "excluded from sale display". The e-commerce platform's display logic then hides any product belonging to such flagged categories.
* **Pros:** Highly efficient for broad exclusions. A single change can hide thousands of products. Easily reversible by removing the category flag.
* **Cons:** Requires well-defined and granular categories. If "Mini Fridge" is under a general "Kitchen Appliances" category, the entire "Kitchen Appliances" category might need to be hidden (potentially hiding other desired products) or the mini fridge would remain visible.
2. **Product-specific Tagging/Flagging:**
* **Mechanism:** Assign a custom tag (e.g., `no_sale_display`) to each individual product that needs to be hidden. The display logic then filters out products with this tag.
* **Pros:** Granular control; can hide specific models or items.
* **Cons:** Extremely labor-intensive for a large product catalog. Reverting requires iterating through many products.
3. **Keyword-based Filtering:**
* **Mechanism:** Maintain a list of exclusion keywords (e.g., "refrigerator", "fridge", "AC", "air conditioner", "washing machine", "washer").
* **Real-time:** Modify search/display queries to exclude products whose name or description contains these keywords.
* **Pre-indexed:** A background job scans product data for these keywords and sets an internal `hidden_during_sale` flag on matching products.
* **Pros:** Catches products that might be poorly categorized (e.g., "Smart Fridge"). Minimal setup if categories are not perfectly structured.
* **Cons:**
* Real-time: Can be performance-intensive for large catalogs. Prone to false positives (e.g., "AC adapter" if "AC" is a keyword).
* Pre-indexed: Requires a background process and potential for false positives still exists, requiring review.
4. **Product Type/Attribute-based Exclusion:**
* **Mechanism:** If the e-commerce platform stores detailed product attributes (e.g., "Appliance Type": "Refrigerator", "Air Conditioner", "Washing Machine"), modify display logic to filter out products where this attribute matches an exclusion list.
* **Pros:** Very precise if attribute data is complete and accurate. More granular than category-based if multiple product types exist within a single category.
* **Cons:** Relies heavily on consistent and comprehensive product attribute data across the catalog.
---
### Recommended Solution: Combined Approach
A combination of **Category-based Exclusion** (for the majority) and **Keyword-based Filtering (Pre-indexed with human review)** (for edge cases and precision) offers the best balance of scalability, minimal manual effort, and reversibility.
**Detailed Implementation Plan:**
1. **Phase 1: Category-based Primary Exclusion**
* **Setup:**
* Identify all primary categories directly associated with "Refrigerators," "Air Conditioners," and "Washing Machines." This might include "Side-by-Side Refrigerators," "Split ACs," "Front-Load Washers," etc.
* In the e-commerce platform's category management system, add a custom boolean attribute to categories, e.g., `is_excluded_from_discount_sale` (defaulting to `false`).
* **During Sale:**
* Set `is_excluded_from_discount_sale` to `true` for all identified categories. This is a quick, centralized change.
* Modify the product display logic (e.g., search queries, collection filters, storefront rendering) to hide any product whose parent category (or any ancestor category, depending on hierarchy design) has `is_excluded_from_discount_sale = true`.
* **Reversion:** Set `is_excluded_from_discount_sale` back to `false` for these categories.
2. **Phase 2: Keyword-based Secondary Exclusion (for Precision and Edge Cases)**
* **Setup:**
* Compile a robust list of exclusion keywords for product names and descriptions: `["refrigerator", "fridge", "AC", "air conditioner", "washing machine", "washer", "dryer", "cooling", "laundry appliance", "climate control", etc.]`.
* Add a product-level boolean attribute, e.g., `is_large_appliance_type` (defaulting to `false`). This flag will indicate that a product *is* one of the excluded types, regardless of the current sale.
* **Pre-Sale Action (Automated with Review):**
* Run a one-time (or periodic, pre-sale) background job that scans all product names, descriptions, and relevant tags for the exclusion keywords.
* If a product matches, set its `is_large_appliance_type` flag to `true`.
* **Crucially:** The job should generate a report of all products newly flagged or already flagged as `is_large_appliance_type = true`. This report must be *human-reviewed* to identify and correct any false positives (e.g., an "AC adapter" mistakenly flagged because of "AC"). Manually correct these exceptions via the product management interface.
* **During Sale:**
* The product display logic will now *also* exclude products where `is_large_appliance_type = true`, in addition to the category-based exclusion.
* **Reversion:** The `is_large_appliance_type` flag remains `true` for these products, as it defines their type. For subsequent sales, the display logic can simply reuse this flag. The display logic just needs to remove the condition to hide `is_large_appliance_type = true` products.
3. **Phase 3: Manual Override (Fallback/Exception Handling)**
* **Setup:** Ensure the product management interface allows administrators to manually toggle the `is_large_appliance_type` flag for individual products.
* **Use Case:** To correct any remaining false positives or to specifically include/exclude a particular product that bypasses the automated rules.
---
### E-commerce Platform Logic (Conceptual Example)
When querying for products to display on the storefront during the discount sale:
```sql
SELECT *
FROM Products p
JOIN Categories c ON p.category_id = c.id
WHERE
-- General display conditions (e.g., in_stock = TRUE, is_active = TRUE)
p.in_stock = TRUE AND p.is_active = TRUE
-- EXCLUSION LOGIC FOR THE SALE:
-- 1. Exclude based on category flag (primary exclusion)
AND (c.is_excluded_from_discount_sale = FALSE OR c.is_excluded_from_discount_sale IS NULL)
-- 2. Exclude based on product type flag (secondary, keyword-driven exclusion)
AND (p.is_large_appliance_type = FALSE OR p.is_large_appliance_type IS NULL)
-- Other sale-specific conditions (e.g., price_discount_percentage > 0)
-- AND p.price_discount_percentage > 0
;
```
---
**Benefits of this Combined Approach:**
* **Scalability:** Category-level flags handle the bulk efficiently, minimizing individual product updates.
* **Minimized Manual Intervention:** Most products are handled automatically. Keyword scanning reduces manual tagging to only an initial review of flagged items.
* **Reversibility:** Toggling a few category flags is fast. The `is_large_appliance_type` flag is persistent, so only the display logic needs to be toggled for the sale period.
* **Accuracy:** Category exclusion handles main groups, keyword filtering catches miscategorized or edge-case items, and manual override provides final, precise control.
* **Flexibility:** This framework can be adapted for future sales with different exclusion criteria by simply modifying the category flags or keyword lists.