Merchandising rules (boost and bury)
Merchandising rules are instructions a team sets on top of the agent's ranking: boost a product line to the top, bury items that are low in stock, pin a campaign to a slot. The agent personalizes within the rules; the team keeps the last word.
What it means
An algorithm ranks for the goal it is given. A business has constraints the algorithm cannot know: a supplier deal, a margin problem on one brand, a promotion that starts Monday, a product that must never appear next to another. Boost and bury rules express those constraints. Boost moves a product or a category up for everyone or for a segment; bury moves it down or hides it.
Why it matters for a store
Rules let a small team run the store the way a merchandiser would, without touching the model. They also stop the common failure of a personalization tool that keeps showing a best seller the store cannot deliver this week.
An example
A DIY store boosts its own-brand tools for shoppers who have never bought a power tool, and buries any item under five units in stock from recommendations, while the agent still ranks within those limits per shopper.
How the agent uses it
Boosts and filters for merchandising are part of the sales agent, for search and for recommendations. The team sets the rule; the agent picks the products inside it, as our themed rows use case shows.
Related terms
See also Personalized site search, Next-basket prediction.
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