Catalog, selection, collection: what is the difference?

Short answer: Three successive steps: the catalog is our complete offer, the selection is your own shortlist, and the collections are the groups of products presented on your shop.

The three levels

	What it is	Where to find it
The catalog	Everything DAGOBA offers, hundreds of products, the same for everyone	The “Catalog” page, reached from the dashboard
The selection	The products you have kept, with their colors. Your working shortlist.	The panel on the right of the catalog, and the left-hand panel of the dashboard
The collections	The groups of products as the buyer will see them on the shop	In the shop itself, in the middle of the screen

Why three levels and not one

Because these are three different decisions, taken at different moments.

Choosing a product in the catalog says “I'm interested in this product, in these colors”. Putting it in a collection says “and I offer it, in this collection”. In between, the selection lets you quietly gather a list of candidates without publishing anything.

It is also what lets you prepare several shops from the same selection, or take a product out of a collection without losing it: it simply goes back to your selection.

A product in the selection is not offered yet

Until a product has been dropped into a collection, it appears nowhere on your shop.

The third step is missing: dragging it from the selection into a collection.

Which way things flow

Catalog → selection: you click on a product and choose its colors.
Selection → collection: you grab the thumbnail and drop it into a collection of the shop.

Each step can be undone: you can take a product out of a collection (it stays in the selection), and take a product out of the selection (it obviously stays in the catalog).

Going further

How do I add products to my shop — the two steps in practice.
How do I organize my products into collections — creating and ordering collections.
I cannot remove a product from my selection — why the order matters.