When the same product appears twice

A duplicate is two rows that are the same real thing — entered twice, or imported twice. Linking one to the other makes one row canonical: your assistant then offers the one and never the other. Both rows survive; only the link changes.

Duplicates happen. You enter a product from memory, then again from an old list. An import finds the same thing on your website under a slightly different name. Left alone, two rows for the same real thing mean your assistant can quote two prices, recommend the same product twice, and let a customer meet “which one is the real one?” — all from rows you never meant to be separate.

This page is about what a duplicate is, what linking does, and how your assistant behaves once two rows are linked. It is the deep dive for the duplicate row on the comparison table.

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What linking does

Linking one entry to another says: these two are the same thing, and the one I linked to is the real one. The linked entry becomes an alias of the other — the canonical.

Three things follow, and they are what make linking worth doing:

• Your assistant offers the canonical one, never the other. It does not list the same product twice, does not quote it twice, and does not recommend it twice. One product, one answer.
• Both rows still exist. Linking does not merge or delete anything — you keep both rows, with their own notes and details. Only the link changes.
• If a customer names the linked entry by its own code — from an old quote, an invoice, a printed list — your assistant answers with the canonical one and says so. The customer is not told “not found”, and is not offered a second listing of the same thing.

One direction only: the alias points at the canonical, never the other way, and a canonical cannot itself be an alias.

Where duplicates come from

Mostly from importing. When Kooday reads a page or a feed, it matches what it finds against your catalogue. When it cannot be sure which existing entry a row is — the names and prices do not quite line up — it marks the row a possible duplicate and sets it aside rather than guessing.

On the import review screen those rows appear under Possible duplicates, and they are the one kind of row the screen will not let you import blindly: a checkbox there would be guessing which real thing the row is. The screen says it plainly — “open the item you think it matches and edit it by hand” — which is the honest answer when only you know which row is the real one.

A duplicate is not a variant, a package, or a related product

These four are the ones people mix up. The quick test: a variant is one thing at several prices; a package is several things sold together; a related product is a genuinely different thing you also sell; a duplicate is the same thing twice. If you would not sell them apart, they are duplicates.

Each of the others has its own page: variants, packages, and related products live under Goes with. The full table — with how your assistant treats each one — is on Selling from your catalogue.

Troubleshooting

I see two entries for the same product

If one of them came from an import, it was likely flagged as a possible duplicate — the import screen names which rows look like something you may already sell. Open the entry you think is the real one and edit it by hand, so the catalogue holds one correct row.

My assistant recommends the same product twice

Two rows that are not linked are two products to your assistant — it cannot know they are the same thing until they are linked. Check for a duplicate pair and link the one that is not the real entry to the one that is.

A customer asked for an old code and got a different product’s price

That is the canonical answer working. The old code was an alias, and your assistant answered with the real entry — and said it was doing so. The customer is not being misled; they are being pointed at the one true listing.

I deleted a canonical and now both are gone

Deleting a canonical does not delete its aliases — they become ordinary offerings again, because your assistant must never lose a real catalogue row because another row pointed at it. If the entry has vanished, it was deleted as a row in its own right, not through the link.

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A sensible first configuration

When you import and see a possible duplicate
  Open the entry you think it matches
  Edit it by hand so your catalogue holds one correct row
  Keep the other row linked to it — or removed — so the pair stops existing twice

Duplicates are most likely to arrive through importing, and the import review screen is where you will first meet them. Resolve them by hand when they appear, rather than letting two rows for the same thing drift apart in price and description.

For how duplicates fit with the rest of your catalogue, and the full comparison, see the comparison table and Import your catalogue from your website.