A Private Showroom is a curated, password-free product page that your sales team shares with specific buyers. Your sales reps pick the products, languages and Attributes a buyer should see, invite the buyer by email, and choose when access ends. Buyers browse the selection without a Digital Showroom account, and your reps see how the selection is used.
Why use a Private Showroom
PDF and spreadsheet exports are useful, but they are static: once sent, you cannot update them, take them back or know whether anyone opened them. A Private Showroom keeps the selection live in Digital Showroom, with the product data coming from your Akeneo PIM through the Portfolio.
- Curated: buyers see only the products your rep picked, nothing else from your catalog.
- Private: only the email addresses your rep invites can open it, and each guest confirms their address with a one-time code.
- Time-limited: every Private Showroom closes on a date your rep chooses.
- Measurable: your rep sees visits, the most viewed products, what guests searched for and how far each guest got.
Example
Northwood Furniture is a wholesaler that sells to retail chains. Before the autumn buying season, Léa, a key account manager, prepares a selection of 80 sofas and armchairs for the buying committee of a home decor retailer. She creates a Private Showroom from the Northwood Portfolio, keeps only the English and French Locales and the Attributes the buyers care about (dimensions, materials, lead time), and invites the four committee members by email. She sets the Private Showroom to close at the end of the month, when the committee makes its decision.
Two days later, the Activity card shows that the buyers visited and that three armchairs are the most viewed products. On the Analytics page, she also sees that one committee member has not signed in yet, so she sends them the invitation again. Léa prepares her follow-up call around the three armchairs. After the deadline, the Private Showroom expires on its own and the buyers can no longer open it.
How it works
- A sales rep creates a Private Showroom from a Portfolio they have access to, either from scratch or from a product selection.
- They choose the products, the Locales guests can switch between and the Attributes guests can see.
- They add the email addresses of their guests and set an expiration date.
- They preview the Private Showroom as a guest, then send the invitation by email. Sending the invitation activates a draft.
- Guests open the link, enter their email address and type the 6-digit code they receive by email.
- The rep follows guest activity from the Private Showroom and updates it as the conversation moves on.
For the detailed procedure, see Create and share a Private Showroom.
What guests see
Guests open a page that carries your company's branding (logo and colors) and the name of the Private Showroom. They can:
- Browse the selected products by Category, with the filters and sorting options of the Portfolio.
- Search within the selected products.
- Open product pages, with product media and the Attributes your rep chose to show.
- Switch between the Locales your rep selected.
Guests cannot select products or export them to PDF or spreadsheet files, and they see nothing outside the selection. To share with your buyers what to expect, point them to Access a Private Showroom as a guest.
Private Showroom statuses
A Private Showroom always has one of four statuses. The status decides whether guests can open it.
| Status | Can guests open it? | How it gets this status |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | No. Only its creator can preview it. | Default status of a new or duplicated Private Showroom. Also set when you give an expired Private Showroom a new expiration date, restore an archived one, or move an active one back to draft. |
| Active | Yes, invited guests only, until the expiration date. | Set by sending the invitation, or by choosing Active as the status. |
| Expired | No. Its creator can still preview it. | Set automatically when the expiration date passes. You cannot choose it yourself. |
| Archived | No, and it cannot be previewed. | Set manually by its creator, to put a Private Showroom aside without deleting it. It can be restored at any time. |
Access ends at the end of the expiration day (23:59 UTC), so every guest loses access at the same time, wherever they are.
To change the status, the creator clicks the status badge on the Private Showroom's overview page and picks one of the moves offered for the current status. See Manage your Showrooms.
Limits
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| Products per Private Showroom | 1,000 |
| Expiration date | Required. 2 weeks by default, up to one year ahead. |
| Invitation email | Subject up to 255 characters, message up to 10,000 characters |
When you save a Private Showroom, products that are no longer in the Portfolio, or beyond the 1,000-product limit, are removed from it.
Who can create and manage Private Showrooms
Every Digital Showroom user with the User or Administrator role can create Private Showrooms from the Portfolios they have access to. Your Digital Showroom administrator assigns roles and Portfolio access, see Manage users and Manage User Groups.
A Private Showroom belongs to the person who created it. Only its creator can edit it, invite guests, preview it, duplicate it and delete it. Administrators can see the list of all Private Showrooms in the company, with their status, creator and guest count, and open each one and its analytics in read-only mode.
Availability
Private Showrooms are available with the Sell package. If your plan does not include it, the Private showrooms menu item shows an upgrade icon and opens a page that presents the feature. To add the Sell package, administrators can contact their Akeneo Customer Success Manager; other users can contact their administrator.
Administrators can also turn Private Showrooms off for a specific Portfolio, from the Portfolio's Sharing settings. While the feature is off, nobody can create a Private Showroom from that Portfolio, guests can no longer open its Private Showrooms, and their creators see them as Disabled, in read-only mode. Nothing is deleted: turning the feature back on restores them. See Configure sharing settings.
Private Showrooms depend on their Portfolio. If an administrator deletes a Portfolio, all Private Showrooms created from it are permanently deleted and their guests immediately lose access. Duplicating a Portfolio does not copy its Private Showrooms.
What is not included
- No public links. A Private Showroom has one link, and it only works for the email addresses on its guest list. Sharing the link with someone else does not give them access.
- No guest accounts or passwords. Guests always sign in with a one-time code sent by email. They cannot use a password or Single Sign-On.
- No exports for guests. Guests can browse and search, but they cannot select products or download PDF or spreadsheet exports.
- No automatic emails to guests. Guests only receive the invitations your rep sends. Digital Showroom does not send reminders or expiry notices.
- No undo after deletion. A deleted Private Showroom cannot be restored. Archive it instead if you might need it again.