Creating and Modifying Product Categories

Product categories allow you to organize your product catalog and make it easier for customers to browse through your on-line store. With your store you can create multiple categories and subcategories, and assign a product to up to three categories or subcategories. In addition, you can create up to four subcategory levels in the category tree. For example: "greeting cards" (category), business (subcategory of "greeting cards"), "thank you cards" (subcategory of "business"), "classic" (subcategory of "thank you cards"), etc.

Note the following definitions to understand how to create a new category:

o Root. This is the top level in the category tree. When you create a new category, you will set it as a root category unless you want it to be a subcategory of another category.

o Categories. You can have unlimited categories.

o Parent Category. This is the category to which a subcategory belongs. When you create a new subcategory, select the category that it belongs to from the Parent Category drop down menu.

Note that parent categories cannot contain products. Their subcategories can, unless you want them to also be parent categories. Therefore, you will not be able to select a category as a parent category if it contains products.

o Subcategories. The process of creating a subcategory is the same as creating a category. The only difference is that you will have to specify which parent category or parent subcategory this subcategory belongs to. Your store supports up to four category levels.

To create a new category or subcategory:

o Click on StoreFront / Products / Add Category.

o Enter a category Description. This is the category name that will be displayed on your store when people browse the store by category, together with the category image.

o Specify which category this subcategory belongs to from the drop-down menu. If this is a top level category (i.e. this is not a subcategory of any other category), select Root from the drop-down menu. If a category does not appear in the Parent Category drop-down menu the reason is that either the category has products assigned to it or is the lowest level of category that your store supports (i.e. it cannot have subcategories).

o Click Save to add the category to your store. You may assign products to this category when adding a new product, by using the Modify Products feature under Storefront / Products,

To modify an existing category or subcategory:

o Click on Storefront / Products / Categories / Modify

o A list of all existing categories and subcategories is displayed. Subcategories are displayed below the parent category to which they belong.

o Select the category that you would like to modify by clicking on Modify/ Delete on the right side. You will be shown a window identical to the Add New Category window discussed earlier in this section. To turn a category into a subcategory, select what will become its parent category from the drop down menu and click Modify.

To turn a subcategory into a top level category, select Root from the drop down menu and click Modify

To delete a category, click on the Delete button. Note that to be able to delete a category, it must not contain any subcategories, and no products can be assigned to it. You will first have to delete its subcategories (or assign them to another category or subcategory), and delete the products that belong to it (or assign them to another category).

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