Ecomm Professional - Categories Setup

Overview:

Create categories to organize your store and make your products easy to find. You can create an unlimited number of categories. Each top level category can have 3 levels of sub categories for a total of 4 levels of categories.

 

You can create an unlimited number of sub categories for each parent category.

e.g. Computer Cases>Full Tower>300 Watt>Clear Side Panel -  is 4 levels of categories.

e.g. Computer Cases>Full Tower>300 Watt>Standard Side Panel-  is 4 levels of categories.

(300 Watt is the Parent of Standard Side Panel)

 

As you create categories, links, with the name of the category automatically appear on the left side of your shopping pages. When you click a category link ALL Products will be displayed and the sub categories are displayed in a select box near the top of the page. (this is a beautiful thing)

*Note - Be very careful how you setup your Categories as this will determine how easy (or hard) it is to find the products that your customers are looking for. Examine the Demo Store on our web site. It is setup as a Computer Parts Store. Every product MUST be in a category otherwise, it will NEVER be found on any shopping page.

Setup Categories:

1. Login to your Database Control Panel - http://www,yourdomain.com/scart/cartcp/login.asp.

2. Click the Categories Button

3. At the bottom of the page see Create a New Top Level Category:

4. Enter the Category Name, up to 18 Characters, and click Create Category.

5. If you make a spelling mistake or wish to edit the Category name simply fix the error and click Update.
6. At this point you will have one link on the main shopping page, which is scart/shop.asp.
7. To create a Sub Category for Computer Cases Click on Computer Cases and repeat step 4.
8. To add an Item to the Computer Cases category you would click Add Item Here which will load that category onto the Add Items page. You then fill out the rest of the product/item's info. (see Add Products for more help)

1. Try to keep your categories to one or two levels. Use 3 or 4 category levels ONLY if you have many products that need to be separated.
2. Remember that for each top level category that you create, Ecomm Pro will add a link on the left side of your shopping pages.
   • If you were selling Computer Parts you would NOT create a category called Computer Parts because that pretty much covers everything you are selling and all of your sub categories would then be under Computer Parts. This would produce only ONE link called Computer Parts on your shopping pages. Of course you CAN do it that way and then breakup the Parts in Sub Categories however this is not recommended. It would be much better to breakdown your Computer Parts and create Top Level categories for each specific TYPE of part. e.g. Cases, Hard Drives, Memory etc. each of the preceding being a Top Level Category.
   • IF you are like Sears Department Store and are selling many different types of products THEN you might have a Top Level Category called Computer Parts or just Computers with Computer Parts being a sub level category. In this scenario you would have other Top Level Categories called Clothes, Electronics, Automotive, Appliances and so on. In this scenario you may very well need 4 levels of Categories. Otherwise, you probably only need two levels at most.
3. You cannot delete a category if you have added products to it. You must first move the product to a different category or delete the products all together. You CAN rename a category once products have been added.
4. How the categories work:
   • In our online demo we have setup a Computer Parts Store. When you click on Computer Cases Ecomm Pro will display ALL Computer cases, 5 items per page, regardless of any sub categories these items may be in. So if you have 20 Computer Cases entered into your database, you will have 4 pages of Cases (20 / 5 = 4). Some of those Cases may be in Sub Level Categories e.g. Full Tower, Mid Tower or Micro Tower. These Sub Level Categories are displayed in a Select Box near the top of the page. When a customer chooses a sub category, say Full Tower, Ecomm Pro will display only the items that you have added to the Sub Category "Full Tower" (5 per page). It will not display Mid Tower or Micro Tower Cases. However, these Sub Level Categories, Full, Mid and Micro will now be displayed as links, on the left, under your Top Level Categories. So if they want to see the Mid or Micro Tower Cases they can click the respective links. This process is repeated for each of the 3 SUB LEVEL categories.
5. Do not use double quotes ( " ) in the Category Names.
6. Every product MUST be in a category otherwise, it will NEVER be found on any shopping page.
   • There is an exception to every rule. Ever heard that? Well it applies here as well. You can add products to your database and NOT put them in a Category purposely. You would ONLY DO THIS IF you want to use the Optional Method 1 (using a hyperlink with a query string) to display products on the product_details.asp page (included with Ecomm Pro) and you DO NOT WANT THIS ITEM/PRODUCT TO BE DISPLAYED ON THE PRE-MADE SHOPPING PAGES (included in Ecomm Pro). See the instruction for this method here. 
7. If you delete a Category and it is still displayed in the page, click the Refresh Button, at the bottom of the page, to see the changes. DO NOT USE THE BROWSER'S RELOAD or REFRESH BUTTON.
8. When creating Categories remember these tips:
   1. Clicking on the Category Name will take you to, and display, it's sub level categories. If none exist you can create them.
   2. Clicking Add Item Here will load that category onto the Add Products Page. You would then fill out the rest of that Item/Product's information.
   3. Once your categories are setup, you can load the correct category onto the Add Products page FROM the Add Products page - there's no need to go to the Categories Button in Control Panel to add products. This can be accomplished from the Add Products page where you will see the Category (Change) hyperlink. Simply click Change and navigate to the the correct category that you want to add this item to. Then click Add Item Here.

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