Product categories are a flexible classification system for organizing products. They work independently of families — while a family defines a product’s structure (its attributes), a category defines where it belongs in your organizational taxonomy.
A product can belong to many categories simultaneously, making categories a powerful tool for cross-referencing and filtering your catalog from multiple angles.
Categories vs. Families
These two concepts are easy to confuse, so here is a clear comparison:
| Families | Categories | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Define which attributes a product has | Organize products for browsing, filtering, and reporting |
| Membership | Every product belongs to exactly one family | A product can belong to many categories |
| Effect on data | Determines the product’s fields and structure | No effect on data structure — purely organizational |
| Variant generation | Family variant attributes drive variant creation | No effect on variants |
Think of it this way: a family answers “what kind of thing is this?” (determines its data shape), while categories answer “where does this belong in our catalog?” (determines how it is organized and found).
Example
A “Bluetooth Speaker” product might:
- Belong to the Electronics family (which gives it attributes like Battery Life, Connectivity, Wattage).
- Be categorized under Audio Equipment, Portable Devices, and Gift Ideas (three different ways to find it).
How Categories Work
Categories are hierarchical — you can nest them into a tree of any depth. A product can be assigned to categories at any level, not just leaf nodes.
Example Category Trees
By department:
Electronics
├── Computers
│ ├── Laptops
│ ├── Desktops
│ └── Accessories
├── Phones
└── AudioBy season or occasion:
Seasonal
├── Summer 2025
├── Winter 2025
├── Ramadan Specials
└── Back to SchoolBy audience:
Target Audience
├── Professional
├── Consumer
├── Education
└── GovernmentA single product can appear in multiple trees — “Bluetooth Speaker” could be in “Electronics > Audio” and also in “Gift Ideas” and “Summer 2025”.
Managing Categories
- Navigate to Product Categories from the Products section.
- Create top-level categories for your broad classification dimensions.
- Add subcategories under each parent for finer groupings.
- Assign categories to products from the Categories tab on the product detail page — add a row, pick the category, and the assignment saves as you go. A product can be filed in as many categories as you need, and an optional position orders products inside a category for curated lists.
Filing products into categories pays off beyond the catalog: the Point of Sale terminal shows a chip per category for filtering the shelf, and the session Z-report breaks the day’s sales down by category.
Category names must be unique within the same parent. You can have “Accessories” under “Electronics” and a separate “Accessories” under “Apparel” — they are distinct because they sit under different parents.
Categories can be activated or deactivated. Deactivating a category hides it from selection lists but does not remove it from products that already have it assigned.
On the Product Categories page, the filter button beside the search box narrows the list to the children of one Parent, or to Active / inactive categories (see Working with lists).
Tips
- Keep hierarchies to 2-3 levels — deeper trees become hard to navigate. “Electronics > Audio > Speakers” is useful. “Products > Consumer > Home > Living Room > Entertainment > Audio > Portable > Speakers” is not.
- Use multiple independent trees — instead of one giant tree that tries to capture everything, create separate top-level categories for different classification dimensions (department, season, audience). This is more flexible and easier to maintain.
- Products can belong to any level — a product does not have to be assigned to the deepest leaf. If a product spans all of “Electronics > Audio”, assign it to “Audio” directly rather than forcing it into a more specific subcategory.
- Categories are great for access control — product categories can be referenced in row access rules. For example, you could restrict a product manager to only see products in the categories they are responsible for.