When it comes to our beloved plugin, the word “categories” is used to refer to categories as well as brands. Categories and brands are a way to organize your product catalog into manageable divisions. Not only does this make your admin operations easier, but it also provides your customers which a variety of ways to search through your products.

We should mention the fact that each and every product in your store HAS to belong to at least one category or brand. If you do not select a category/brand when setting up the product, you will get an error message (we’re smooth that way).

1. To create a new category/brand, all you really need is a name. However, you also have the options to
2. Insert a category description
3. Designate whether its a main category or a sub-category
4. Insert a category image
5. Choose which markets you want to sell to
6. Choose the layout (grid, list, or default) for the products in that category

WP e-Commerce comes with two defaults, an “Example Category” and an “Example Brand”. From here my friend, the world is your oyster. Seriously, it’s pretty easy to go category crazy (Sara, we are looking at you).

A Lesson in Utilizing Categories and Brands

Let’s say your store sells a variety of products. From shirts and shoes, to computer monitors and mice (mouses?). You are a one stop shop of joy, and this joy needs to be categorized.

You can start by dividing your products into two categories – “Things You Can Wear” and “Things You Probably Don’t Want to Wear Unless You’re Going to a Rave”. Or we can just call them “Clothes” and “Computer Accessories”.

Here is a sample hierarchy showing you but a few of the myriad of possibilities for your two main categories. We went a bit wild and utilized categories AND brands. We even put a little “c” or “b” next to the category/brand name so you would know which is which. This way you can truly appreciate the POWER of categorization…either that, or the person writing this is just really obsessive compulsive (give her a break, she resisted the urge to color code).

CLOTHES (main category)
Shirts (c)
Mens (c)
Work (c)
Kenneth Cole (b)
Armani (b)
Casual (c)
Lucky Brand (b)
Hurley (b)
Womens (c)
Work (c)
Long Sleeve (c)
BCBG (b)
Christian Dior (b)
Short Sleeve (c)
Banana Republic (b)
French Connection (b)
Casual (c)
T-Shirt (c)
Billabong (b)
Hurley (b)
Tank Top (c)
PacSun (b)
Oakley (b)
Shoes (c)
Boots (c)
Sexy (c)
Ankle High (c)
Knee High (c)
Practical (c)
Puddle Jumpers (c)
Snow (c)
Cowboy (c)
Sneakers (c)
Nike (b)
Adidas (b)
Vans (b)

COMPUTER ACCESSORIES (main category)
Monitors (c)
30 inch (c)
Dell (b)
HP (b)
20 inch (c)
Dell (b)
HP (b)
Speakers (c)
Desktop (c)
Hardcore Raise the Roof Sound (c)
Sony (b)
Bose (b)
Standard Sound (c)
Logitech (b)
Altech (b)
Laptop (c)
Cute and Compact (c)
Harmon Kardon (b)
Creative GigaWorks (b)
Big and Clunky (c)
Logitech (b)
Altech (b)

As you can see, not only can you mix categories and brands, you can have sub-categories, and sub sub-categories, and sub sub sub-categories, and sub sub sub sub-categories (or as we like to say, the subbiest category of all), ad nauseum. For those of you who like taxonomies, you have found your haven.

Note: If you really want to see a truly category crazy store, or even if you just want to see the different ways products can be categorized, check out the Smarter.com website. It’s nuts.