What is the Category Manager?

To have an easy to navigate and intuitive store, you will need to have your products organized into Categories. The Category Manager is the area of your Control Panel which allows you to create and manage your Categories.

How do I use the Category Manager?

From the Category Manager Menu you have the ability to create new Categories and Subcategories as well as modify and delete existing categories. When you click into the Category Manager the screen will display the Categories you have added in alphabetical order. Any Subcategories will display in alphabetical order beneath each parent Category. This screen will also display the number of products that you have already associated with each Category. The Category Manager Menu will display up to 25 products on a single page before dividing into multiple pages.

How do I create a New Category or Subcategory?

From the Category Manager Menu click on the "Create a main category" or "Create a new subcategory" link to open the "Enter Category Details" screen. From this screen you will be able to enter all of the necessary information to add a Category to your store.

• Category Name: this is the title of the Category as it will display on the store.
• Sort Order: a number that controls the order in which Category listings are displayed. A Sort Order of zero displays at the top of the list, higher numbers display lower on the list.
• Hidden: when enabled this category and all of the products associated with it will be hidden from view on the storefront.
• Short Description: text summary of your Category, which displays to customers while navigating Categories and Subcategories in your store.
• Full Description: informative text review of your Category that provides customers with all of the details about this Category.
• Meta Title: the text entered in this field can be seen at the top of the web browser window and search engine listings, helping search engines determine your web page relevancy for certain keyword phrases.
• Meta Keywords: the text entered in this field allows you to provide additional text for crawler-based search engines to index along with the text of your store pages. Enter words or phrases separated by commas.
• Meta Description: the text entered in this field can allow you to influence the description of your page in the crawler-based search engines supporting this tag.

If you are satisfied with the information in the Enter Category Details screen you will need to click the "Create" button before it will create the new product. If you would prefer to exit without saving click on the "Cancel & Return" button to return to the main Category Manager screen.

Can I make changes to the Categories I have already created?

You may return to the Edit Category Details screen from the Category Manager Menu by clicking the "Edit" button next to any Category. You can modify any of the category information that you have previously entered at any time. Categories can only be deleted from the store when there are no products associated with them. If you want to delete a Category you must first make sure that all of the Products assigned to that Category are assigned elsewhere.

Please note: deleted categories cannot be retrieved from your store; use this option carefully.

Return to the Inventory Manager