The setting and management of categories allow you to create categories to put your products in order. This notion is very useful because these categories will appear on the cash register interface. Thanks to them, you will be able to browse in the tree structure and find your products easily. Moreover, they will help you in the export of advanced lists of products. You will be able to easily get specific information about a category or subcategory.
Before starting to create the tree structure of your products' categories, take the time to think about what you need to order. What type of products are you going to sell? Only subscriptions? Does your club have a snack bar? a shop? In order to get a sorting as clear as possible, think of putting products in specific categories. Your subcategories must not be overcrowded: if a file contains more than 30 products, maybe you should reorganize it. On the contrary, if there is only one product in each category, you may have created too many sub levels and you should think about a new organization. The aim of this classification is to help you save time.
Let's take an example: if you have a tennis club that sells subscriptions and has a shop selling sport clothing, sport gear, drinks and snacks. Let's see how we could organize the tree structure of our products.
The main categories are:
reservations and subscriptions
garments
sport gear
drinks
snacks
In each category, we will create subcategories in order to be more specific. For the “Reservations and subscriptions” category, we can add a subcategory called “Single session” containing all the products “tennis game” that are sold individually according to the member type. We can also add a subcategory called “Books” where you can place your 10-session books, 20-session books, etc. Then, you can add a subcategory called “Subscriptions” containing all the subscriptions available. You can also think of subcategories such as “Tournaments” or “Lessons” depending on how the club works.
As for the “Garments” category, you can create subcategories such as “T-shirts”, “Socks” or “Shorts”. You could also think of grouping items by brand.
For the “Sport gear” category, you can create subcategories called “Rackets” or “Other”. Keep in mind that this category must not be the one where you put items at random. If it happens, you can try to group some items together in another sub category.
In the “Drinks” category, you can think of subcategories such as “Juices”, “Water” or “Energy drinks”.
Finally, in the “Snacks” category, depending on how many types of snacks you're selling, , you can add subcategories such as “Chocolate bars”, “Protein bars” or “Chips”.
Creating a category is useful as long as you put at least 3 items in it.
The first block allows you to easily add a new category or subcategory. Their use will be explained in the next paragraph.
The “Structure of categories” block shows the organization of categories and all subcategories. This tool is designed to help you see how the structure looks so you can change it, improve it or create a new category if one is missing. By clicking on a category or subcategory, you can edit it or delete it.
Avoid placing items in categories containing subcategories. This could lead to display problems on the cash register interface. Products might not be displayed.
Here, you can create a new category that will be added to the existing structure.
To create a new category, enter its name in the “Category” field. Then choose where you want to place this new “file” (if you need more information on how to organize the tree structure of categories, please read above). If you want to put it at the root, select “All” in the “In” field and confirm. This file will be placed at the root, right after other files of the same level which were created previously. If you want to create a subcategory, choose in the “In” field the category into which you want to put the file. Then, click on “Confirm”. Once again, the new subcategory will be place in the category, after all the subcategories created previously.
If you wish to move a category, it is very easy. You only need to select the category you want to move in the combo box and to choose the type of movement. “Up” will move the category one step above and “Down” will move the category one step below. Then, click on “Confirm”.
Subcategories can only be moved inside a category. They cannot be taken from one category to another one.
If you need to move a subcategory to link it to another category, you need to create the new subcategory at the right place then move the products from the subcategory you wish to delete to the new one. To do so, you need to edit the subcategory.
To edit a category or subcategory, you need to click on its name in the tree structure. A new screen appears:
You can rename this category: just enter its new name in the “Name” field. Then, click on confirm.
You can also delete a category or subcategory. To do so, you need to choose a category or subcategory where you will transfer the products contained in the category you want to remove (whether it contains products or not) in the “Move products in this category to” and then click on “Delete”.
If the category you want to delete contains subcategories, they will also be deleted.
