Parent categories are those immediately above the product in the hierarchy. For example, Accessories might be the parent category of the product Shoulder Bag. Linked products have multiple parent categories. For example, If you link the Shoulder Bag product to the Women’s Gifts category, its parent categories are now Accessories and Women’s Gifts.
The Parent Categories editor on the Categorization tab displays and lets you add or remove a product’s parent categories.
Merchandising populates the Parent Categories editor depending on the task you perform:
When you create a product in the Browse panel, the Parent Categories editor is automatically populated with the category that was selected when you created the product.
When you create a product in the Find panel, or when a product is imported with no parent category information (such as products imported on a feed), the Parent Categories editor is empty.
When you move, link, or unlink a product, the categories displayed in the Parent Categories editor are automatically updated to reflect the new parents.
You can also manually add or remove parent categories. See Working with Collection Editors for more information.