Commerce Categories
This information refers to SuiteCommerce or the Vinson release of SuiteCommerce Advanced or later.
Commerce Categories let you build a hierarchy of product categories, subcategories, and products. At the top level of this hierarchy is the catalog. Each site can have one catalog, and all categories go into that catalog. A well-organized catalog helps you show items to your shoppers in a clear, structured way.
The catalog’s category hierarchy can be general and show everything you sell, or it can be based on occasions like seasons. For example, you might have a spring theme that highlights spring apparel and accessories, or a back-to-school setup that features those specials.
Since you can assign the same item in multiple categories, your structure can be a mix of both types. For example, you could have a large, multi-purpose category with subcategories for spring fashions and accessories, along with standard categories like Men’s, Women’s, or Children’s—each with their own subcategories.
Category organization can be simple with one level of categories and products assigned to those categories. More likely, the category organization and structure is sophisticated with multiple category levels that result in a well-organized, intuitive grouping of products. Here’s an example of a category hierarchy for an apparel site.
To manage Commerce Category records pages, you must have the appropriate permission.
This structure has four levels. The top category is Men, which is split into two more levels of subcategories. Items go in the lowest subcategory. Keep in mind, you don’t have to assign items only to the lowest level. You may have some levels that have both categories and items assigned to it.
SuiteCommerce supports up to 9,999 categories and subcategories combined. In this example, there are 7 total. It also supports up to 10,000 items per category.
Don’t mix up Commerce Categories and Merchandise Hierarchy. Commerce Categories help you organize items in your web store, while Merchandise Hierarchy is for grouping and managing products or inventory across your business. It’s useful for planning, purchasing, and tracking inventory. For more information, see Merchandise Hierarchy.
Category URLs
When you create a category you specify the URL fragment for that category. The URL fragment is used for accessing that category page. The system combines category and subcategory URL fragments, adds them to your domain, and creates the full URL for each category page. For example the URL fragment for the category Camping is camping and the URL fragment for the category Camping Equipment is equipment. Camping Equipment is a subcategory of Camping. So, the full URL is http://mysite.com/camping/equipment.
For a subcategory, you can set a URL fragment override, which replaces the default fragment when someone accesses it through that parent category. This lets you use one URL fragment for a subcategory under one parent, and a different one under another parent. For more information about subcategories see Create Subcategories for a Commerce Category.
Categories in Site Management Tools
In addition to creating and managing categories in NetSuite, you can also manage them in Site Management Tools. When you update categories in Site Management Tools, those changes show up in NetSuite too. The same goes for any category changes you make in NetSuite—they appear in Site Management Tools as well. When you manage categories in Site Management Tools, those changes are always live on your site. For more information, see Commerce Categories in SMT.