Introduction

Regardless of what type of products you are selling in your store, designing your Product Catalog is one of the essential aspects of developing an eCommerce website. Product Categories are collections of products arranged together based on similar features or characteristics. Organizing your products accurately positively impacts your users' experience as they are able to easily navigate through your Online Store and find exactly what they are looking for.

In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to efficiently classify your products and give your website that welcoming touch that encourages customers to buy. We are going to step-by-step guide you on how to create and edit Product Categories and how to assign products to them.

X-Cart Categories Overview

First off, let's get you to the section where the magic happens. Please log in to your X-Cart Admin Area and navigate through the left-hand side menu bar to Catalog > Categories.

Under this section, you can see a list of the default X-Cart categories and, of course, any custom categories, in case you have created such. The table consists of a few columns indicating important information, such as the category name, number of featured products assigned, number of subcategories, and number of products.

Categories are displayed at the top of the page on your storefront as banners. The consequence determines the order in which they appear in the "Categories" section in your Admin Area. You can organize them by clicking on the Arrow Cross icons dragging them to the desired position.

An independent page on your store represents each category. The page consists of a category banner, product filters block, and a list of all products assigned to this category.

Note that the above screenshot examples are with illustrations purpose. The appearance on your store might differ depending on the theme you are using and your settings configuration.

Creating Categories and Subcategories

To create a category, please click on the "New category" button. When this is done, a new row appears with a single empty field where you have to enter the category name.

Once ready, please click on the "Save changes" button, and your new category is going to be added. With this done, the process is completed, and you can see the new category listed at the top of the table. If necessary, change the position of the category by clicking on the Arrow Cross icon and dragging it to the desired place.

The process of creating a subcategory is slightly similar. For a start, please click on the category name to access the category details page.

When there, you can see the page is divided into four primary tabs. For the purpose of our task, please switch to the "Subcategories" tab.

Afterward, click on the "New category" button, specify the subcategory name into the new field, and click on the "Save changes" button.

When this is done, the subcategory is created and nested under the parent category.

Now, let's see how to configure your newly created category.

Editing Categories

To edit or configure a category, you have to click on its name to access the category details page.

When you are there, please remain under the first "Category info" tab. Beneath it, you can find the necessary settings to properly configure it and ensure it displays on your storefront as desired.

Let's review each of the settings and explain what you can achieve by adjusting them.

• Category name - The category name is intended to represent it on the storefront. Please make sure the title is clear and easy to identify by your customers.
• Parent category - This setting lets you determine whether this is a parent category or subcategory. In case this is a primary category (displayed on the homepage), please make sure to leave it set to "root category". Alternatively, if you want to configure it as a subcategory, you have to select the desired parent category under which to be nested from the dropdown.
• Show category title - This setting controls whether the category is shown or hidden from your customers.
• Category icon - You can upload a category image directly from your local computer or by providing the image source URL address. This image represents the category on your storefront (as shown in the second screenshot example in this tutorial). The size of the image is not strictly defined as X-Cart can automatically resize and crop it for the best appearance. You can check the dimensions of the default category icon by navigating through the left-hand side menu bar to Look & Feel > Images.
• Category banner - The category banner is the image, which appears at the top of the category page. Similarly to the previous example, you can add an image by uploading it from your local computer or a source URL address. 

• Description - If you desire, you may write a brief description of the category and its specifications. It is displayed on the category details page on the storefront.
• Clean URL - The Clean URL, or the so-called SEO-Friendly URL, is automatically created based on the category name. You can edit it, if necessary. Please make sure to use only lower case letters and replace all spaces with hyphens (-).
• Category page title - This setting determined the title of the category details page shown in the browser title bar. If you leave it blank, the category name is used as a title.

• Meta keyword - In this field, you need to enter all the keywords related to the category. They help search engines to determine what this page is about.
• Meta description - This field is intended for the metadata description of the category. The meta description does not appear on the category page itself, search engines use it, and it displays in search results.
• Open Graph meta tags - Here, you have to specify the meta tags used for sharing the category page on Facebook.
• Memberships - In case you want this category to be available only to a particular membership level, you have to specify it in this field. If a membership is selected, users who do not belong to it are not going to be able to see and access this category.
• Enabled - This checkbox determines whether the category is enabled or disabled. If unticked, the category page is going to display a 404 Not Found error when accessed.
• Classes for product filter - In this field, you can enter the applicable product classes to this product category. The selected attributes display at the product filter block on the category page.

When you adjust the settings as per your preferences, please click on the "Update" button to apply the changes.

Now your new category is configured, and you can double-check the result on your storefront.

If you are pleased with the result, you are all set! Alternatively, please go back and perform the necessary changes in the same manner.

Assigning Products to Category

Now that your category is created and configured, all left to be done is to assign products to it.

In X-Cart, there are several ways this could be achieved:

• Import Products - This method is suitable in a situation when you want to add multiple products that are not yet available in your X-Cart store.
• Bulk Edit - This method is suitable when you have created your products, and you want to assign them to a particular category at once.
• Manually Create Products - This method is suitable when you have not yet created your products, nor you have them available for importing.

In the following lines, we are going to review each of the methods. Depending on your case, you can select the most convenient one.

Importing Products to Category

Importing products is considerably the fasted and most convenient way to assign products to your category.

In X-Cart, you are allowed to import your files using a CSV file. Detailed information about the Products CSV Data Types you can find in X-Cart's official documentation.

Once you have your CSV file perpetrated, please navigate through the left-hand side menu bar to Catalog > Import.

When there, click on the "Choose file" button, select the file from your local computer, and the rest is going to be handled by X-Cart.

Note that unless the category is defined in your CVS file, the products are not going to be assigned to the intended category.

Bulk Editing Products

To bulk edit your products and assign them to the desired category, please navigate through the left-hand side menu to Catalog > Products.

When you land on the intended page, please mark the desired products by ticking the corresponding checkboxes. Afterward, click on the "Bulk edit selected" button and choose the "Categories and tags" option.

On the new page, please choose the relevant category from the dropdown menu and make sure to select the "Add" radio button.

When this is done, click on the "Save changes" button, and your products are going to be automatically assigned to the selected category.

Manually Create Products

This method should be used only in case you have not yet created your products, as it could be time-consuming compared to the previous two.

To create a new product and assign it to the category, please access the category details page and switch to the "Products" tab. When there, please click on the "Add product" button.

Once this is done, you have to configure the product details. Step-by-step instructions on how to set up every single setting you can find in our guide on How to add Products in X-Cart.

At this point, you know the essentials in the process of managing your Product Categories in X-Cart. To sum up, you have learned how to create and configure categories, as well as how to assign products to them. We hope this information was useful to you and your new skills are going to come in handy in the future development and maintenance of your Online Store. In case you have run into some difficulties, please do not hesitate to contact our Support Team for further instructions.