The category system between Retail and eCom is designed around product-category syncing. Adding a category to a product in Retail automatically does the same in eCom. This feature keeps everything consistent and saves you the time of making changes in both systems.

Category guidelines

Retail can have an identical or a different category structure compared to eCom.

• To maintain the same category structure in eCom as Retail, restrict your category management to Retail. Anytime you need to create, rename, rearrange, merge or delete a category, do it in Retail. Performing any of these actions in eCom will misalign your Retail and eCom category structures.
• To have a different category structure, use eCom to rename or rearrange categories as you see fit. Changing category names and locations does not affect product category syncing. However, changing the name and the location can easily confuse which Retail category syncs to which eCom category.  Only rename or rearrange categories methodically and track your changes. Read Troubleshooting categories for Retail/eCom for assistance.

Category syncing

Both Retail and eCom can manage categories. To make sure both systems work together, the system has been designed with these rules:

• Nothing restricts Retail from creating, merging and deleting the categories that are synced to eCom.
• Retail can only rename or rearrange eCom categories when they both have the same configuration for that setting.
• eCom cannot create, rename, rearrange, merge or delete categories in Retail.
• Retail resyncs categories and products when saved.

Category levels

Retail is can have 10 levels of categories, in eCom's back office supports 6 levels. eCom's navigation displays a maximum of 3 category levels.

• The first 6 levels of categories and subcategories in Retail are pushed to eCom with the correct category tree structure.
• The 7th and subsequent subcategories in Retail are still pushed to eCom, but outside of their category tree structure. This 7th category becomes a top level category in eCom and creates its own category tree with the remaining subcategories.
• You can only display up to three levels of categories and subcategories in your navigation on your eCom store. To make your products accessible via navigation:
  • A depth to a sixth level category can be achieved by using five levels of index type categories.
  • In order to ensure all products are accessible via the navigation, rearrange your categories.