Catalog structure
Build one category tree Every channel gets its own taxonomy
Shape the tree with Move up, Move down and the Move dialog, file a product in as many categories as it belongs to, and send the tree to the shops you connect.
- Unlimited nesting depth
- Reorder with Alt and the arrow keys
- One primary category per product
Key features
Nest as deep as the catalog needs
Parent categories, subcategories and levels below that. Reorder with Move up and Move down, and give a branch a new parent with the Move dialog.
Send the tree to each shop
Shopify gets your categories as collections, WooCommerce gets the tree and each product's category links, and Lightspeed and CCV Shop get the tree with translated names.
Keep AI categorization in bounds
Give a category up to 20 rules, such as never or only when a condition holds, and AI categorization files products within them.
Assigning products
Filing products is a bulk action
Filter to a set of products and add them to one or more categories in a single run, without disturbing the categories they already sit in.
How it works
From an empty tree to channel-ready
Three steps: build and file once, then push the tree to your channels whenever it changes.
01
Build the tree
Add top-level categories for your main lines, then break them down. Move a branch to a new parent with the Move dialog and its subcategories move with it.
A structure that matches how you actually browse the catalog.
02
File the products
Assign products one by one, in bulk from a filter, inside an automation, or with AI categorization. A product can sit in several categories, with one marked primary.
03
Send the tree to each channel
Export your categories and each connector sends the tree in the form its channel takes: collections on Shopify, a category tree on WooCommerce, Magento, Lightspeed and CCV Shop. You keep one tree instead of one per channel.
Every connected shop gets the structure it supports, from the same tree.
Create a category
A category takes one dialog
Name it, pick its parent, and it appears in the tree where you put it, with its own description and SEO fields.
The parent decides the place
Pick the parent in the dialog and the category slots straight into that branch instead of at the root.
Description and SEO fields included
A category page needs its own copy: name, description, meta title and meta description live on the category itself.
Moving it later keeps the products
Move a category somewhere else and the products stay assigned to it. Restructuring changes the shape, not the data.
In practice
One tree, three different catalogs
Where keeping one internal structure and mapping outward saves the duplicate work.
Several brands, several channels
Each brand arrives with its own structure. The category map in Catalog Jobs proposes where each of their categories belongs in your master tree, so every product files into one structure.
Result: one tree to maintain instead of one per channel.
Seasonal campaign categories
Add a temporary category for the campaign, assign products in bulk, and remove it afterwards. The core structure is untouched.
Result: a campaign that ends without a cleanup project.
A new webshop
Connect the new shop and export the categories you already have. On WooCommerce, Lightspeed and CCV Shop the tree arrives as it is, so you do not build it a second time.
Result: no second category tree to build by hand.
Category mapping explained
What category mapping means in ecommerce
Every channel sorts products its own way. Category mapping is the work of getting one product into the right place in each of them.
A webshop has its own category tree, built around how your shoppers browse. Shopify adds collections and its own Standard Product Taxonomy. Google Shopping files every product under Google's product taxonomy. Marketplaces run their own category trees with their own codes. None of these lines up with the others, and none of them lines up with the way your buyers or your suppliers organise products.
Category mapping is the translation between those structures: deciding, for each category you manage, where its products belong on each channel. Teams that skip it end up maintaining a separate tree per channel and correcting the same product in four places. Teams that do it once keep one internal tree, file each product in it, and let the export put the product where every channel expects it.
The table below shows what you are mapping onto. The rest of this guide covers how to design the internal tree, how to fill it, and what WISEPIM does with it per channel today.
| Structure | Who defines it | What it is used for | How many per product |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your category tree | You | Navigation, filters, internal reporting and the source for every channel | As many as fit, with one primary |
| Shopify collections | You, in Shopify | Grouping products on the storefront; manual or rule-based | Any number |
| Shopify product category | Shopify's Standard Product Taxonomy | Category metafields, tax rates and selling on other channels | One |
| Google product category | Google's product taxonomy | Optional override of the category Google assigns automatically | One |
| Marketplace category | Each marketplace | Which attributes are required and where the offer is listed | Usually one leaf |
Designing the tree
Seven rules for a category tree that maps cleanly
Most mapping trouble starts with an internal tree that mixes purposes. These rules keep it simple to map later.
- Build for shoppers, not for the warehouse. A category is a place a buyer looks. Supplier groupings and purchasing codes belong in attributes, not in the tree.
- Keep it three to five levels deep. Deeper trees get harder to browse well before any technical limit. WISEPIM itself does not cap the depth.
- File products in the most specific category. A laptop belongs in Electronics > Laptops, not in Electronics. A precise leaf maps precisely; a broad parent maps to whatever is broad on the other side.
- Give every product one primary category. Channels that accept one category, such as most marketplaces, read the primary. The other categories serve navigation and cross-selling.
- Keep campaigns out of the core. Sale, gift guides and seasonal edits come and go. Put them in their own branch or in collections so the core tree stays stable for mapping.
- Name categories the way customers search. "Running shoes" beats "Footwear type B". The name ends up in breadcrumbs, URLs and category page titles.
- Split and merge on evidence. Split a category when shoppers look for its products separately; merge two when the difference confuses navigation. Product counts per branch tell you where.
For example structures per industry, see the product categorization guides, and for Google's own tree, the Google product category guide.
Building it in WISEPIM
Five ways to get your tree in
You rarely start from nothing. Pick the route that matches where your categories live today.
01
Create categories by hand
Open Product Categories, click New Category, enter a name and pick a parent. Each category carries a description, a meta title, meta description and keywords, a sort order, an active switch and AI notes that steer generated copy.
02
Import a spreadsheet
Upload a CSV or Excel file of up to 50 MB. Map columns for code, name, parent code, level, sort order, description, image, status or a full path such as Home > Kitchen > Knives. Level columns are detected for you. A path import reads up to 20 levels and 20,000 paths.
03
Pull the tree from your shop
Import existing categories from Shopify, WooCommerce, Lightspeed or CCV Shop, or from a Databricks table. Product imports from Akeneo and other sources also create the categories their products sit in.
04
Start from GS1 GPC
Browse the GS1 Global Product Classification under Classification and turn a branch into categories. The import shows its plan first: the path, how many categories are new and which bricks land.
05
Read categories from a product file
When products arrive in a CSV with a category path or level columns, WISEPIM recognises the columns during product import and files the products as it creates the categories.
Once the tree stands, you can copy it to another project, export it to CSV for a review in a spreadsheet, or push it to a shop, as described under channels below.
Filing products
Four ways to put products in the right category
A tree is only useful once products sit in it. WISEPIM gives you a manual, a bulk, an automated and an AI route.
One product at a time
In the product editor, pick as many categories as fit and mark one as primary. A product can have only one primary category.
In bulk from a filter
Select products, or filter and apply to all, then choose assign, remove, replace or set primary. Assign adds categories without touching the ones a product already has; replace swaps them.
Inside an automation
The bulk edit step in automations runs the same four category actions, so products from a supplier import can be filed the moment they arrive.
With AI categorization
AI reads each product and picks from your existing categories. It never invents a new one. You set a confidence threshold (75% by default) and a maximum number of categories per product, three by default, or let it decide.
AI categorization costs 1 credit per product. To keep it inside your merchandising rules, give a category its own rules: never put products in it when a condition holds, only put them in when it holds, or require the primary category to sit within a branch. A category takes up to 20 rules, and you can test them on five products before a full run.
Changing the tree
Restructure without losing assignments
Catalogs change shape. Moving a branch in WISEPIM changes where it sits, not what is in it.
- Reorder with Move up and Move down, or with Alt and the arrow keys while a category is selected.
- Move to a new parent with the Move dialog, which can move several categories in one go. Subcategories travel with their parent.
- Product assignments stay put. A product is linked to the category itself, so a move changes the tree and leaves every assignment in place.
- Product counts show direct and branch totals, so you see how many products sit in a category and in everything below it before you split or merge.
- Search the tree by name or full path, with breadcrumbs in the results, so a deep tree stays navigable.
- Deleting is a cascade. Deleting a category also deletes its subcategories and removes their product links. The products themselves are never deleted, and the confirmation shows the impact before anything happens.
If a shop already has the old structure, push the changed categories again after a reorganisation, and check the channel for categories you no longer need.
Per channel
What reaches each channel today
Categories travel differently per platform. This is what the WISEPIM connectors do now, so you know where to check.
| Channel | What WISEPIM sends | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify | Categories become custom collections; exported products join the collections linked to their categories | Shopify collections are flat. Smart collections are rule-based, so products are not added to them by hand or by WISEPIM |
| WooCommerce | The category tree, created along each path, and each product's category links | Missing categories are created during product export |
| Magento 2 | The category tree | The product export does not send category links today, so assign products to categories in Magento |
| Lightspeed and CCV Shop | The category tree, with translated names | Pushed when you export categories to the shop |
| Kaufland | The primary category's name with the offer | Sent as text, not as a mapped Kaufland category ID |
| Mirakl marketplaces | One leaf category code per product | No stored per-category mapping |
| CSV and Excel | The full tree, or category columns on a product export | Useful for channels without a connector and for audits |
Translated category names and descriptions go to shops that support languages, so a Dutch storefront gets Dutch category names from the same tree. For how the product exports themselves work, see export products.
Mapping another tree
Map a supplier's or another shop's categories onto yours
The reverse problem is just as common: products arrive filed under somebody else's tree and need to land in yours.
The category map in Catalog Jobs takes another shop's or project's category tree and proposes, for each of its categories, where it belongs in yours. It tries the cheap, certain matches first and only asks AI about what is left:
01
Exact match
The same full path, ignoring case and accents, or the same external code.
02
Your rules
A prefix rule such as Makeup to Beauty > Makeup moves a whole branch under another parent and keeps the rest of the path.
03
Name match
The leaf name matches one of your categories, forgiving plurals and small typos, with the parent name used to break ties.
04
AI choice
For the rest, AI picks from the best candidates, can answer that several fit and the decision is per product, or that nothing fits.
05
You decide
Proposals wait for your confirmation unless you set a confidence above which they are accepted. A decision you made is never overwritten by a later run.
Category content
Category pages need copy too
A category is also a landing page. WISEPIM stores and writes the content that page needs, in every language you sell in.
- Description and SEO fields per category: description, meta title, meta description and meta keywords, each storable per language.
- Bulk AI for categories: one job writes descriptions, meta titles, meta descriptions and keywords across a selection, with a fill-empty-only option, or translates names and FAQs. It costs 1 credit per category per language.
- AI notes per category tell the AI what to stress, such as the audience or the words to avoid, whenever it writes for that category.
- Category FAQs: up to 50 questions per category, translatable, and optionally added to the FAQs of every product filed directly in it.
- Translations go out with the tree to the shops that support localized categories.
Category FAQ suggestions come from the quality review, which proposes up to five per category. Bulk enrichment translates FAQs but does not write new ones.
Measuring the tree
See which categories carry their weight
Once orders flow in, the tree becomes something you can measure rather than argue about.
Category performance ranks your top 20 categories by revenue, quantity, orders and share, with a comparison against an earlier period, once a shop's orders are synced. Category insights cover the 50 largest categories by product count and show the average quality and completeness score of the products in each, plus how many have a description, short description, meta fields, brand, price and main image.
Next to that, WISEPIM counts how many products are categorized and how many are not. An uncategorized product cannot be mapped anywhere, so that number is the first one to bring down, by hand or with an AI categorization run on the filter "no category".
Sources
Channel taxonomy facts on this page
Shopify and Google category facts come from their own help pages, checked in October 2026.
FAQs
Category questions, answered
Depth, multi-category products, channel mapping and safe restructuring.
Still have questions?
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