Custom Categories

If you want to customize your category structure, here is the recommended approach:

What to Do

1. Hide categories you don't want visible — instead of deleting them. This keeps all product assignments and configurations intact while removing them from the customer-facing webstore.
2. Create new subcategories under existing categories — if you want to reorganize, you can add new subcategories and then manually recategorize products into them. The system will remember your manual placements.
3. Rename is not directly supported — if you need to rename a category, contact support. Do not delete and recreate it, as this destroys all product assignments.
4. Use Brand Exclusions — if the goal is to remove certain brands from certain categories (rather than removing the entire category), use the Brand Exclusions feature instead.

What NOT to Do

1. Do not delete all categories — This destroys thousands of product-to-category assignments that cannot be automatically restored.
2. Do not delete a category and recreate it with the same name — Even if the name is identical, it's a new database record. All product assignments, brand exclusions, landing images, and sort orders from the old category are gone.
3. Do not assume categories will rebuild themselves — The automatic rebuild only works for aftermarket products and only for paths that match the published catalog. Custom category names, OEM products, and Private Label products will not be automatically reassigned.

Recommended Workflow for Category Customization

Step 1: Review existing categories
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Step 2: Hide any categories you don't want displayed
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Step 3: Create new subcategories where needed
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Step 4: Manually recategorize products as desired
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Step 5: Configure brand exclusions if needed
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Step 6: Customize landing page images and sort order

Setting Expectations

• Categories are generated from the product catalog and contain thousands of product assignments. Deleting categories permanently removes those assignments.
• Hide categories you don't want instead of deleting them. Hiding is reversible and keeps all data intact."
• "If all categories are deleted your store will have no category navigation until the system rebuilds them, and all customizations (brand exclusions, landing page images, sort orders) will be permanently lost."
• "Custom category names that don't match the published catalog will not automatically receive product assignments. You would need to manually assign every product."