Adding categories to multiple parents

[American Patriot]

Here's the scenario:

 

I have a Category called Apparel and within that Category I have three sub-categories, Women, Men, & Kids. I want to create another sub-category for those three categories called T-Shirts and add it to all three of them (Women, Men, Kids) but it will only allow me to choose one radio button when trying to assign it. 

 

How can I add the sub-category T-Shirts to the three categories, Women, Men, Kids? Is the only way to do this is to create 3 T-Shirt categories and add them separately to each of the three parent categories? 

 

I've tried to find an answer but I haven't been able to so far.

 

Thank you.

[vekia]

there is no possibility to use one "child" category with several "parents" categories.

It mean that you have to create three categories "t-shirts" and attach them separately for each parent category

[American Patriot]

Thanks Vekia, that's how I got around the issue.

 

It's a bit surprising to me that a platform built to be a shopping cart doesn't allow you to do something as basic as adding one category to multiple categories without duplicating it over and over.

Edited October 7, 2013 by American Patriot (see edit history)

[chintans]

The reason it doesn't allow is because you want to filter product based on parent category i.e Men, women.. and if its same then how will it differentiate. 

Edited October 7, 2013 by chintans (see edit history)

[American Patriot]

I understand your logic chintans but CATEGORIES like T-Shirt, Shoes, Sweaters, Hoodies, etc., are generic and not specific to one gender. To have to make three separate categories for those types is redundant and a waste of time. Once you have the categories made you can then add gender specific PRODUCTS to them because it's the product that's gender specific, not the category.

[parsifal]

Hi American Patriot,

 

Have you thought about activating Layered Navigation and using an Attribute for Men/Women/Kids? I think it's a more straightforward solution to your problem.

 

Why Use Layered Navigation?

[American Patriot]

Thanks for the suggestion parsifal. It's not really a problem more than it is a nuisance. I could understand if the platform was designed for something other than e-commerce but it isn't and something as basic as adding one generic category to more than one parent category should be standard. I'll just have to get used to it...:-)

[parsifal]

I think that you are going about it a little backwards. In your case, wouldn't it be better if:

 

1. You created less categories, each designating the nature of the products (e.g. T-Shirts, shirts, jeans, pants, what have you) instead of the physical attribute of the products (fits: Men/Women/Kids)?

2. Upon entering each category, you had the ability to quickly filter the products according to a Men/Women/Kids criterium?

 

This exact scenario and more like this, is what the PrestaShop developers had in mind when creating the Block Layered Navigation feature. You should really have a look at it...

Edited October 8, 2013 by parsifal (see edit history)

[American Patriot]

Thanks again for the suggestion parsifal. I'm using a megamenu with the main menu title being Apparel. When you hover over it and the megamenu opens it then shows the sub-categories - women, men, kids and below those the different apparel categories for each - T-shirts, Shoes, Hats, etc. Once they reach the page they want, t-shirts for example, then the layered navigation could be used to filter down to color, size, price, long sleeve, short sleeve, etc. 

 

I'm new to Prestashop and I'm still trying to learn how to use it but is that not a good way to go about it?

[parsifal]

OK, I understand what you had in mind and what logic you used or hoped to use to organize your top-level categories.

 

I'm simply proposing you change this logic:

 

1. T-shirts, Shoes, Hats etc as categories

2. Further filtering (by color/size/price etc.) inside those categories could be expanded to also include a Women/Men/Kids attribute

 

 

In addition, I read again your opening post and I think there's a problem here:

 

I want to create another sub-category for those three categories called T-Shirts and add it to all three of them (Women, Men, Kids)

 

For a moment, let's assume that what you 're asking here was indeed possible in PrestaShop. OK? So, you proceed to create a single sub-category named "T-Shirts" and you designate 3 different parental categories for it: Women, Men and Kids. Now each of those 3 categories displays as its child an instance of the single category "T-Shirts". When you start creating products and assigning them to this single category, what kind of T-Shirt products should this category contain? T-Shirts for women only? For men only? For kids? All the available T-Shirts? If the latter, when a visitor enters, say, the Women --> T-Shirts category, how logical would he find it if it contained T-Shirts for men and kids also...?

Edited October 8, 2013 by parsifal (see edit history)

[American Patriot]

You're exactly right parsifal but you have to put yourself in the position of the user. Most clothing websites that you visit will categorize their items in their menu like I'm doing, Women, Men, Children as parent categories and then T-Shirts, Sweaters, Hoodies, etc., as child categories (unless it's a girls only or men only store and then it may categorize the way you describe). Once you arrive on the page you can view the products and then filter for color, style, etc. Since almost all clothing websites do this it's what the user has come to expect. If they arrive at my site and my menu says T-Shirts they're wondering where the women's t-shirts or men's t-shirts are and don't know that they have to filter it through the Layered Navigation module on the T-shirt page. If I make T-Shirts, Hats, Shoes, etc., as parent categories I won't have enough room on my menu bar to place them all.

 

You're thinking that I'm talking about creating one t-shirt category and assigning that one category to three separate parent categories but what I mean is create one t-shirt category and when you assign it to the three parent categories Prestashop will create three separate instances of t-shirt categories, one for each parent. As it is we have to manually create a separate t-shirt category for each parent which seems redundant. 

 

I'm not a developer and perhaps what I'm saying is easier said than done.

[stottycabanas]

A.P., Prestashop does allow you to have more than one subcategory with the same name. On one level, it should therefore be 'relatively' straightforward for a developer to make the changes which would allow (a) the selection of multiple parent categories when creating a subcategory; and ( the auto-generation of a new subcategory for each parent category selected.

The difficulty comes with the descriptions, images and meta-data. In the example discussed above, if you accept/define one description, image & set of meta-data to cover Mens, Womens & Kids T-shirts, then it could work (although I don't know the SEO implications of doing that).

If you don't accept that, then you might as well create the individual subcategories as already suggested.

Cheers, Dave

[American Patriot]

stottycabanas - now that makes sense. If you're going for SEO then it would make more sense to create three separate sub-categories with meta-data and descriptions specifically for those categories rather than trying to make it fit three different categories. That's a good enough reason for me to continue as is.

Edited October 18, 2013 by American Patriot (see edit history)