TABLE OF CONTENTS

Overview

Category Mapping is assigning a marketplace category to your products so that they are listed in the correct category on that marketplace. For example, if you sell a pair of women's jeans you would assign them to the category ‘Women's Jeans’ under Women's Clothing, Clothing Shoes Accessories on eBay. Assigning a category to a product enables that product to be listed on the marketplace. Important to note, if your product doesn't have a marketplace category, it won't list. This FAQ walks you through the general guidelines and best practices for category mapping.


On the Category Mapping Page

  1. Map By - choices are to map by Product to assign at the product level or map by Category to map at the category level.  Mapping at category level uses Retailer Category to Marketplace Category.
  2. Retailer Categories -  (Your Category) imported from your eCommerce store
  3. Suggested Categories - these are suggestions and if not appropriate you don't have to use them
  4. Choose Category - click this button if you want to choose a category from the Marketplace Category tree 
  5. Ignore Toggle - toggle to green (on) if you want to ignore a Retailer Category for the purposes of Assigning Categories


When Product is selected and you are mapping by Product


When Category is selected and you are mapping by Category (Your Category to Marketplace Category)


General Guidelines

  • You only need to assign categories to your products ONCE, you don't need to do it again unless you want to change the category 
  • You should ONLY choose ONE marketplace category for a product
  • If you have blocked products from a marketplace they are not included in the list of products that require a category. If you unblock the products, then they will then require a category if you want them listed on a marketplace.



Options for assigning a category to products

  1. Assign a marketplace category to all products in a retailer category
    1. This is the quickest option if your retailer categories are well aligned with the marketplace category. For example, if your retailer category from your eCommerce store is Food Processors you can assign the eBay category 'Food Processors' so that ALL products from your retailer category are listed there.
    2. This DOES NOT WORK if your retailer categories are NOT well aligned to the marketplace category. For example, if the retailer category is 'blenders' and contains a variety of products including food processors, stick blenders, handheld blenders then there is not a corresponding category on eBay that matches it. You should then assign categories to individual products.
    3. Create mapping rules - when you add new products to a category in your eCommerce store and a marketplace category has been assigned in our system we will import the new product and assign the category automatically so that the new product lists on the Marketplace.
  2. Assign a marketplace category to a product(s)
    1. If your retailer categories do not match marketplace categories then you will need to assign categories to individual products.



Order of mapping rules

  • The mapping rules are applied in the order: most specific to least specific, ie first Single Product mapping, if any, then Category mapping (to your website categories), if any. 
  • If a product belongs to more than one website category, and the categories have mapping rules, the mapping rule for the website category with the smallest number of products will be used, Omnivore considers this one to be the most specific website category.
  • If a category is marked as "Ignored", it is not considered for the purpose of mapping.



Best Practise

  • Ignore all your 'promotional' categories so that products are sitting in the best category 
  • Start by assigning Categories at the 'Retailer Category' level as this is an easy way to do it in bulk.
  • Any products that can't be assigned at the 'Retailer Category' level you will need to assign individually
  • If you’re not sure which category to assign to your products, do a search for the product or similar products on the Marketplace and see which categories come up


Additional Helpful Information