<p>There's a lot of different ways to set up your store structure but categories in Craft are like folders you put stuff in. Entries/products are what goes into those categories.</p>

<p><strong>Category Groups</strong></p>

<p>The most basic way to set it up would be to create a new <a href="https://docs.craftcms.com/v3/categories.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">category group</a> inside Craft and then start creating categories.  Category groups are like the filing cabinets you use to put the folders in. </p>

<p>You can make as many category groups as you need and they'll show up separately in the sidebar. If you only have a few categories you can usually get away with one category group but it can also depend on how you want users to search and filter on your store. </p>

<p><strong>Sub Categories</strong></p>

<p>Categories can also contain subcategories. To put Dogs underneath your Pets sub-category grouping, just drag it underneath after it's created). It'll start looking like the hierarchy you want in no time.</p>

<p>To get the categories relating back to products, you'll want to create a new category field that you'll use on the product (or variant). That will allow you to relate products back to categories and be able to search on them.</p>

<p><strong>Product Types</strong></p>

<p>Depending on how your store is setup, you may want to create different <a href="https://docs.craftcms.com/commerce/v2/product-types.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">product types</a> as well.</p>

<p>Like Category Groups, Product types are one of my favorite features in Commerce and can be very useful if your store sells <em>different types of products</em> that need different sets of fields/options for each. It's especially handy if your ordering process is going to be different for each product type. </p>

<p>It's also useful especially if you sell thousands of products; seeing pet stuff and fashion stuff in the same part of the control panel area can get confusing quickly.</p>

<p>In your case, I'd probably create another product type just for events since it's going to be very different than the physical products you sell.</p>

<p>Hope that gets the ball rolling...</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-22T16:37:18.940Z
2019-11-22T16:37:18.940Z
RitterKnight
<p>New to Craft CMS and currently don't understand the terminology or how things work together in the platform yet.</p>

<p>If I want to set up a category structure like the below in Commerce, how is the best way to achieve this in the backend?</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Pets<br>
+++ Cats<br>
+++ Dogs</p></li>
<li><p>Fashion<br>
+++ Clothing<br>
+++ Jewellery<br>
+++ Sports  </p></li>
</ul>

<p>Also using the 'Events' plugin too which has ticket types - should these be used for categories?</p>

<categories><events>
How should we be setting up product categories/sub-categories?
# How should we be setting up product categories/sub-categories?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-11-22)

New to Craft CMS and currently don't understand the terminology or how things work together in the platform yet.

If I want to set up a category structure like the below in Commerce, how is the best way to achieve this in the backend?

* Pets  
  +++ Cats  
  +++ Dogs
* Fashion  
  +++ Clothing  
  +++ Jewellery  
  +++ Sports

Also using the 'Events' plugin too which has ticket types - should these be used for categories?

**Tags:** categories, events

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2019-11-22. Score: 1

There's a lot of different ways to set up your store structure but categories in Craft are like folders you put stuff in. Entries/products are what goes into those categories.

**Category Groups**

The most basic way to set it up would be to create a new [category group](https://docs.craftcms.com/v3/categories.html) inside Craft and then start creating categories. Category groups are like the filing cabinets you use to put the folders in.

You can make as many category groups as you need and they'll show up separately in the sidebar. If you only have a few categories you can usually get away with one category group but it can also depend on how you want users to search and filter on your store.

**Sub Categories**

Categories can also contain subcategories. To put Dogs underneath your Pets sub-category grouping, just drag it underneath after it's created). It'll start looking like the hierarchy you want in no time.

To get the categories relating back to products, you'll want to create a new category field that you'll use on the product (or variant). That will allow you to relate products back to categories and be able to search on them.

**Product Types**

Depending on how your store is setup, you may want to create different [product types](https://docs.craftcms.com/commerce/v2/product-types.html) as well.

Like Category Groups, Product types are one of my favorite features in Commerce and can be very useful if your store sells *different types of products* that need different sets of fields/options for each. It's especially handy if your ordering process is going to be different for each product type.

It's also useful especially if you sell thousands of products; seeing pet stuff and fashion stuff in the same part of the control panel area can get confusing quickly.

In your case, I'd probably create another product type just for events since it's going to be very different than the physical products you sell.

Hope that gets the ball rolling...


---

