Product Categories Overview

Overview

Product Categories offer a way to give products additional behaviors that cannot be accomplished by product options alone. Product Categories can be access in the Foxy admin by clicking on Categories in the navigation.

Email Receipts
Email receipts can be generated on a per category basis, and different emails can be configured for customers and for admins. So, if you had a conference registration category but also sold books and CDs, you might want a transaction that included a conference registration to send an email to a store admin (the conference registrar); or to send an extra email to the customer with a schedule and link to the hotel; or to send both emails (as they can be configured independently).

Default Weight Values
These default values can be overridden by explicitly setting the weight product option, but if you have a category for “Shirts” you could set the default weight to 0.5, while you have another category for “Paperweights” with a default weight of 3. That way you wouldn't have to explicitly set the weight on every product's add-to-cart link or form. The default for new stores is lbs. but this can be changed to kgs. in the category.

Taxes
Taxes must be set at the category level. This allows you to have certain products taxed differently from others, which can be useful in a variety of situations.

Shipping and Handling Fees
Categories can set specific handling fees, as well as shipping methods.

Customs Values
Customs values (used in shipping calculations) can only be set at the category level.

Quantity Discounts
While individual products can have quantity discounts, they can also be applied for all products in the cart in a given category.

Coupon Codes
Coupons can be restricted per category, though this is done on the coupon code admin section, not the category admin section.

Downloadables
Downloadable products must be added to a category where the shipping method is set to “Downloaded by the customer”.