Catalogs

A catalogCommerce: a top-level container for catalog entries such as categories, products, and variants (SKUs). consists of products and variants (SKUsCommerce: Stock Keeping Unit; corresponds to a purchasable product with specific characteristics. For example, a product line of shirts has individual variations/SKUs for sleeve size, color, and collar size.) organized into a structure based on product categories or nodes. Products and variantsCommerce: a variant or SKU corresponds to a specific product with specific characteristics. For example, a product line of shirts has individual variations/SKUs that include size, color, and collar size. have associated information such as:

• pricing
• markets
• inventories
• warehouses
• assets, such as images and documents

A productCommerce: various forms of merchandise that you can display and purchase from the public site, including products, variations/SKUs, bundles, packages and dynamic packages. can exist in one or more catalogs. Catalogs are independent from one another. You can create as many catalogs as you want and assign them to one or more websites. And while you often import product catalogs from an externally integrated system, you can create them manually. Further, you can define dates when a catalog is available, so you can prepare future revisions to items, and review them in advance of the release date.

This documentation describes examples from the sample catalog delivered with the Episerver Commerce sample site. Your installation may look different from the sample catalog.

Catalog structure

A catalog is the top-level container for all types of products. You can structure a catalog in a number of ways. For example, your site has several brands or product lines, and each brand or product line has its own catalog. Or, a retailer may have multiple suppliers, and you can segment each supplier into its own catalog. See also: Working with catalog entries.

Meta-classes and meta-fields

You can define meta-classes and meta-fields for both catalogs and orders in the Administration part of Commerce ManagerOne of several main user interfaces in Epi Commerce. This UI area, available from the top menu after logging in, provides screens for managing markets, customers, catalog, orders, and so on. You can manage the information on some Commerce Manager screens in other, newer user interfaces. Where possible, we recommend using the newer ones.. For example, you create a meta-class called Wine. Then, add meta-fields to capture characteristics of wine, such as color, taste, vintage and maturity.