• Context
  • Index
  • Home
  • Catalog
    • Departments
      • Landing Page
      • Foundation
      • Managing Products
    • Product
      • Landing Page
      • Foundation & Description
      • Departments
      • Cross Sales
      • Properties
      • Relations
      • Specifications
    • Brand
    • SEO Download
  • Marketing
    • Promotions
      • Landing Page
    • Cross Sales
      • Landing Page
      • Creating & Editing
      • Mass Upload
    • Site Ads
      • Landing Page
      • Creating & Managing
      • Performance Reports
      • Ad Weights
    • Referrers
      • Referrer Landing Page
      • Creating a Referrer
      • Using the RefererID
      • Landing Page
      • RefID Detail Report
      • Referrer and Conversion Analysis
      • Increasing Conversion Ratio
      • Tracking Return on Referrers
      • Referrer tracking conclusion
    • Store Locator
      • Mass Upload
      • Manual Upload
      • Data Controller
      • Deleting Listings
      • Editing Listings
    • Image Manager
      • Process of Uploading Images
        • FTP Upload of images
      • About Image Quality and File Formats
      • About Aspect Ratio (Shape)
      • Where to Get Source Images
      • Landing Page
      • Image Edit Page
      • Manage Variants
        • Managing Variants with Multiple Languages
    • Data Feeds (BETA)
    • Reviews
      • Landing Page
  • Reports
    • Orders
      • Landing Page
      • Currency Summary
      • Quick Search
      • Advanced Search
      • Order Status
        • Status Setup
        • Using Status in Order Manager
        • Status Mass Upload
        • Quick Tip Videos
  • Language
    • Categories
    • Edit LRM's
  • Shipping Manager
    • About Shipping Groups
    • Creating and Editing Shipping Groups
      • Country Groups
      • State/Province Groups
      • City Groups
    • Populating the Shipping Group
    • Case Study for Setting up Shipping Groups
    • Setting up Shipping Methods
      • Case Study for Setting up Shipping Methods
  • Gift Certficate Implementation
  • Open Graph
  • CommerceCM Help Request
  • About Shipping Groups
  • Aspect Ratio (Shape)
  • CommerceCM Help
  • Create and Edit City Groups
  • Create and Edit Country Groups
  • Create and Edit Shipping Groups
  • Create and Edit State/Province
  • Creating and Editing
  • Cross Sales
  • Cross Sales - Landing Page
  • Data Feed Generator (Beta)
  • Departments
  • Design Implications
  • Getting Source Images
  • Image Landing Page
  • Image Manager
  • Image Quality and File Formats
  • Landing Page
  • Populating the Shipping Group
  • Process of Uploading Images
  • Setting Up Shipping Methods
  • Shipping Groups Case Study
  • Shipping Manager
  • Shipping Methods Case Study

Department Manager Introduction

Departments are the backbone of your product catalog in CommerceCM. You must have at least one department in your catalog.

Departments have many uses:

  • They control the navigation for your catalog.
  • They categorize your products so that they are easy to find.
  • They create relationships between products.
  • They entice your visitors to explore your site further.
  • They can enhance Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • They can be used for advanced filtering.

Departments can be visualized as a tree with branches. Each department can have sub-departments. Each sub-department can have sub-sub-departments and so on. Your designer should understand the depth of your departments to ensure that the appropriate navigation is used - navigation that works with the style of your site.

In this example, the department Cardio Equipment has 8 sub departments.  The menu indicates that Winter Sale! And Clearance have no sub-departments, but Strength Equipment and Accessories do. 

TIP:  While CommerceCM supports very deep product structure, we recommend a relatively shallow navigation to get products in front of your shoppers.  Deeper levels can be implemented as filters.

A product can exist in many departments. This ensures that your products are easy for your shoppers to find. In this menu example a Treadmill will be listed in both the Cardio Equipment and Treadmill departments.  If it is on sale, it might also be listed in Winter Sale! or Clearance & Floor Model Sale.

Departments can use different Display templates. This allows you to merchandise your products the way that you want. This is illustrated in more detail below.

Some retailers create seasonal departments such as “Gifts For Him” and “Gifts for Her” to make shopping easier.

Programmatic Departments

Your site can also be programmed to create specific departments automatically based on certain criteria. For example, a Sale department could show up automatically only if you have a product or products on sale. This prevents you from having to set the sale price and time-frame, AND change the department. When the sale time is over, the product is automatically removed from the department and if there are no products in the sale department, then the department vanishes.

Other common automatic departments are “New,” and “Gifts Under x $” categories. These are generally custom programmed to fit the requirements of merchants.  Automation saves management time but reduces the control that the merchant has over product placement.  Contact support to learn more.

The department Display Page template is generally used to display search results.

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Resource Name
Description
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CCM 2 Department Manager.pdf
CCM 2 Department Manager.pdf
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