Q1) Does Spark Shipping create product categories in your shopping cart? By default, Spark Shipping does not create categories in your store. The exception is the Use Vendor Category choice in Default Product Options (Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and Miva): each pushed product is assigned to the store category (or Shopify collection) matching its vendor category, and Spark Shipping creates that category if it does not exist yet. This intentional decision was based on feedback from our users who prefer to have control over their own category structures. Some vendors have complex taxonomy systems that may not align with your preferences, and we understand the importance of maintaining a consistent and logical taxonomy structure for your business and SEO efforts. To ensure success, we recommend pushing items gradually and making necessary adjustments along the way.
Q2) Does Spark Shipping assign products to categories in your shopping cart? Starting from May 2021, we have made changes to accommodate category assignments for BigCommerce, Shopify, and WooCommerce users, and it is now also available for eBay, Magento 2, Miva and Weapons Depot. However, this feature is not yet available for other channels, and in those cases, it is the customer's responsibility to assign categories in their shopping cart. If you are using one of these platforms, you can easily assign products to existing categories in your store by following these steps:
1. Go to the Sites menu.
2. Click on Credentials.
3. Test the connection to refresh the site menu options.
4. Select Default Product Options.
- Choose the category from the dropdown menu that you want to assign to items pushed from your vendor. This category will be assigned to those items in your shopping cart, based on the main categories you have defined in your shopping cart. On Shopify this field is Default Product Collections, and you can pick more than one collection.
6. Click the Update Default Product Options button to save your selections.
It is important to remember to assign a category each time before you start pushing listings to your store. To see a demonstration video on how to do this, you can watch the Default Product Options and Categories video. For more information on best practices for managing your item catalogs, refer to Best Practices for Item Catalogs.
You can now set category from the catalog pages for collections (shopify) and categories for other sites. On the vendor catalog page, the Push to Manual Collection (Shopify) or Push to Category dropdown starts with your default and can be changed for each push. If a new category or collection is missing, click Refresh manual collections (Shopify) or Refresh categories next to that dropdown. Spark Shipping also refreshes your categories automatically every 3 hours.
Shopify note: only manual collections are available. Automated (smart) collections are not pulled because Shopify assigns products to them using their own rules.
