Find this feature

From the Main Menu of your Site Manager, click Departments (in the Products column), and then click either Add Parent Department, or Add Child Department.

Introduction

This function allows you to add a new parent or child department to your site.

Parent departments only hold child departments, and child departments only hold products.

Add Department

First decide if you wish to add a parent department or a child department.  To learn the difference, see the Departments article.  Click the appropriate button (Add Parent Department or Add Child Department), fill out the screen, and then click the Add Department button at the bottom of that screen.

Filling Out the Add Department form

Department ID

This is a unique number which identifies this department.  When not listing departments alphabetically, departments are sorted by this number.

Make sure you are using a number that is not already in use by another department.

Department name

Enter name for this department.

Parent department ID

Select which parent department to assign this child department to.

You only choose a Parent department ID when you are creating a child department.

Your site will automatically place a bullet next to the name of a parent department on the storefront.

Description

The description for the product appears when a customer clicks on the department name.  It appears above the products in that department.

<title> tag

The Title tag contains text which appears in the blue bar at the very top of the browser any time someone views this department.

You will want to list your store name and the department name on your title tag.

<meta> tags

The <meta tags> section allows you to specify HTML elements for this department.

Note:  This section is for advanced HTML users and is not required.

Products listed per page

Specify how many products you would like to appear on each page when a customer is looking at this department.

Note:  This setting also appears on the main Departments page.  In addition, each department also has the same setting.  If you change this setting within a particular department, and then change the number on the main Departments page, the main Departments page setting will override an individual department’s settings.

Best sellers listed per department

Use this setting to determine how many “best seller” items to feature in this department.  As your customer selects this department to look at, the best sellers will be featured on the bottom.

Note:  This setting will only display products that have sold best on your store, in a particular department.  If you do not have sales in a particular department, there will be no “best sellers” for that department.

Hide this department

If you hide a department, your customers won’t see it on your storefront.

This feature can be useful to hide Christmas products in January, Valentine’s products in March, etc.  You can easily make the department visible again later.