To ensure that your products display in the most appropriate provider categories, it is necessary to map your existing categories to the defined taxonomy for each engine. The most effective way to accomplish this is by using the ChannelAdvisor category mapping spreadsheet.  

Please remember when prioritizing which providers to map first, choose the sites that indicate "Not Mapped" in the Map Status column on the Category Mapping page of your ChannelAdvisor account. The "Not Mapped" status indicates that this provider requires Category Mapping in order to successfully submit the feed.

The providers that indicate "Pass-Through (map optional)" indicate that the site will accept your categories and may use other variables to help get your products in the most appropriate category on that site. We recommend completing the category mapping even for sites that will accept your categories so that you can be directly mapped to their taxonomy.

Please Note: When sending product data to Google Shopping, although the mapping status is indicated as "Pass Through" in ChannelAdvisor category mapping is required for all items that belong to the 'Apparel and Accessories', 'Media', and 'Software' categories, and are in feeds which target the US, UK, Germany, France, or Japan. For additional information on this please view the following  Google Article .

Prerequisites

You should be familiar with the following topics related to this task:

• Data Feeds Getting Started Guide 

Steps to Upload Category Mappings

To upload category mappings you will follow these general steps: 

1. Export your Source Categories
2. Download the Site Category file (CSE's taxonomy)
3. Map your Source Categories to the Site Categories
4. Upload your newly mapped category file to ChannelAdvisor

Export Your Source Categories

Complete the detailed steps below to export your source categories

1. Navigate to Feeds > Product Mapping > Category Mapping .
2. Choose the Export All Source Categories option.  This will give you a file with all of the source categories found in your inventory data set.
   
3. De-select the Category ID box
   
4. Choose Export . (You will not need the Category ID for this activity.  The export will queue a comma delimited file that you should save to a known location.)
5. Open the exported file create a header in Column B that says "Site Category".  Column A in your spreadsheet will be your source categories.  Keep the file ready for use in a later step.
   

Download the Site Category file (CSE's taxonomy)

Complete the steps below to download the site category file 

1. Return to your    Feeds  > Product Mapping > Category Mapping  view and choose Upload Category Mappings .
   
2. Choose a shopping site to map categories for.  (Only the providers that you have set up in your account will appear in this drop-down list.)
3. Choose the ' Download Categories ' link shown next to the Site drop down box.  This link will only appear after a provider is chosen in Step 2.
   
4. Open and save as a Tab Delimited file.   This file contains all of the site's categories that are available to map your categories to.

Map your Source Categories to the Site Categories

Complete the steps below to map your source categories to the site categories

1. Copy the appropriate categories from the Site Category Export to the file with your source categories.  This is the process of mapping your source categories to the categories offered by the shopping site.
   
2. When the source categories are mapped, save the file in a Tab Delimited format.  This will be the file that you upload to ChannelAdvisor.
3. Return to the Upload Category Mappings page.  

Upload your newly mapped category file to ChannelAdvisor

Complete the steps below to upload your newly mapped category file to ChannelAdvisor:

1. Choose the Site you are mapping for and browse to the completed category mappings file.  The file you are browsing to is the tab delimited file that has your source categories and the matching site categories.
2. Choose Continue to upload your mappings.  This will complete the upload process.  The status of the upload will show on the page.