Catalog subsystem
The catalog subsystem is a component of the WebSphere Commerce Server that provides online catalog navigation, partitioning, categorization, and associations. In addition, the catalog subsystem includes support for personalized interest lists and custom catalog display pages. The catalog subsystem contains all logic and data relevant to an online catalog, including catalog groups (or categories), catalog entries, and any associations or relationships among them.
Your online catalog can benefit from the following features associated with the catalog subsystem:
- Groupings. You can categorize various products using a generic grouping system to create a navigation hierarchy in an online catalog.
- Online catalog entries. Catalog entries are the base set of objects that represent merchandise for sale. You can classify catalog entries as products, items, packages, bundles, and dynamic or static kits. Also, trading positions are used for dynamic pricing based on contracts, and opening and reserving prices for negotiation.
- Configurable products. You can dynamically configure made to order products by using an external product configurator.
- Merchandising associations. You can enable product associations for merchandising purposes. These become cross-sells, up-sells, accessories, or replacements.
You can create unique catalog views for different
customer groups using contracts and product
sets.
Any changes to the catalog data cannot be displayed in the store unless you disable caching or remove the currently cached JSP pages.
Related concepts
Products and items
Packages and bundles
Master catalog
Related tasks
Create a master catalog
Change catalog information
Related reference
Catalog subsystem URLs
Catalog data model