Getting organised
Before going any further answer these two questions: Have you created shipping and billing methods? And have you organised your inventory into categories and products? If not, do it now. Without shipping and billing methods defined you cannot set any for your products, making them unpurchasable. And organising your products and categories makes for greater ease when creating the catalogue.
When grouping products into categories within the catalogue, keep an eye out for common features. For example, if the same shipping methods apply to all products you can set them once at the catalogue level and have them apply to everything. You don't need to apply identical settings on a per product basis. Even if only eight out of ten products in a category use the same product options, it's still easier to apply a setting once at the appropriate level for as many products as possible and fix the exceptions later, rather than apply them one by one.
Some important common features to look out for in your inventory
Are products purchasable? - Would you like to make a specific product, category of products, or the entire catalogue unavailable for purchase? If so, apply the setting as high as possible for maximum coverage, or low for specific cases.
Product options - If your products come in a standard selection of sizes, colours, formats, etc., create your options at as high a level as possible to avoid having to define them product by product.
Pricing - Any similarities in pricing? Just like product options, setting pricing as high as possible lets you avoid doing so on a per product basis.
Discounts and Shopper access - Are particular groups of shoppers eligible for discounts? If so, set them high for store-wide discounts, or low for categories or products. Would you like to make some products, categories of products, or the entire catalogue accessible to some groups of shoppers and not others? If so, apply the setting as high as possible for maximum coverage, or low for specific cases.
Shipping methods - These can be set for the catalogue, or for specific categories or products.
Billing methods - These can be set for the catalogue, or for specific categories or products.
Applicable taxes - These can be set for the catalogue, or for specific categories or products .
Working the levels
1 Catalogue - The top-most catalogue level where you can create categories and apply settings to affect everything.
2 Category - The next level down where you can create sub-categories and products and apply settings.
3 Product - The lowest level where specific product information is entered and custom product settings applied.
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