Categories and Lists

Semantico gives you two independent ways to organize a catalog, and they answer two different questions:

• Categories answer “what kind of product is this?” — a single, hierarchical classification, like a catalog tree or a store’s collections.
• Lists answer “which of my working groups does this product belong to?” — flexible, named buckets a product can belong to for a campaign, a channel, or an export.

They’re complementary: Categories organize the catalog; Lists organize your workflows and outputs. A product always sits in at most one category, and can belong to any number of lists at the same time.

Categories

A category is a node in a hierarchical tree that classifies what a product is — for example Home > Kitchen > Cookware > Frying pans. Semantico shows this as a readable path with > between levels.

• Each product has at most one category.
• Categories are hierarchical: every category can have a parent and children, and a product placed in a category is also considered part of all its parent categories when you filter.
• Your category tree is your own — you build it to match how you think about your catalog. (For reusable option lists on fields, see Taxonomies.)

Assigning a category

There are two ways to categorize a product:

• Automatically, with AI — run the Categorize action (on a single product or in bulk). The AI starts at the top of your tree and walks down level by level, choosing the best-fitting branch until it reaches a leaf, then assigns that category.
• Manually — set or change a product’s category yourself, including in bulk from the catalog, or when importing via CSV.

You manage the tree itself — creating, renaming, and nesting categories — on the Categories page in the dashboard.

What categories are used for

• Filtering your catalog — filter products by category. Selecting a category includes everything in its sub-categories too, so filtering by Kitchen also returns Kitchen > Cookware > Frying pans.
• Publishing to your store — Semantico can match your categories to your store’s collections (for example, Shopify collections by name), so enriched products land in the right place when you sync.
• Targeting content — a custom content section can be scoped to specific categories, so products of a given type automatically get the right sections generated.

Lists

A list (product list) is a flat, named group of products you assemble for a purpose. Each list has a display name and an automatically generated code. Unlike categories, lists have no hierarchy, and a product can be in many lists at once.

Think of a list as a working set: “Spring campaign”, “El Corte Inglés feed”, “Needs review”, “Marketplace export”.

Adding products to a list

List membership is explicit — you choose which products go in:

• Select products in your catalog and add them to (or remove them from) a list.
• Assign lists during CSV import using a product_lists column of list codes.

You manage lists on the Lists page in the dashboard. Creating a list also creates a matching saved view on the Products page, so you can jump to a list’s products quickly.

What lists are used for

• Exports and channel feeds — exports are grouped one file per list, and a list can be tied to an export template that produces a fixed layout for a specific destination (for example, a retailer’s intake spreadsheet). Products in no list are exported separately.
• Filtering — filter the catalog to one or more lists (or to products in no list).
• Targeting content — like categories, a custom content section can be scoped to specific lists, so a segment of products gets its own sections generated.

Categories vs. Lists at a glance

	Category	List
Answers	“What kind of product is this?”	“Which working group is it in?”
Structure	Hierarchical tree (A > B > C)	Flat, named group
Per product	At most one	Many at once
How assigned	AI Categorize action, manual, or CSV	Manual selection or CSV
Main uses	Catalog classification, store-collection mapping, content targeting	Export feeds & templates, saved views, content targeting
Managed in	Categories page	Lists page

Rule of thumb: if the grouping is a permanent property of what the product is, use a Category. If it’s a group you assembled for a task, campaign, or output, use a List.

Related

• Enriching a catalog
• Understanding credits