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Managing product categories

Bookhead helps you organize your products into categories for your Squarespace store. Your bookstore system uses category codes (like "FM" for Fiction-Mystery), and Bookhead lets you map these to customer-friendly display categories (like "Fiction" or "Mystery").

How it works:

  1. Display categories are the broad groupings customers see on your website (e.g., "Fiction", "History", "Children's Books")
  2. Store categories are the codes from your bookstore system
  3. You map store categories to display categories in Bookhead
  4. When you export to Squarespace, products get tagged with both the display category and the store category name

Setting up categories in Bookhead​

Step 1: Create display categories​

  1. Go to Categories in the staff menu
  2. Click Create category
  3. Enter a name like "Fiction" or "Children's Books"
  4. Repeat for each category you want on your website

Step 2: Map your store categories​

  1. Go to Categories → Mappings
  2. You'll see all your bookstore category codes
  3. For each code, select a display category from the dropdown
  4. The mapping saves automatically

Step 3: (Optional) Edit category names​

Your bookstore category names might look ugly (like "FICTION-MYSTERY/DETECTIVE"). You can give them friendlier names:

  1. In the mappings view, click edit next to any category name
  2. Enter a friendlier name like "Mystery & Detective"
  3. Press Enter or click save

This custom name will be used as a tag on your Squarespace products.

Importing categories to Squarespace​

Squarespace doesn't allow setting categories via API, so you'll need to import them via CSV. Here's how:

Step 1: Create categories in Squarespace first​

Before importing, you need to create the category structure in Squarespace:

  1. In Squarespace, go to your store and open any product
  2. Scroll down to Categories
  3. Click Add Category and create each display category (e.g., "Fiction", "History")
  4. These must match exactly what you created in Bookhead

Squarespace's guide to product categories →

Step 2: Export from Bookhead​

  1. Go to Channels → your Squarespace channel → Products
  2. Click Export CSV
  3. Save the file

Step 3: Import to Squarespace​

  1. In Squarespace, go to Commerce → Inventory → Products
  2. Click Import (or the three dots menu → Import)
  3. Select your CSV file
  4. Squarespace will match products by SKU and update their categories

Important: The import updates existing products - it won't create duplicates. Products are matched by their SKU (ISBN).

Squarespace's CSV import guide →