Departments Categories Sub Categories

Setting up Departments, Categories and Subcategories for Retailers

In Retail POS systems the structure of grouping that you will give your inventory and departments are extremely important. In that respect the design of the DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) structure is very important to the system for long-term data analysis (sales, inventory, promotions).

Once the DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) structure is created it is difficult if not impractical to correct or greatly change your Department Category Subcategory (DCS) structure once items are created. You use your DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) to help you identify where each item fits in your inventory or on your shelves. By sorting and grouping like items into appropriate categories, you can easily see how a particular item or kind of item is selling in your store. You could sort by Shirts and see how all items that belong to the Shirts DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) are performing.

DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) is also important to the quality of your reports. If your Department names properly describe the physical or logical layout of your store or products, your reports will offer a closer and more accurate view of profitability and performance of your products.

For example, you are a specialty apparel store in the mall and you sell clothing for Men, Women, and Children. You would not want to have departments named Men’s Shoes, Women’s Shoes, Children’s Shoes, Men’s Casual, Women’s Casual, etc.…

If you did follow this example, you would not be able to easily see how your men’s apparel is selling or your margins for the children’s departments. So instead, you would receive more detailed information if you followed this example:

Your store might have a Men’s, Women’s, and Children’s department. Under each department there might be Casual Wear, Shoes, Accessories, etc.…

The DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) Layout

The DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) is a three level structure that can contain up to thirty alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9).

The first two levels used in the examples are department and category. The department level is the top-most inclusive and least descriptive. Departments are unique and duplicates are not allowed. “Men’s” is an example of a department.

The next level is Category. Each category falls under a department as you saw in the second example. A category may exist within one or more departments, but only once in each department. “Tools” or “Pants” are examples of a Category.

The lowest level is Subcategory. Subcategories further distinguish items in each category. “Powered Saws” or “Khaki” are examples of Subcategories.

Within RealTimePOS, you have 30 alphanumeric characters to describe the category. You are able to view the entire DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) without questioning what you are looking at.

DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) Demonstration

Although you may have three levels in your DCS (Department, Category and Subcategory), you are not required to use them all.

A department could breakdown Pants (Category) into several Subcategories. You may use descriptions such as Khaki, Jean, and Corduroy. Your DCS (Department, Category and Subcategory) can break your departments up into categories and subcategories as narrow or broad as you like.

There are many correct ways to set up your DCS (Department, Category and Subcategory) structure. Many ways, although not the preferred way, work just fine.

Even with so much flexibility, there are a few incorrect ways. One of the most prominent impacts a bad or poorly thought out DCS (Department, Category and Subcategory) structure will have is in your reports. The design of your DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) can allow you to sort and filter more information quickly and easily. It can allow you to see more information on your reports by grouping departments and categories together with more related information.

It is with this in mind that you need to consider what types of information is most important to see on your reports, and how you like them grouped.

Begin Designing your DCS (Department, Category, and Subcategory) Layout

Look at the chart above and begin to lay out your departments from generic departments to specific categories and sub-categories.

You can begin by looking at a list of products you will be selling and how they relate to other items.