How to Categorize Products for SAP Commerce Cloud

Understanding SAP Commerce Cloud Product Categorization

SAP Commerce Cloud, formerly known as SAP Hybris Commerce, stands as one of the most comprehensive enterprise commerce platforms available, trusted by the world's largest manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to power their digital commerce initiatives across B2B, B2C, and B2B2C business models. Product categorization within the SAP Commerce ecosystem requires deep understanding of its flexible catalog model, complex classification systems, and integration points with the broader SAP landscape including SAP S/4HANA, SAP Customer Experience suite, and industry-specific accelerators. Our AI-powered categorization API delivers enterprise-grade product classification that respects SAP Commerce Cloud's sophisticated data model while dramatically reducing manual cataloging effort.

The SAP Commerce Cloud platform employs a powerful catalog architecture that goes far beyond simple hierarchical category trees. At its core, the system supports multiple catalog versions including staged and online catalogs, enabling merchants to prepare category changes in isolation before synchronizing them to production storefronts. Categories in SAP Commerce are defined within these catalogs and can contain both subcategories and direct product assignments, creating flexible navigation paths that customers use to browse your digital storefront. Additionally, SAP Commerce supports classification systems that allow products to be organized by technical attributes independent of the navigational category structure, which is particularly valuable for complex B2B scenarios where customers may search by specifications rather than traditional category browsing.

The platform's Product Content Management (PCM) capabilities extend categorization beyond simple assignments to encompass rich product information including localized descriptions, media assets, product relationships, and variant configurations. When categorizing products for SAP Commerce, it's essential to consider not just where the product appears in navigation but also how category assignment affects inherited attributes, applicable product features, and downstream business rules like pricing and availability. SAP Commerce's category-product relationship model supports products appearing in multiple categories simultaneously through primary and secondary assignments, with the primary category typically determining canonical URLs and breadcrumb navigation paths while secondary categories provide additional discovery opportunities.

Our enterprise categorization API integrates with SAP Commerce Cloud through its comprehensive OCC (Omni Commerce Connect) APIs and ImpEx import framework, enabling real-time product classification during catalog synchronization, PIM integration workflows, or batch processing scenarios. The system is designed to understand and respect your specific SAP Commerce category structure, classification systems, and business rules, providing predictions that align with your established taxonomy rather than imposing generic category suggestions. This contextual awareness is crucial for enterprise SAP implementations where category structures often encode complex business logic, pricing tier associations, and regulatory compliance requirements across multiple storefronts, countries, and business units.

SAP Commerce Cloud Catalog Architecture

SAP Commerce Cloud implements a sophisticated catalog architecture designed for enterprise-scale commerce operations across diverse business models and geographic regions. Understanding this architecture is essential for effective AI-powered categorization that respects the platform's data model, versioning workflows, and business rules. The platform's approach to product organization goes beyond simple category trees to encompass classification systems, product features, and complex catalog versioning that supports enterprise staging and approval workflows.

Central to SAP Commerce's catalog model is the concept of catalog versions, which enables merchants to maintain multiple states of their product catalog simultaneously. The staged catalog version allows merchandisers to prepare category changes, new product assignments, and content updates in a working environment while the online version continues serving customers. This separation is crucial for enterprise operations where category restructuring might affect thousands of products and requires thorough review before going live. Our AI categorization system can target either staged or online catalog versions depending on your workflow requirements, with the ability to track categorization decisions across synchronization events.

Beyond navigational categories, SAP Commerce supports classification systems that organize products by technical attributes and specifications. Classification categories define attribute templates that products inherit when classified, enabling consistent data capture for complex products like industrial equipment, automotive parts, or technical machinery. This dual organization system means a single product might belong to a navigational category like "Power Tools > Drills > Cordless" while also being classified under a technical classification like "Electric Motors > Brushless DC > 20V Class", with each assignment contributing different metadata and enabling different search and filter experiences.

Common SAP Commerce Category Structures

SAP Commerce's flexibility allows enterprises to define custom category structures that align with their specific business processes, industry standards, and customer expectations. Our AI models are trained to recognize and adapt to custom taxonomies, learning from your existing categorized products to provide predictions that match your established organizational patterns. This is particularly important for B2B implementations where category structures often reflect procurement hierarchies, UNSPSC codes, or industry-specific classification standards.

API Integration Guide

Integrating our product categorization API with your SAP Commerce Cloud implementation can be accomplished through several architectural patterns depending on your system landscape and integration preferences. Whether you're extending SAP Commerce with custom services, integrating through SAP Integration Suite, or implementing batch processing through ImpEx workflows, our RESTful API endpoints provide consistent, reliable categorization services that seamlessly fit into your SAP ecosystem.

import requests

def categorize_for_sap_commerce(product_data, api_key):
    """
    Categorize a product for SAP Commerce Cloud
    Returns primary and classification category suggestions
    """
    base_url = "https://www.productcategorization.com/api/ecommerce/ecommerce_category6_get.php"

    # Combine product attributes including SAP-specific fields
    query = f"{product_data['name']} {product_data.get('description', '')} {product_data.get('manufacturerName', '')}"

    params = {
        "query": query,
        "api_key": api_key,
        "data_type": "sap_commerce"
    }

    response = requests.get(base_url, params=params)
    result = response.json()

    # Map to SAP Commerce category format
    return {
        "primary_category_code": result['category_id'],
        "category_path": result['category'],
        "classification_class": result.get('classification', ''),
        "confidence": result.get('confidence', 0.95)
    }

# Example usage with SAP Commerce product data
product = {
    "name": "Industrial Hydraulic Pump 500PSI",
    "description": "High-pressure hydraulic pump for manufacturing applications",
    "manufacturerName": "HydroTech Industries"
}

result = categorize_for_sap_commerce(product, "your_api_key_here")
print(f"Category: {result['category_path']}")

package com.custom.categorization.service;

import de.hybris.platform.core.model.product.ProductModel;
import de.hybris.platform.category.model.CategoryModel;
import org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate;

public class AICategorizationService {

    private final String API_URL = "https://www.productcategorization.com/api/ecommerce/ecommerce_category6_get.php";
    private final String apiKey;
    private final RestTemplate restTemplate;

    public CategorySuggestion categorizeProduct(ProductModel product) {
        String query = buildQuery(product);

        String url = String.format("%s?query=%s&api_key=%s&data_type=sap_commerce",
            API_URL,
            URLEncoder.encode(query, StandardCharsets.UTF_8),
            apiKey
        );

        CategorizationResponse response = restTemplate.getForObject(url, CategorizationResponse.class);

        return CategorySuggestion.builder()
            .categoryCode(response.getCategoryId())
            .categoryPath(response.getCategory())
            .confidence(response.getConfidence())
            .build();
    }

    private String buildQuery(ProductModel product) {
        return String.join(" ",
            product.getName(),
            product.getDescription(),
            product.getManufacturerName()
        );
    }
}

curl -X GET "https://www.productcategorization.com/api/ecommerce/ecommerce_category6_get.php" \
  -d "query=Siemens PLC Controller S7-1500 Industrial Automation Module" \
  -d "api_key=your_api_key_here" \
  -d "data_type=sap_commerce"