Category Hierarchy
The category hierarchy is the merchandising axis used by buying, range planning, pricing, and forecast. It organizes product nodes from division down to SKU.
Purpose
OTB allocation, range decisions, promotional authority, and forecast buckets all operate on category nodes. A buyer owns a Department node. A Category Manager owns a Category node. The same store that appears in the geography hierarchy as a GEO_STORE node also appears here as the measurement point where category performance is tracked at location.
Structure
Division
└─ Department
└─ Category
└─ Sub-category
└─ SKU
| Node | Code | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Division | CAT_DIVISION |
Broadest merchandising grouping — apparel, hardlines, food |
| Department | CAT_DEPT |
Buyer ownership unit — Women's, Electronics, Grocery |
| Category | CAT_CATEGORY |
Range planning and OTB unit |
| Sub-category | CAT_SUBCATEGORY |
Planogram and promotion unit |
| SKU | CAT_SKU |
Individual item — inventory, price, forecast atom |
The GEO_STORE node in the geography-hierarchy is the anchor where category performance is measured at location. Category hierarchy nodes do not carry geography — that join happens at query time via the store linkage.
Invariants
- SKU belongs to exactly one Sub-category → Category → Department → Division chain.
- OTB authority lives at
CAT_DEPTlevel. Category Managers can allocate within a Department OTB; they cannot exceed it without Head Office sign-off. - Promotional authority: Category and Sub-category nodes can carry promotions. SKU-level override requires Category Manager approval.
- The CRDM agent owns
cat_nodesand the hierarchy table. Schema changes require CRDM sign-off and SI cycle for affected modules (P, S, J, C). - Category hierarchy does not carry location. Performance at location is a join:
(CAT_SKU, GEO_STORE). Aggregation rolls up both axes independently.
Consumers
| Consumer | Uses |
|---|---|
| Module P (Pricing & Promotion) | Promotional rules attach to Category or Sub-category nodes |
| Module S (Space, Range & Display) | Range decisions at Category level, planograms at Sub-category |
| Module O (Orders) | Forecast buckets at Category or SKU level by store |
| Module M (Merchandising) | Commercial strategy operates on Division and Department nodes |
| Signal: Seasonality | Demand curves are modeled per Category node |
Related
- geography-hierarchy — the other field hierarchy axis; store is the shared anchor
- role-binding-model — Buyer and Category Manager roles bind to CAT_DEPT and CAT_CATEGORY nodes
- merchant-org-hierarchy — Merchants layer principals operate on category hierarchy nodes