Use taxonomies in conjunction with a new categorization hierarchy

[athal7]

Taxons are great for tagging products, but many stores have implemented a categorization approach in addition to taxons to allow for a more hierarchical merchandising. Let's combine our solutions and have it supported inside of solidus.

[cbrunsdon]

Issue Background Information: Categorization Edition

Historically spree_frontend's navigation and organization was based around Spree::Taxon, and adding products to Taxon's. This was a good early step, but as stores got larger and more complex it became more difficult to use only taxonomies (which are more about modelling of what a product is) to organize how things should be displayed on the frontend.

Over time we found more success building "category" models alongside taxons and adding products and ancillary information to the "Category" rather than trying to shoehorn that information into a taxon. "Categories" become the driving force behind how products are organized and navigated on the frontend, while Taxon's are still used for product classification on the backend.

The folk at Bonobos have adopted this path and done significant enhancements and customizations to their "Category" model which I'm sure they'd be excited to share with anyone investigating this issue.

We think supporting a simple hierarchical category structure to organize products is something that will be useful to very many stores and should be added to core. Additionally, we don't believe stores that do not wish to use categories will have their operation impacted negatively.

I would consider this a very accessible task for anyone at any level to complete, though we'll need to flush out exactly what we're building and its requirements before someone started.

[bsodmike]

Hey @cbrunsdon I'd like to look at this, once details are up :)

[hapax94]

Very interested in this feature, as many retail organizations needs a more stable and corporate-based categorization

[bbuchalter]

I am interested in this feature as well; we're getting feedback from the business that our customer facing product list pages are too rigid when only using taxons as categories for customers to "drill down" into. We want to be able to customers to navigate categories, but also refine their searches using product attributes.

For the sake of shared language, I want to confirm my understanding of the distinction @cbrunsdon is offering:

• Categories: the hierarchical presentation of products to customers (e.g. Sporting Goods > Basketball)
• Taxons: Attributes shared among products (e.g. color, size)

Is that right?

[jhawthorn]

If there is a desire to do this it should be done in an extension before we evaluate inclusion in solidus itself.

Closing due to inactivity.