What is a category or product?

[DiveO2]

What is the difference between a category and a product?


If the following is correct:

Category -                     Vehicle
Sub Category -             Lorry, Car, Bus, Train, etc
Brand -                    Ford, BMW, Mercedes, etc
Product -                       5-Series, Z3, 1-Series, etc
Sub Product -               530DSE, Z3-Coupe, 120i, etc

If the 'above' was correct, then what is 'Transport' ?

When I looked at other peoples sites, I found it hard trying to work out what was a category, product, child, grandchild, etc...

So, if I were to sell balls, what would the following be...

Ball
Foot ball
Tennis ball
Beach ball
Golf ball
Football size-4
Football size-5
Football size-4-red
Football size-4-white
Football size-4-plastic
Football size-4-leather
Beach ball-small
Beach ball-med
Beach ball-large
Beach ball-professional

..Then what about quantities? Are they sub, sub, sub, products?

The site I'm 'trying' to give advice on at the moment is for fencing products.
They have things like:

Panels – traditional, shiplap, closeboard, + lots more
They will come in different sizes and different materials.
They will come with different types of posts with different fixtures...

I just don't know what will be a:

Category
Sub category
Product
Child product
Grandchild product
And so on...

There is just sooooooo much information to enter, however, I need to know how VM think before I can start!

It's a Joomla! 2.5.4 site running on VM 2.0.4 (Fully up-to-date)

Any assistance greatly appreciated.

[DiveO2]

When does something stop being a category and become a product (in the eyes of Virtuemart)?

It seems that in order to get what I need to display, I need categorys and sub-categorys and sub-sub-categorys until I have one item left, which then I need to call it a product!

Is this correct?

If so, I hope the category's section has no limits!!! I'm gonna need a few.....

[jenkinhill]

A product is something you sell - like a car or a cricket bat. The category could be a car make or a car type, such as coupé. You cannot sell a category.

Yes, it is normal to have multiple categories & subcategories for a larger store. A product can also exist in multiple categories....

[lipes]

jenkinhill: Why the Manufacturers (Brand) cannot have multiple categories (Manufacturer category Name) too?

in BE index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=manufacturer&task=edit we cannot delete (in case of name error or empty name) or add more than 1 Category Name to any brand Manufacturer... it's bad because all we know that the Manufacturers have many categories 
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