One of the core principles of category monitoring involves the classification of relationships between two items. It is this relationship which the consumer ultimately decides upon when choosing between two items. Below we'll explain what types exists, how they are helpful and what you can do with each of them.
Association Types
As the pyramid to the right suggests - the association types we're going to go through can have varying degrees of importance based on the number of other items (called quality) which may share the association with it. Basically - the more stringent the association type, the more likely its a complete competitive item. However, in some instances, its helpful not just to know if a direct competitor exists, but what other partial competitors - including how many, across a number of different association types. The system allows you to do this and keep everything organized. Below is a table of the common association types available.
Making Associations
Making associations can be done through the Category Management Interface. First find the item you want to choose as a reference item and right click on the image of the item. You'll be given a dropdown menu - at the bottom you should see "add association". Clicking on this will show you a popup like below and you can see that you can choose the retailer, the sku/ASIN or other retailer item that is the competitor and then classify it as one of the above. Doing so will allow you to view the items competitively based upon this and potentially other logically derived association types.
Extra verbiage for Ross to determine where to insert: