Guide/August 2026 · 5 min
Why category review comes before publishing
A listing in the wrong leaf can look successful and still fail in search, aspects, and returns.
eBay expects a leaf category and the aspects that belong to it. A broad parent category may accept a listing and still leave it poorly placed.
In Dropenza, drafts move through category review before they are eligible to publish. The publish step does not invent a category on the way to Inventory.
You may lock a category yourself in store settings. If you leave it empty, the draft waits. A waiting draft is not a live listing. Treat those two counts as different numbers.