Product not appearing in correct shop category

I have the shop set up with several shop categories. However I cannot get items to appear in the correct one, even though the product details appear to show the correct location. When creating a new product, I cannot get the Category tab on the right to select the appropriate shop category - it seems to default to the first one. I can't see what I've done wrong, but I'm sure it is obvious - again.

The product wrongly placed is:
panchromatica.cloudaccess.net/limited-ed...ame-passion-1/catego

What do you mean by you can't select the appropriate one when creating your product ?
Do you have an error ?
Do you see the correct category in the listing of categories on the right panel before clicking on save ?
Are you sure that you check the checkbox on the category line and then click on the OK button of the popup ? Because if you click on the category name directly it goes to the listing of its sub categories, it doesn't add the category.
Could you do some screenshots ?

This is what I am doing.

From Products menu option - select New (or from products menu option select Add new product)

Create the item with description etc.

Click on Add button on right hand side to select appropriate category - this shows the correct category once I have done this

Click OK

Add image in Image tab on right.

Save

When I now go to the front end, the new item is not displayed in the correct shop category but in the first listed (Limited Edition Prints) Looking at the product listing still shows it as being in the correct one - in this case Affordable Art.

Screen grabs attached.

I've done this several times now with the same effect.

Second screen shot

Third screen shot

In each of your menu, did you go in the hikashop options of the menu (via the link on the right part of the menu options) to select the "parent category" option ? Otherwise, it might not display the good set of products.
Maybe you could do a screenshot of that screen for your menu Affordable art ?

I think I did as you suggest. See screen grab attached

Please go in the menu Display->Content menus and edit the options of your menu.
You will find the "parent category" option. Please check that the correct category is entered. If yes, send us a screenshot of THAT screen.

Is this correct?

No. I see that you selected the category "product category" in that option. You should select the category of products you want to display.
In that popup, click on the "product category" link to display the listing of your categories (currently, you're looking at the listing of sub categories of one of your categories) and then click on the + icon next to your category name on that listing. That should update the "product category" of the option "parent category" with your category name. Then, click on save to save the change.

I know I'm being slow here, but I didn't think I had sub-categories. You seem to be suggesting that Product Category is itself a category and the others are sub-categories. Have I created 'Product Category' myself somehow?

The "product category" is a main category which is in HikaShop by default. When you create a new category they go automatically into that category.
When you create a new menu of type hikashop it will have that main category as parent category by default.
So if you want to display the products of a different category for a menu, you need to change that option to that other category.

So, this product shows on the screen grab that it is in the correct shop category.

However, it does not display in the correct category. It displays under Limited Edition Prints rather than Affordable art which the screen grab shows it to be in.

I still can't work out what if anything I have done wrong. Before I delete all the products displaying incorrectly and starting again, this is the sequence I followed.

From the HikaShop menu I selected Products, then selected the appropriate category from the list at left, so that the existing products in that category are displayed in the main screen - at this stage there are two in that list.

I then clicked on New at top right.

On the next screen I entered Name of Product and product description.

Then in Category Box at the right I clicked Add.

This brings up a pop up window with a directory listing on the right and a list of shop categories in the main part.

In this window I clicked on the appropriate box - in this case Affordable Art - then OK.

Returning to the main screen the correct shop category is now shown in the Categories box.

Next I added details of price and added the appropriate file from the Prices and Images boxes on the right.

Back under the text description box I added details of quantities and made sure the Published radio button is set at Yes.

Then click on Save

This takes me back to the Products screen with Affordable Art selected and now showing three products in that category.

Clicking on Preview now shows the site Front Page.

Clicking on Affordable Art in the Shop Menu shows the category to be empty, with the three Affordable Art products actually displaying in the Limited Edition Prints category.

I created a new category of Photography and started again from scratch with the same result.

My thought was that I have in some way set the parameters for the shop categories incorrectly, as you suggested earlier.

In more detail, under the edit screen for Categories at the top right it shows 'product category'. Clicking on the change button beside it beings up a popup window with various shop categories each with a green + button next to it in a column labelled Use.

Clicking on that button changes the parent category to Limited Edition Prints. However, when I save or apply that screen I get a message saying 'Error Saving' and it reverts to product category.

However, trying to create a new category from scratch and selecting say 'limited edition prints' places the new category as a sub-category of that shop category, which is not what I want.

IN relation to the detailed steps I outlined above, where am I going wrong?

The problem isn't the create of your products or categories. Your process is correct.
No, the problem is the creation of your joomla menu.
You created a new joomla menu of type HikaShop products listing and then entered the name of your category in the name of the menu. However, that is just the name displayed by joomla for the link. HikaShop doesn't know which category it should use to display that listing of products. Thus, in the hikashop options of that menu you need to select the correct "parent category". By default the parent category is "products category" which is your main category. Since you didn't add any products in that category, HikaShop displays you an empty listing.

So how do I correct the problem? I'm new to Joomla also.

I'm sorry, I thought it was clear.

You need to edit your menus options via the menu Display->Content menus.
There, in the "parent category" please select the category corresponding to the menu you are editing so that the system will display the products under that category.

Excellent!! - thank you for your patience.