Easy Populate is the fastest way of doing bulk uploads where there are lots of categories and lots of products.
Bear in mind that you CANNOT have categories and products existing at the same LEVEL in the database.
So the short answer to your question is that you FIRST need categories... and then you add products.
Easy Populate will do both at the same time - if the TXT file is in good order.
Install Easy Populate 1.2.5.4 (later versions are a bit shaky).
See my WIKI tutorial on Easy Populate:
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Easy_Populate





