Can you please point me in the right direction?

Hi, I'm still new to ZC and would appreciate if you could please point me in the right direction re: the following scenario.

Imagine a store that sells natural health items.

Categories would be e.g. teas, supplements, lotions, etc.

Product types are 'Product - General'.

What we would like to do is have the option, when defining products, to list the ailments that they can be used for e.g. allergies, insomnia, etc. And we would love for our cusomters to be able to find the products based on ailments as well (sidebox).

To potentially complicate things, each product can be associated with multiple ailments...

How does one accomplish this in ZC?

Thanks for your help. I did searches in the forums, but since I'm not even sure which terminology to use, I did not get very far.

(Another example I can conjure up would be a jewelry store that categorizes jewelry products by ring, necklace, bracelet, etc. but would like to allow another viewport into the data e.g. by metal, stone, etc.)

I run ZC 1.3.8a.

How does one accomplish this in ZC?
Also create cats for each ailment and link the appropriate products to them....
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=216
You might also check the free softeare addons area for I think "better categories" to alter the display of these to maybe a second sidebox or seperated area above or below the others

You might also search the forums for 'boilerplate' and try swguy's mod for adding identical content to the product descriptions, if many of the ailments will be the same.

Categories Dressing is the mod that will allow multiple boxes or sections to be made from the categories sidebox.

And you can look at my site to see examples of products being linked into multiple categories.

You guys rock! Thank y'all so much for your speedy reply. I'll now go figure this out...
/C