1. A method for efficient storage and retrieval of catalog information comprising: identifying a set of attributes associated with data items; creating a common data structure for said data items that excludes a first attribute from said set of attributes unique to any selected first data item selected from said data items; associating a first data item with said first attribute excluded from said common data structure; creating a category data structure for storing information corresponding to a category said category data structure comprising a set of alias fields, wherein a first category having a first alias field from said set of alias fields is configured to reference a second category having a second category ID and wherein a second set of attributes from said set of attributes which corresponds to said second category and said second category's set of parent categories are not inherited by said first category; associating said first data item with a third category; creating an attribute data structure comprising category attributes from said set of attributes where said category attributes are common to a plurality of said data items; associating at least one category with at least one attribute from said category attributes via a category-attribute data structure; creating a category hierarchy data structure; and, associating a hierarchy of categories within said category hierarchy data structure, wherein said category hierarchy data structure comprises at least one parent category and at least one child category wherein said at least one child category inherits at least one parent attribute from said category attributes and wherein a given child category set is associated with at least one set of parent categories and wherein said at least one child category comprises a position value associated with a given parent category.