vhost rewrite sudomain to subfolder/file - apache

Question

I've read countless examples but nothing quite like what I'm trying to do.
Is it possible to use a vhost to redirect traffic sent to a subdomain to a main domain/subfolder/file.html?
Example:
User types into their browser http://productname.example.net/. I'd like them to end up at https://example.net/category/productname.html
NOTE: The user may or may not enter httpS but the ending site is an SSL url.
My conf file is as follows:
<Directory C:/websites/productname.example.net>
#BestProduct.example.net
#https://www.example.net/category/BestProduct/
Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} bestproduct\.example\.net
RewriteRule (.*) /category/bestProduct/$1 [L]
</Directory>
The example.net has a different conf file because it is an SSL. I have a couple of websites running from the same server so I have several conf files.
My TLD DNS Entry: A Record is 123.456.789 (SSL URL)
My subdomain of BestPRoduct is 123.456.780 (non SSL URL) Is this correct? If I point this tot he SSL IP, the browser reports it as unsafe. The TLD redirects www.example.net to just example.net.
What do I need to change to make this scenario work as I've described? I'm stumped.
UPDATE
When I reviewed the access.log and the error.log file for the subdomain, it did not have any records in it (file size was 0 bytes). This makes me think that perhaps the DNS record is not setup correctly?
FINAL UPDATE
During the course of just a casual conversation with the client, I found out they want to do this with just about every product they sell (jaw drop). Apparently this client was informed by some SEO firm to setup subdomains for better SEO rankings. I recommended to the client to setup subfolders instead of subdomains and ultimately that is what we are doing. My argument was from a maintenance standpoint that setting up subdomains for every product wasn't feasible.

Answer 1

Q: User types into their browser http://productname.example.net/. I'd like them to end up at https://example.net/category/productname.html
A: Use Redirect. For example
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName productname.example.net
DocumentRoot "C:/websites/productname.example.net"
Redirect permanent "/" "https://example.net/category/productname.html"
</VirtualHost>
Notes
To redirect https see HOWTO: Apache Name-Based SSL-Enabled Virtual Hosting.