Managing Product Categories

This article covers category management beyond assigning a category to a single product while you’re creating it — for that, see adding a category while setting up a product.

Create a new category

Go to Admin Panel > Products > Categories > Add Category.

Add a category name and description. The description isn’t used in all themes; it may serve as the meta description if you don’t set one.

To add an image to a category page, upload one in the Image section:

The category image appears on top of the category page in most themes (not in Megami, Industrial, or Bootstrap themes).

Category properties

Assign a Default Order for the products in that category.

You can also assign a Parent Category (it must already exist to appear in the list).

Add a category to the navigation menu

The category form has a Navigation section where you choose where the category appears: Show in Main Menu under, Show in Categories Menu under, and Show in Footer Menu — each lets you place it at the top level or nested under a parent.

You can also manage the whole menu from Admin Panel > Theme > Navigation.

Reorder menu categories by dragging. To make one a subcategory of another, drag it under the main category and move it to the right.

Learn more about the main navigation menu.

Reorder products in a category

If you choose the default order Position, products appear in the category page in the order of the product-list page. Change their position by dragging in the product list:

Add a category to multiple products at once

If you created products before a category existed, add the category to them in bulk from the products-list page instead of one by one:

Get a category permalink for theme options

Some theme elements (banners, buttons, images) can link to a category page. To get the permalink, go to Admin Panel > Products > Categories, open the category, and scroll to Search Engine Optimization where the permalink is shown. Paste it into the theme option to connect the element to the category page.

Tips for effective categorization

Be specific, keep it simple, consider SEO, build a logical hierarchy, stay consistent, and use product attributes (brand, size, color) for subcategories. The more logical your structure, the better collaborative filtering and proximity search work for your customers.