Organise products into categories

Categories are the departments of your store, such as Women, Men and Shoes. This article shows you how to build them into a tree with subcategories, and how to give each one a size guide, an image or icon, and a translation — with AI choosing the icons if your plan includes it.

Categories and subcategories

A category groups products by what they are. Each product sits in one category, which you choose on the product itself — see add a product. A category can also sit inside another one as a subcategory. At Layal Boutique, for example, Women holds Dresses, Tops & knitwear and Trousers & jeans.

Your categories shape how customers browse your storefront:

• The menu at the top of every page shows your first five top-level categories, in the order of your tree. Pointing at one opens a panel with its subcategories — one level only — each shown with its image, or with its icon when it has no image.
• The Category rail section of your home page shows your top-level categories as tiles. You switch it on and place it in the Storefront Studio — see arrange your homepage sections.
• Every category has its own page, at your store’s address followed by /category/ and the category’s link, such as /category/dresses.

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Categories are on every plan. Adding, editing and deleting them needs the categories permissions: the store owner and store managers have them. Sales staff have View categories only, so they see your categories but cannot change them. See staff roles and permissions.

A category is not a collection. A product has one category, which says what it is; it can be in any number of collections, which group products for a season or an occasion — see add a collection.

The category tree: fold it and search it

Every category has a row. Each row shows:

• the category’s image — or its icon when it has no image, or a folder when it has neither;
• its name, with its description underneath;
• a chip with its number of subcategories, such as 3 subcategories;
• its link, such as women;
• the pencil (Edit) and the bin (Delete) — see edit or delete a category.

Subcategories are listed under their parent, set in a little. The count beside the search box covers every category, subcategories included, such as 16 categories.

At each level, categories are listed A to Z by their name in your main language. Your storefront uses the same order, and you cannot change it in the console.

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To fold a category’s subcategories away, select the arrow at the start of its row (Collapse). Select it again to open them (Expand). Only a category with subcategories has the arrow. The tree opens fully again each time you come back to the page.

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To find a category, type in Search categories…. The tree narrows as you type, to the categories whose name, description or link contains your words. A subcategory that matches keeps its parent on show, with only the matching subcategories under it, and every branch stays open while you search. The count shows the matches out of the total, such as 2 / 16.

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Names are searched in the language you use the console in. In the Arabic console, search for فساتين rather than Dresses.

When nothing matches, the page says No matching categories. Select Clear search to see the whole tree again.

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If the page cannot load your categories, it says Could not load data. Select Try again. If it still does not load, the problem is on our side or your connection. A role without View categories does not see Categories in its sidebar at all — see staff roles and permissions.

Add a category: name, link and description

This short video adds Evening dresses under Women, with its icon and its Arabic translation:

A store with no categories yet shows No categories yet, with its own Add category button that does the same as the one at the top.

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The Add category window opens. Its first part, Details & hierarchy, has a chip with your store’s main language, such as English. The name and description you type here are in that language.

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As you type, the console shows the Link it builds from the name, such as evening-dresses. You cannot type the link yourself. It is built like this:

• letters become lower case, and accents are dropped;
• Latin letters, Arabic letters and digits are kept, and apostrophes are removed, so Men’s becomes mens;
• every space or other character becomes a hyphen;
• if another category in your tree already has the same link, -2, -3 and so on is added when you save. The preview under the name does not show it, so check the link in the tree afterwards. A category you deleted no longer counts: its name and link are free again.

If you select Save with no name, the Name field turns red and says Enter a category name., and a message says Fill in every required field. Type a name and save again.

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Place it under another category

Parent category decides where the category sits. Leave it on No parent (top level) for a department of its own, such as Women. Choose a category to make this one its subcategory.

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You can move a category to another parent later, with its subcategories — see edit or delete a category.

A size guide for the category

On your storefront, the product page of every product in the category shows a Size guide line with a View the size guide link. The link opens your text in a window, with each line you typed on its own line.

The guide belongs to the category because sizes depend on the kind of thing you sell. A subcategory with no size guide of its own uses its parent’s. Write one on Women, and every dress, top and pair of trousers under it shows it, unless its own subcategory has a different one.

Image and icon

Both are optional. Wherever your storefront shows a category as a picture — the menu panel and the category rail on your home page — it uses the image. When there is no image, it uses the icon.

The photo can be a JPG, PNG, WebP or GIF of up to 10 MB, and it counts towards your plan’s storage. Remove takes it off the category. If the upload fails, a message says Could not upload the image. Try again. — or why it was refused, such as a file type that is not allowed or a plan that has reached its storage limit.

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The icon comes from a set of 116 icons drawn in one style, so every category tile looks consistent.

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The chosen icon and its name show beside the button, such as Dresses & skirts. If your search finds nothing, the grid says No matching icons.

Let AI pick the icon (Growth and up)

Suggest with AI reads the category’s name and description and picks the best match from the same 116 icons. On a new category, the console does this by itself the first time you leave the Name field, as long as you have not chosen an icon yet. You can change the icon afterwards like any other.

Each suggestion uses one AI category icon credit — see how AI credits work. While it works, the button says Suggesting…. If it fails, a message says Could not suggest an icon. Try again. When this month's icons are used up, selecting Suggest with AI shows You have used all your AI category icons for this month. The suggestion the console makes by itself, when you leave the Name field, says nothing then: choose the icon yourself.

AI category icons are on Growth and up. Suggest with AI stays greyed out until there is a name. Below Growth, once you type a name, the button shows a padlock; selecting it shows a message naming the plan that includes it and its price, with a See plans link. See plans and what each includes.

The translation, by hand or with AI (Starter and up)

The Translations section appears only when your store sells in more than one language. Free sells in one language, Starter in two and Growth and up in all three — see set your store’s languages.

There is one card for each of your other languages, such as العربية. It shows how many of the fields you wrote in your main language are written in this language too: 0/2 completed with 2 missing fields, or Complete once both are there. Until you write a name, the card says Nothing to translate yet.

Both fill only empty fields. Anything you already typed in that language stays as it is.

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Other messages you may see:

Generate missing is greyed out when nothing is missing. Below Starter, it shows a padlock when there is something to translate, and selecting it names the plan that includes AI translation.

If you leave a language empty, customers who browse your store in it see the text you did write — the English, when there is some.

Size guide in other languages: written by you, never machine translated

Under the cards, Size guide in other languages has one box for each of your other languages, such as Size guide · العربية. As the console says, it is “not machine translated, so every measurement stays exactly as you wrote it”.

Generate missing and Copy missing from primary never touch it, and it does not count in the card’s figures, so a card can say Complete with no size guide in that language. Write it yourself. If you leave it empty, customers who browse in that language see the size guide you did write — the English one, when there is one.

Save the category

The window closes, Category created. appears, and the new category is in your tree under its parent, whose count goes up by one.

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If the save fails, a message says Could not save changes. — or the reason, when the store gives one — and the window stays open with everything you typed. Try again.

Suggest icons for every category with AI (Growth and up)

Suggest icons with AI, at the top of the page, gives every category a new icon in one go.

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While it works, the button says Suggesting icons…. Then one of these appears:

It uses one credit for every category, subcategories included, counted when it starts — 16 categories use 16 credits, even if some of them cannot be suggested. If you have fewer credits left than you have categories, nothing runs and no icon changes. Category images are never touched.

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Below Growth, the button shows a padlock, and selecting it names the plan that includes AI category icons and its price.

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What the form asks for

Next, give your products their categories — one at a time when you edit a product, or many at once with change many products at once. To rename, move or remove a category later, see edit or delete a category.