How To Create Categories And Subcategories in Shopify?

If you have chosen Shopify as your managing platform, then you are probably interested in the ways of making your business more appealing. The key to achieving this is to offer your customers a well-organized platform with products, and great organization comes by creating separate categories. So, what are categories and subcategories? 

Category refers to a group of products with the same or similar features, and they ease up the shopping experience for the customers. The subcategories work in the same way, and they are recommended because they additionally speed up online shopping.

In this article, I will explain thoroughly why are categories and subcategories of essential importance when it comes to selling products online. Also, I will give a step-by-step guide to creating these features in a hustle-free manner which will lead to a brilliantly organized platform.  

Why Are Categories And Subcategories Important In Shopify? 

Some people do not enjoy online shopping mostly due to the fact that sometimes online platforms might seem all over the place. Some platforms have all of their products in a certain space, so the customer has to go through all of them to find the desired item. This can be quite annoying, and shopping is supposed to be fun. 

The solution for these unpleasantries is the creating of categories and subcategories. Everything that is neatly organized is comfortable for the customer, and this makes it more likely for that person to continue to shop from the same online store. Arranging your products in specific groups would mean giving your customer the best possible shopping experience by not wasting their time. 

More specifically explained, the categories enable the customer to understand what kinds of products you sell and their organization into specific categories. Furthermore, they help the customer to narrow their search into adequate subcategories which leads to quicker decisions and faster purchases. In other words, this is a win-win situation in which the customer is satisfied with your services, while you are building a loyal audience.

The categories on Shopify will enable you to present your products in a better way, and they can be created with unique hierarchical URLs. This means that the categories in Spotify help your products to be found by a search engine in a particular index group. 

Furthermore, Shopify gives you the option to make each of your categories unique, and give a better description of what it is about. Also, you can add the number of products to each category, so the customer would have a clear image of the total number of your product catalog.

Subcategories as well contribute to the customer experience since they make the search even quicker. They enable the customer to find the wanted product in no time, without making the whole search through a certain category. 

If you’re selling digital products, check this guide on how to add digital products to Shopify.

How To Create Categories In Shopify? 

As I previously mentioned, creating categories in Shopify is not some kind of scientific problem that will need to be sorted out by professionals. Shopify has made the process easy, so you can do it all by yourself. You will just need to follow a few steps that will take you to the wanted result. 

Setting Up Products 

The products are the starting point that you have to deal with at the very beginning. Products work on a system of tags, which is actually the base of your category. When you are setting up the tags, you have to keep in mind that every tag is basically a subcategory of a particular category. 

Adding tags to your products is also quite simple. You just have to edit the product and type the name of the subcategories in the tag field. Then you just save your changes, and you are off to the next step. 

Creating A Collection 

The first thing you need to do is creating a collection. Collections in Shopify play an essential role because they result in properly built categories. You should create a collection manually since that way you get to choose the products you need in there. 

Once you select the items in your collection they are not going to be changed. In other words, the changing of the items in a particular collection can be done only by yourself. So, if you want any changes, you can do them by adding or removing items.

Step 1

Once you log in to Shopify, you will see the features on the left side of the screen. Then from ‘Products’, you need to select ‘Collections’. Once you do that, you will need to choose ‘Create  collection’ and you will be on your way to creating. 

Step 2

In this step, you need to fill out the boxes that will describe your collection. Here you will have to add the title of it and its description. Afterward, you need to choose ‘Conditions’ where you will insert the collection tag, and then select ‘any condition’. 

After you do all of this you need to click ‘save’ and your collection will be created successfully. 

Step 3

The next thing you will need to do is select ‘Navigation’ from the ‘Online Store’. Once you are there, you go to the ‘Main menu’. You can choose whichever menu you need, but you should check if the menu you require is already featured on Shopify.  

After you do this, you select ‘Add menu’ and then ‘Add menu item’. Here you will see the fields intended for ‘Name’ and ‘Link’. In the former, you put the name of your category, while in the latter you put the name of the collection you previously created. You have to bear in mind that the name of the collection should be exactly the same. 

The last thing you need to do is click ‘add’ and then ‘save’ on the menu. Once you do that, you will have your collection ready.  

How To Create Subcategories In Shopify? 

As I explained above, subcategories play an important role in the customer experience and they make online shopping effortless and way less time-consuming. Customers find this very simple and convenient, and they are more likely to make more purchases from your store in the feature. 

However, the creating of subcategories needs to be done in a careful manner. It is a simple process, but if you do not know what you are doing, it can easily ‘go south’. To avoid any inconveniences, I have listed the steps that will lead you to the successful creating of subcategories.  

Step 1: Theme Settings Check 

Firstly, you will need to check whether your theme has a drop-down menu so you could add subcategories in the Shopify store. To do this, you will have to go to ‘Customize themes’ and then select ‘Collection page’. 

Then, you will have to ‘enable filtering by product tag’. If you are using a theme that gives you the option to filter by tag, then you will see the option ‘Enable filtering by product tag’. If there is this feature in your theme, you will need to tick that box. 

After you have done all this, you click on the ‘save’ button and you are ready for the next step. 

Step 2: Theme.liquid File Editing 

For this step, you will have to select ‘Online Store’ in Shopify and then proceed to ‘Themes’. After that, you will have to choose ‘Actions’ and then ‘Edit code’. Once you do this, you go to the ‘Layout directory’ and choose ‘liquid’. 

At the bottom of the file, you will see the closing </body> tag. You will have to copy and paste the code that is found below the closing </body> tag and in a new line. After that, you click ‘save’ for the changes you have made and step 2 is done. 

Step 3: Adding A Drop-down Menu To A Category

For a subcategory to be properly put into a category you will need to add the code for a drop-down menu. Since many themes use different codes, you will need to find the one that will work for your theme. If you do not have the codes, you can find them here. 

Once you obtain the needed code, you will have to go to the ‘Template directory’ and paste the code. You have to bear in mind that the codes need to be pasted in a new line above. After you finish with the code, you need to click ‘save’, and your subcategory is ready to go. 

If you need more subcategories, you just repeat the same steps and you can have as many as you require. Subcategories work in an exceptional way, especially if you have a lot of products and categories. 

To conclude, creating categories and subcategories in Shopify play a significant role in your business growth. As you could see, the process of creating them is quite easy and simple, so there is no reason why you should not include them in your online store. This way, you can keep your customers satisfied, and your business will be bound to grow.