How to Create and Organize Product Categories

Organize products into categories to improve navigation and help customers find items. Categories also control what appears on your store homepage.

What Are Categories?

Categories group related products together:

• Apparel: Shirts, pants, dresses
• Electronics: Phones, chargers, accessories
• Home: Furniture, decor, kitchen items

Categories improve: - Store navigation - Customer browsing experience - SEO (search engine visibility) - Homepage organization

Access Category Management

1. Log in to your seller area
2. Navigate to Products > Categories
3. You'll see a table of all existing categories

View Your Categories

The categories table displays:

• Category Image: Visual thumbnail for the category
• Name: Category title
• Visibility: Visible or Hidden badge
• Creation Date: When the category was created
• Actions: View, edit, or delete options

Create a Category

1. Click the Add a category button
2. Enter the Category Name
3. Use clear, descriptive names

4. Examples: "Summer Dresses", "Wireless Headphones"

5. Upload a Category Image (optional)

6. High-quality image that represents the category
7. Used for visual browsing on your storefront

8. Recommended size: 400x400 pixels or larger

9. Write a Description (optional)

10. Brief description of products in this category

11. Helps with SEO

12. Set Visibility to "Visible" to display on your storefront

13. Save the category

Create Hierarchical Categories

Support parent and child categories:

1. When creating or editing a category, look for Parent category option
2. Select a parent category to make this category a subcategory
3. Example hierarchy:
4. Apparel (parent)
   • Men's Clothing (child)
   • Women's Clothing (child)
5. Electronics (parent)
   • Phones (child)
   • Accessories (child)

This creates a browsable hierarchy on your storefront.

Edit a Category

1. In the categories table, click Edit for your category
2. Update the name, image, or description
3. Change visibility settings
4. Save changes

Manage Category Visibility

Control which categories appear on your storefront:

1. In the categories table, find the category
2. Toggle the Visibility badge (Visible/Hidden)
3. Visible categories appear in navigation and on homepage
4. Hidden categories are not accessible to customers

Important: Homepage Display

Critical: If a homepage section is configured to display products from a category, that category MUST contain at least one product. If the category is empty, the storefront will appear blank in that section.

To fix: 1. Add at least one product to the category, or 2. Change the homepage section to display a different category 3. See "How to Customize Your Store Theme" for homepage configuration

Assign Products to Categories

When creating or editing a product:

1. Open the product
2. In the Category dropdown, select the appropriate category
3. Save the product
4. The product now appears in that category

Delete a Category

1. In the categories table, click Delete
2. Note: Deleting a category does not delete the products in it
3. Products are unassigned from the category, not deleted
4. Confirm the deletion

Category Best Practices

• Use clear, customer-friendly names
• Keep category structure simple (avoid too many levels)
• Ensure each category has at least one product
• Use high-quality category images
• Organize products logically by category
• Review category structure regularly
• Remove empty or unused categories

Direct Access

Manage categories directly at: seller-area.youcan.shop/admin/categories

Related Articles

• How to Add a New Product
• How to Browse and Install Themes
• How to Edit Your Store Navigation