Manage product categories

Organizing your product catalog in to a user-friendly category tree is one of the most important ongoing tasks to support the buyer experience. Assigning products to categories helps you to organize your storefront and your buyers to interact with a clear product structure navigation.

Considerations

• A product must be assigned to a category before it can be published in the storefront.
• A product can only be assigned to one category.
• A category can have any number of subcategories.

Add a category

1. In the dashboard, navigate to Products -> Settings.
2. Select Categories.
3. Select Create category.
4. Input the category's name and description.
5. Enable the Allow Products to be assigned to this Category toggle.
6. Select Save.

Once the category is saved, you can add a category image, subcategories, and assign products (if this option is enabled).

Add a category image

1. In the dashboard, navigate to Products -> Settings.
2. Select Categories.
3. Select a category.
4. In the Details -> Background Image section, click on the + button to upload an image.
5. (Optional) To add alternative alt text for the image:
   1. Hover on the image and select the edit icon.
   2. Input the alternative text in the Description field.
6. Select Save.

Add a subcategory

Subcategories break large groups down into smaller subsets that make it easier to manage stores and help buyers find products. The following steps outline how to add a subcategory.

1. In the dashboard, navigate to Products -> Settings.
2. Select Categories.
3. Select a category.
4. Select Subcategories.
5. Select Create subcategory.
6. Input the category's name and description.
7. Enable the Allow Products to be assigned to this Category toggle.
8. Select Save.

Assign products to a category

1. In the dashboard, navigate to Products -> Listings.
2. Select a product.
3. In the Product organization section, select a category from the Category dropdown menu.
4. Select Save.

Edit categories

Once you have your categories set up, you can edit them at any time by opening a category, making your changes, and saving.

Delete categories

Deleting a category does not automatically delete the products assigned to it. The following steps outline how to delete a category.

1. In the dashboard, navigate to Products -> Settings.
2. Select Categories.
3. Select one or more categories.
4. Select Delete and confirm you want to delete the selected categories.

Manage category metadata

You can add, edit, or remove private and public metadata for each category in the category setup page. The following steps outline how you can do this.

1. In the dashboard, navigate to Products -> Settings.
2. Select Categories.
3. Select the category you want to manage.
4. In the Advanced section, select the + button to add both metadata and private metadata fields.
5. Input your metadata as a custom key : value pair.
6. Save your changes when you are done.

Learn more

Manage product category metadata with Nautical's GraphQL API.