Category Management

Categories help you organize your products into logical groups, making it easier for customers to browse and find what they are looking for. Shop Craft supports hierarchical categories, meaning you can create parent categories with subcategories nested inside them.

Viewing Categories

Go to Admin > Categories to see all your categories. The listing page shows:

• Category name
• Parent category (if it is a subcategory)
• Number of products in the category
• Number of subcategories
• Status (Active or Inactive)

You can search for categories by name and filter by status.

Creating a Category

1. Go to Admin > Categories
2. Click Add Category
3. Fill in the category details
4. Click Save

Category Fields

Field	Required	Description
Name	Yes	The category name displayed on your storefront
Description	No	A description of the category (shown on the category page)
Parent Category	No	Select a parent to make this a subcategory. Leave empty for a top-level category
Image	No	Upload a category image (used on the storefront category listing)
Status	Yes	Active or Inactive
Sort Order	Yes	Controls the display order of categories (lower numbers appear first)

TIP

The category slug (URL path) is automatically generated from the category name. For example, a category named "Men's Clothing" will have the slug mens-clothing and be accessible at yourdomain.com/categories/mens-clothing.

Hierarchical Categories

You can create a two-level category structure:

• Parent categories — Top-level categories (e.g., "Clothing", "Electronics", "Home & Kitchen")
• Subcategories — Categories nested under a parent (e.g., "T-Shirts" under "Clothing")

To create a subcategory, simply select a parent category from the Parent Category dropdown when creating or editing a category.

Example Structure

Clothing
  ├── T-Shirts
  ├── Jeans
  └── Jackets
Electronics
  ├── Smartphones
  ├── Laptops
  └── Accessories

WARNING

Only top-level categories can be used as parent categories. You cannot nest subcategories more than one level deep.

Category Status

Status	Meaning
Active	Visible on the storefront navigation and category pages
Inactive	Hidden from customers — products in this category remain in the catalog but the category itself is not shown in navigation

Editing a Category

1. Go to Admin > Categories
2. Click the Edit button on the category
3. Make your changes
4. Click Save

You can change the name, description, parent category, image, status, and sort order at any time.

Deleting a Category

1. Go to Admin > Categories
2. Click the Delete button on the category
3. Confirm the deletion

Important Restrictions

You cannot delete a category if:

• It has subcategories — you must delete or reassign the subcategories first
• It has products assigned to it — you must reassign or remove the products first

This prevents accidental data loss and ensures your storefront remains organized.

How Categories Appear on the Storefront

Categories are used in several places on your storefront:

• Navigation — Active top-level categories and their subcategories appear in the header navigation menu
• Category listing page — Customers can browse all categories at /categories
• Individual category pages — Each category has its own page showing all products in that category
• Featured sections — Categories can appear in the "Featured Categories" section on the homepage

SEO for Categories

Each category has optional SEO fields (meta title and meta description) that you can set when creating or editing a category. These control how the category appears in search engine results.

For more details, see SEO Settings.

Next Steps

• Products — Add products and assign them to categories
• Orders — View orders for products in your categories