Material and color often sit in a product's title or description, where filters and sales channels cannot use them. In Shopify they have a structured home as category metafields. This guide walks through setting them on a product, using your own color names, and connecting them to variants.
Set the category before anything else
Material and color fields are category metafields, so they appear after the product has a category. From your Shopify admin, go to Products and open the product. In the Category section, search for the category or click through the levels, and select the most accurate result.
- No category: The category metafields are not offered
- Category set: The fields for that category appear in the Category metafields section
Shopify may also add some category metafields and values for you, based on the product's name, description and images. Review what was filled in.
Add color and material values
Each field is filled by choosing an entry from a list. In the Category metafields section, click the field, then click again to open the list. Select an entry from the drop-down, then click Save on the product.
- Color: Pick the entry that matches the product
- Material: Pick the entry for the main material
- On mobile: In the Shopify app the fields sit in the product's Metafields section, under View all
Use your own color names
Category metafields have default entries that you can use as they are or customize, and you can add new ones. Shopify's example is renaming "black" to "graphite" to fit your branding.
- Add: Click the field, then Add new entry
- Fill in: Complete the predefined fields
- Base values: Adjust the base values, which connect your entry to Shopify's standardized list
- Save: Save the entry, then save the product
Connect color to variant options
If the product comes in several colors, the color entries can do double duty. Shopify lets you connect category metafields to variant options, and their entries to option values. Editing an entry then updates every variant that uses it.
| Setup | Result |
|---|---|
| Color as a plain text option | Each product's values are typed separately |
| Color option connected to the category metafield | Edit an entry once and it updates wherever it is used |
Connected color entries can also be displayed as swatches on storefront product pages. Shopify notes that the Dawn theme needs its latest version for this, and that third-party theme support is listed in the theme's release notes.
Where the values show up
Filling these fields pays off in several places. Shopify's Search & Discovery app lists category metafields as a filter source, and filters based on them can display as swatches when the theme supports it.
- Storefront filters: Shoppers can narrow a collection by color or material
- Reports: Shopify's example is adding Material as a dimension in the total sales report
- Google: Google's product data specification requires color for all products available in different colors, and material when it distinguishes products in a set of variants
For how these fields fit with the rest of the taxonomy, see Shopify product categories and taxonomy.
Doing this at scale
TaxonomyForge scans your catalog for empty attributes and missing categories. It proposes attribute metafields, including material and color, from your own product copy, and you approve each change one by one or in bulk, with every change audit-logged. See TaxonomyForge.