Shopify has a Category field on every product, and a lot of stores leave it empty. Here's what it does, how it's different from product type, and how to fill it in.
Category versus product type
The category comes from Shopify's Standard Product Taxonomy, a fixed list that every store shares. Product type is different. It's a free-text label you make up, for your own organization.
- Category: From Shopify's standard list
- Product type: Your own free-text label
- Example: Apparel → Shirts & Tops → T-Shirts vs “Tees”
What a category unlocks
The category matters for three reasons. It unlocks category attributes, like color, material, and size. It can power filters and search in your store. And sales channels use it to understand what you sell.
- Attributes: Color, material, size and more
- Storefront: Filters and search
- Channels: Helps channels classify products
Set the category
To set it, open a product, and find the Category field. Shopify often suggests one from your title and description. Check that it's the most specific category that fits, then save.
- Open the product
- Category: accept or change the suggestion
- Pick the most specific match
Attributes and clean types
Once a category is set, Shopify shows the attributes that go with it. Fill them in. And clean up your product types while you're there. Types like Misc, or three spellings of the same thing, make collections harder to automate.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Type: Misc · Category: empty · no attributes | Type: T-Shirts · Category: T-Shirts · Material: Linen · Color: Green |
Doing this at scale
TaxonomyForge scans your catalog for missing categories, blank or generic product types, and empty attributes. It proposes a category with a confidence score, a clean product type, and attributes taken from your own copy. You approve each change, one by one or in bulk. See TaxonomyForge.