According to the number of products you want to sell, you might need to split them into categories so that your customers find them easily from your menus.
For example, a clothing store can have these categories: t-shirts, trousers, pullovers…
If you don’t need to organize your products (that is to say, if you sell less than 20 products), let’s move on to the next chapter: Accept payments on your online store.
Display categories
When you added a product in the previous step, you have defined its categories.
If you have a few categories which aren’t organized (that is to say, if you have less than 10 categories), you can use the tabs of the categories you added to the Store block. You can also use a single Store block on just one page of your website.
However, if you have many organized categories (subcategories), you can create page organization; that is to say, each page displays subcategories (see below).
Category tabs
A Store block on a page might display a menu in the form of tabs that enable customers to browse your categories.
It’s your turn now
Once you have selected the Store block, click on Categories and menu in the Content panel. In the column “Show on page”, select the categories the Store block of this page will display in tabs (all categories, normally).
For a basic store, select all your categories to show all your products organized in the different tabs.
You also have the possibility to tick the box All (all products) to add a tab that gathers all the products of the categories.
Watch out: you might lose a product
If you create a product without configuring its category, your product will be saved, but it won’t be displayed on your page. To reach and edit this product, change “Categories and menu” temporarily and tick the box “All (all products)”.
Page hierarchy
It is for organizing categories and subcategories on different pages and subpages.
Here are examples of categories (clothes, shoes) and subcategories (pulls, trousers, tennis shoes, thongs) organization.
It’s your turn now
Create several pages on your website. Name them according to the name of your categories (clothes, shoes) and subcategories (pulls, trousers, tennis shoes, thongs).
Here are the different steps you will follow on the 6 pages:
-
Add a Store block.
-
Create a category that corresponds to the name of the page: click on “Categories and menu” from the Content panel and create the category.
-
Choose one or various categories you will display. Then select the category you will display on this page.
-
If it’s a subcategory, create the product and add it to the categories of its structure (jeans need to be in the Trousers and Clothes categories).
Watch out: a product might be displayed on unrelated pages
If you haven’t selected the categories to display (step 3 above), all your website products will be displayed on the Store block.
You don’t organize your categories in the Store block, but from your page organization in the menu (see the chapter Configure browsing). Browsing might be from the main menu, in drop-down menus and/or submenus displayed in the related categories.
Search
The search bar of the store enables your customers to find products or categories quickly.
It’s possible to disable it if necessary.
You can also add a Search block to all your website pages.