Why Shopify Doesn’t Use Parent-Child Categories (And What to Do Instead)
- Brijesh Soni
- 7 minutes ago
- 7 min read
If you’ve these days migrated to Shopify from WordPress (or are thinking about it), you’re likely asking yourself:
“Why can’t I simply create discern categories and subcategories like I did in WooCommerce?”
You’re now not on my own!
This is one of the most common points of misunderstanding for store owners moving to Shopify—and understandably so. In WordPress, you can easily tuck your products into a deep tree of categories, like: Home > Kitchen > Cookware > Non-stick. But Shopify handles product organization differently. If you're transitioning from WordPress and want to structure your catalog effectively, a shopify development agency can help you adapt your taxonomy and navigation to suit Shopify's tagging and collection system without losing functionality or user experience.
Clothing > Men > Jackets > Winter Jackets
Simple, proper? So why doesn’t Shopify provide this out of the container?
Short answer: It’s intentional. Shopify isn’t damaged, it’s just built in a different way.
And after you understand the why behind Shopify’s category hierarchy (or lack thereof), you’ll see that this “dilemma” is truly one in every of its finest strengths, only in case you recognize how to work with it.Let’s damage it down in easy terms, net dev to business owner, and more importantly, show you the way to prepare products on Shopify like a seasoned with no need a traditional category tree.
But first, let’s talk about Shopify’s philosophy ~ Simplicity for the win!
Here’s what many human beings don’t recognize: Shopify wasn’t constructed to mirror how builders suppose; it became designed for entrepreneurs.
Think about it.
Not everybody constructing a shop on Shopify is a tech wizard. Many are solo founders, marketers, and product-primarily based commercial enterprise proprietors who juggle 10 different duties, needing an intuitive backend and 0 guesswork.
That’s why Shopify avoids complicated discern-child class hierarchies. It doesn’t mean you can’t arrange your shop nicely; it simply method the platform offers gear that prioritize flexibility and ease over stress.
Shopify categories vs collections: What’s actually occurring?
Alright, allow’s solve one of the most important factors of misunderstanding for every body transferring from WordPress to Shopify:
“Where the heck are the product categories?”
You’re not lacking something. Shopify simply doesn’t do categories the equal manner WordPress does. There’s no “discern-baby” structure. No neat little folders. No conventional class timber.
But don’t panic, Shopify’s not damaged. It simply thinks in another way about organizing products.
Instead of categories and subcategories, Shopify offers you two equipment that do all the heavy lifting:
Collections
Tags
Now, that would sound overly simplified… but stay with me.
Once you get how those paintings collectively, you’ll see how powerful (and albeit, more flexible) Shopify’s machine truly is.
Collections are Shopify’s version of categories, but with a chunk extra freedom.
They’re the huge groupings your products live in. Stuff like:
“Men’s Footwear”
“Home Decor”
“Sale”
“Best Sellers”
“Under ₹one thousand”
You can set them up in approaches:
Manual collections, where you handpick the products (high-quality for curated drops or promotions),
Automated collections, wherein you place policies, like “Product tag is Summer” or “Vendor is Nike” and Shopify fills the collection for you.
So in place of slotting merchandise into a unmarried, rigid category, you could have the same product seem in a couple of collections. “Nike Sneakers” may want to display up beneath “Men’s Shoes,” “Running,” and “New Arrivals”, without you duplicating whatever.
That’s flexibility WordPress just doesn’t offer out of the container.
If collections are your large organizing buckets, tags are the great-tuning knobs.
Let’s say you’ve were given a group for “Women’s Dresses.” But your customers want to browse just maxi attire, or maybe handiest see cotton ones. That’s where tags are available.
You honestly tag merchandise with specifics like:
“Maxi”
“Cotton”
“Formal”
“Sleeveless”
Now, with the proper filters in location (both thru your subject matter or a filtering app), your customers can slice and dice merchandise their manner.
And here’s the kicker, this lets you mimic Shopify classes and subcategories, with out ever constructing a complicated class tree.
At first, this might feel like a predicament. But what Shopify’s really giving you is freedom to create your own structure, rather than locking you into theirs.
It’s a purifier, quicker, and extra scalable way to arrange merchandise. No coping with broken class links. No need to restructure entire menus when your product line expands.
You can nonetheless build out a storefront that seems like it has subcategories ~ “Men > Jackets > Waterproof” through your navigation setup.
But behind the scenes? It’s way less difficult to control.
Why can’t Shopify just allow us to create figure and child categories like WordPress?”
I get this query all the time, and truely? It’s a truthful one.
If you’ve used WordPress or WooCommerce before, you’re probable used to building neat little folders:
Clothing > Men > Jackets > Winter. Makes sense, right?
But Shopify doesn’t work that way, and that’s no longer an oversight. It’s on motive.
1. Because complicated category timber turn into a preservation nightmare
Look, parent-toddler systems sound great in concept, but in real existence? They get messy.
You start with a smooth setup, and six months later, you’ve were given:
Duplicate classes
Broken links
Products that “must be in two locations” but can’t be
And a backend that nobody in your group wants to contact
Shopify avoids that mess altogether with the aid of preserving things flat. You use collections and tags as an alternative, which offers you way extra freedom with out the muddle.
Change your mind about how merchandise should be grouped? Easy, simply replace the guidelines or tags. You’re no longer rebuilding a whole tree.
2. Because sometimes one product belongs in 5 places (and that’s k)
Here’s where Shopify virtually does you a desire.
Let’s say you’re selling a couple of footwear. In WooCommerce, you would possibly have to pick one direction:
Men > Shoes > Sneakers
In Shopify? That identical product can display up in:
“Sneakers”
“Men’s Footwear”
“Back to School”
“White Shoes”
“Staff Picks”
No duplicating merchandise. No awkward workarounds. You simply assign it to more than one collections, and that’s it. Clean and bendy.
3. Because product variants already cover what subcategories used to do
Another purpose Shopify doesn’t push you into constructing nested classes is due to the way it handles variants.
Let’s take a basic t-blouse. In a few platforms, you’d emerge as with:
T-Shirts > Red T-Shirts > Size M
In Shopify? You simply create a single product:
“Cotton Crewneck Tee”, and upload variants like:
Color: Red
Size: Medium
Done. One product, all of the alternatives. No need to create a subcategory for every size or coloration.
So yeah, Shopify should have constructed in parent-infant categories. But they didn’t, simply due to the fact they’re looking to maintain matters lean, attainable, and scalable.
And after you begin working with their machine of collections, tags, versions, you’ll in all likelihood comprehend you don’t need the ones greater layers besides.
How to prepare products on Shopify like a pro
Alright, permit’s make this terrific actionable.
Just because Shopify doesn’t have a built-in parent-child category feature doesn’t mean you can’t recreate that experience for your customers. With the right approach, you can build a smart, intuitive product structure without hacking the system. A professional Shopify Development Service can help you implement custom collections, tag-based filtering, and navigation logic that mimics traditional category hierarchies—while staying fully aligned with Shopify’s best practices.
1. Use naming conventions that inform a tale
Start with the way you call your collections. Even if Shopify’s backend stays flat, your naming can recommend hierarchy.
You can attempt things like:
“Men’s > Jackets”
“Men’s > Jackets > Waterproof”
This makes it easier to your group to manage collections and offers customers a feel of shape when they browse or land on those pages.
2. Build smart navigation menus
Use Shopify’s navigation settings to build dropdowns that sense like category trees.
For instance:
Clothing
├── Men
│ └── Jackets
│ └── Waterproof
Each menu item hyperlinks to its respective series, and much like that, you’ve recreated the texture of Shopify nested classes without any backend complexity.
Plus, your URLs live nice and smooth:
/collections/mens-jackets-waterproof
3. Use tags like mini-categories
Tags are your best buddy for layering in subcategory good judgment.
Let’s say you’ve got a “Shirts” collection. You can tag individual products with such things as:
“Slim Fit”
“Linen”
“Button Down”
Then, the use of a filter app or custom subject, customers can type or filter out with the aid of those tags within the series, mimicking the revel in of drilling down into deeper tiers, much like subcategories.
4. Add filtering strength with the right apps
Do you need to provide your shoppers an Amazon-style experience? Then, filtering apps are the way to head.
Here are popular alternatives, you would possibly want to bear in mind:
Boost Commerce Product Filter & Search
Power Tools Filter Menu
These allow you to build layered filters the use of tags, product types, price, length, color, you call it.
It doesn’t count that there’s no category tree beneath the hood. What your customer sees is a sophisticated, filterable collection that helps them discover exactly what they want.
This manner, you get the exceptional of both worlds, a backend that’s smooth and bendy for you, and a the front cease that feels beautifully structured in your shoppers.
Shopify navigation vs categories: It’s all about presentation
One aspect that journeys human beings up is the distinction among navigation and class structure.
In Shopify:
Collections control what products are grouped collectively
Navigation menus control how those collections are provided to the customer
That manner you could simulate as complicated a structure as you need on the frontend, with out touching your actual product employer.
But what approximately search engine marketing? Does a flat structure hurt rankings?
Here’s where it receives exciting.
Traditional SEOs used to like nested categories. Why? Because of inner linking, contextual breadcrumbs, and key-word-wealthy URLs.
But serps have evolved. Today, Shopify’s easy, speedy-loading pages with semantic URLs and strong internal linking paintings simply as well, from time to time higher.
Want that search engine marketing part?
Customize your collection URLs (/collections/mens-water-resistant-jackets)
Add meta titles, descriptions, and H1s in keeping with collection
Use Shopify’s established statistics to help Google apprehend your product relationships
Even with out “classes,” your save can be crawlable, indexable, and rankable.
Still want that figure-baby structure? Here’s what you could do:
If your store surely wishes a deeply nested device (assume B2B, large SKUs, or complex inventory), you've got a few options:
Third-celebration apps
Apps like Product Filter & Search can simulate complete-blown class timber.
Custom subject matter development
With some Liquid magic and metafields, builders can build custom category stories, breadcrumbs, drilldowns, and all.
Shopify Plus
If you’re on Shopify Plus, you’ve were given extra electricity and manage over how facts flows and might construct completely custom navigation frameworks.
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