Managing products, categories, and collections on Shop

You can manage the products, categories, and collections that are available in the Shop app using the Shop channel. The products that you publish and how you organize collections control how customers discover your products, and whether they can check out in Shop.

Product requirements

To be discoverable in Shop, products need to meet the following requirements:

• Your products are part of the Shopify Catalog.
• Your products have an image, price, and product category.
• Your products follow the Shop merchant guidelines, and aren't prohibited products.

Publish products to Shop

If your products are published to the Shop channel or are part of the Shopify Catalog, then all of your eligible products are discoverable on the Shop app, regardless of whether you have the Shop channel set up. If you sell fixed product bundles, then they display in Shop as product listings.

A product's publishing status in Shop determines how customers can purchase the product when they view it in Shop:

• Published in Shop: If a product is published to Shop and you have Sell directly in Shop set as your selling method, then customers can purchase the product directly in Shop.
• Not published in Shop: If a product isn't published to Shop but is part of the Shopify Catalog, then your products still display in Shop, but Shop redirects customers to your online store to make a purchase.

You can manage whether your products are published to Shop from the Shop channel catalog. After you update product availability, it can take a few minutes for the changes to be displayed in Shop.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Shop.

2. In the Catalog section, click the Unpublished products row.

3. Do any of the following to publish products to Shop:

   • To publish all unpublished products to Shop, click Publish all.
   • To publish multiple products at one time, select the checkbox next to each product you want to publish, and then click Publish selected.
   • To publish an individual product, click Publish next to the product that you want to publish.

4. On the dialog, click Publish.

Unpublish products from Shop

Unpublishing products from Shop doesn't prevent those products from displaying in Shop. When you unpublish a product from Shop, the listing still displays in Shop and links to your online store so that customers can complete their purchase.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Shop.

2. In the Catalog section, click the Products selling directly in Shop row.

3. Select the checkbox next to each product you want to unpublish, and then click Bulk edit.

4. In the dialog, deselect Shop from the Sales channels drop-down menu.

5. Click Save.

Hiding products from Shop

To hide a product from displaying in Shop, use unlisted product status or the seo.hidden custom metafield. Using unlisted status hides the product from all Shop surfaces. Using seo.hidden means products can still be accessed and added to cart with the direct Shop product URL, but they're hidden from the following surfaces:

• Shop home feed
• Shop product search results
• Shop store search results

Unlisted product status and the seo.hidden metafield also remove product visibility from other platforms, including Shopify Catalog, internet search, and online store search. To compare product visibility between unlisted product status and the seo.hidden metafield, refer to the table on the Hiding a page from search engines Help Center article.

Sell subscription products in Shop

Shop integrates with the Shopify Subscriptions app and third-party subscription apps from the Shopify App Store so that you can offer subscriptions as a purchase option in Shop.

Your Shop Store automatically displays subscription options to customers. You can turn subscriptions for Shop on or off from your Shopify admin. If you turn off subscriptions for the Shop channel, then Shop directs customers to your online store to purchase a subscription.

After a customer purchases a subscription, they can manage it through their customer account page on your online store. Customers who use Shop Pay for their subscription automatically receive email reminders from Shop when their payment card is close to expiring. These reminders prompt them to update their payment information to prevent subscription interruptions.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Shop.

2. Click Settings.

3. In the Subscriptions section, do either of the following:

   • To turn subscriptions on for the Shop channel, click Enable.
   • To turn subscriptions off for the Shop channel, click Disable.

View the status of your products

You can review the listing status column in the Shop Catalog page to check whether a product is listed in Shop:

• Products selling directly in Shop: Your product is visible in Shop, and customers can purchase the product directly in Shop.
• Unpublished products: Your product is visible in Shop, but Shop links customers to your online store to complete their purchase.
• Ineligible products: Your product isn't visible to customers in the Shop app. Click the listing status to find out why the product isn't listed, and how to resolve the issue.
• Prohibited products: Your product violates Shop's merchant guidelines or contains prohibited content. These products can't be listed on Shop.

Common errors for ineligible or prohibited products

Manage collections

To help customers navigate your products, you can add collections to your Categories or Collections on Shop. Shop displays categories as icons at the top of your Shop Store. Collections display in the Collections section. Category images automatically use a best-selling product from the collection. You can customize collection images.

You can add up to 12 categories and 5 collection lists, where each collection list can include up to 10 collections. After you add a collection to a collection list, that collection can't be added to another collection list.

To be listed on Shop, collections need to have at least one approved product, an image, and be available on the Shop channel. You can use the Shop channel to choose which collections display in Shop.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Shop.

2. In the Store section, click Customize.

3. Do either of the following:

   • Click Categories.
     • To add a collection to your Shop categories, click Add a category, and then select the collection that you want to display in Shop.
     • To remove a category from your Shop categories, click the trash can icon next to the category that you want to remove from Shop.
   • Click Collections.
     • To add a collection to your Shop collections, click Add a collection, and then select the collection that you want to display in Shop.
     • To remove a collection from your Shop collections, click the trash can icon next to the collection that you want to remove from Shop.

4. Click Save.

Change category and collection display order

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Shop.

2. In the Store section, click Customize.

3. Click Categories or Collections.

4. Drag and drop a category or collection to change its position in the list.

5. Click Save.

Display collection cover images

Categories automatically display an image of a best-selling product from the selected collection. You can choose to display or hide cover images for collections.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels > Shop.

2. In the Store section, click Customize.

3. Click Collections.

4. For the Display images option, click Yes or No. If Yes is chosen, then the selected collections must have a cover image included.

5. Click Save.

View the status of your collections

In the Categories and Collections sections, you can view the approval status of the collections that you want to make available in the Shop app. If a collection isn't approved, then you can click the link next to the error message to make changes to the collection so that it can be reevaluated.

Error messages

If your collection isn't approved, then the collection doesn't display in the Shop app. Review the following table to learn more about what an error message means.

Collection limitations

Collections in the Shop channel have the following limitations:

• Only the first 250 products within a collection display. Products without images don't display in the collection.
• You can mark up to 50 collections as visible on Shop, but only 10 display in the Shop Store, even when you click View all.
• Individual collections can only exist in a single collection list.
• If you remove all eligible products from a visible collection, then the collection remains visible. To hide it, go to the collection index and hide the collection, or add approved products to the collection.
• On the Shop website, the collection title overlays the hero image, but in the mobile app the title sits below the image.

Collection sync

Showing or hiding a collection in the Shop channel is usually reflected right away in the Shop Store. However, there can sometimes be delays before the change is synced. Allow up to 48 hours for the sync process to complete.