Catalog and products
Categories, products, variants, stock, brands, tags, and how each item can be delivered.
Category hierarchies and organization
A category can contain other categories, and those can contain more. There is no fixed depth. A parent can have several children, so the tree can follow your own retail taxonomy.
| What you can do | How it works |
|---|---|
| Categories | Create top-level categories and nest children as deep as you need. Add, edit, and set the sort order from Categories in the admin. A product belongs to one category. |
| Brands and tags | Brands are grouped under Brand Categories. A product has one brand and can carry several tags. Shoppers can browse the catalog by category, brand, or tag. Manage these from Brands, Brand Categories, and Tags. |
Products and variants
A product can have several variants. Each variant is a combination of attributes you define, such as color or size (color: red, color: yellow).
Price. Each variant has its own price, and can have its own sale price.
Shipping. Each variant can use its own shipping template. Templates charge a fixed amount, by weight, or by quantity. The weight used for a weight-based template is the product weight, not a separate weight on every variant.
Product type
The type is set on the product, under Product type. It is not a separate choice on each variant. The default is physical.
| Type | What happens |
|---|---|
| Physical | The shopper needs a shipping address, or a pickup point when pickup is on. Stock and the shipping template apply. |
| Digital | Delivery is by email, not by carrier. Checkout adds no shipping charge when every line in the cart is this type. Recording the license and authorization code is in Orders and fulfillment. |
| Partner listing | The product stays on your storefront. The buy button opens a purchase URL, and the partner takes payment. This store's checkout rejects the line. Every variant needs that URL. A host and path is enough; https:// is added when you omit the scheme. |
Inventory and fulfillment
Stock is one number per variant for the whole store. Pickup locations do not keep a separate count.
| Feature | How it works |
|---|---|
| Stock status | When a variant's stock reaches 0, the storefront shows Sold Out. You can replace that label with a short notice, such as restocking soon, seasonal, or discontinued. |
| Fulfillment | The store can offer postal shipping and local store pickup. Shipping is on unless you turn it off. Pickup stays off until you enable it. |
| Pickup points | You can add more than one physical pickup location. |
Next step
With the catalog in place, continue to Orders and fulfillment.