I don’t know if this is theme specific (I’m using Horizon) or maybe there’s a toggle switch I haven’t found.
Let’s say I have Jewelry, under that Mens Jewelry, Women’s Jewelry, then under those pages for earrings, rings and necklaces. Right now, if I click on the main category of jewelry, or under a main subcategory of Men’s or Women’s, there are no products. You only see products in the earrings, rings, necklaces subcategories. I’d like jewelry to show up no matter what jewelry page is accessed so that products can be viewed, then if they want to get more specific they can click on the subcategories. Is this not naturally built into Shopify or have I missed a setting? Also if it makes a difference I’m using Globo Mega Menu app (though just using simple dropdown menus, I didn’t create a mega menu). Thanks for any ideas!
First and foremost, unless specifically organized and named as “Category”, it’s not a Category. It’s a Collection.
Next, sub-collections are not natively built into Shopify. You have to do some voodoo to make it work. The easiest way is to create theme Collection and Collection List templates in the theme editor. Then create Collections based on those templates.
E.g. Create Jewelry Collection based on Jewelry template. Add products. Do the same with Mens. Same with Womens. Then create menu and submenus to organize collection pages.
Right, collections is what I mean. I’m not too sure what you mean by making a theme, would it be too late at this point since all my collections are created? Can I now just bulk add all women’s earrings, for instance, to Jewerly, Women’s Jewelry, and women’s earrings? I was just thinking that there would be a natural way for all jewelry in a subcollection to also show up in the main collection, it sounds like there’s not, that’s really what I need to know. It will be easy enough to add things to multiple collections.
Now it’s occuring to me what you mean by collection themes, as I’ve noticed that all collections are ending up in the theme template “default collection”. Would having a jewelry template automatically make all jewelry show up in there, is that what you mean? So I wouldn’t have to bulk edit?
This leads me to another question, if ALL jewelry ends up in the main jewelry collection, does it show up mixed up? Or in the order it was listed? Or best selling items first? Just curious how this would look. Thanks for your help!
You’re making it harder than it needs to be. You created the Collections. Now you just need to add products to them. If you create a new collection, you have the choice to do it manually, or create a Smart Collection that adds products automatically based on your criteria.
Only way to actually know is to just setup the collections, as outcomes can vary by theme/settings and or admin settings and apps etc etc.
It’s not like your not being charged for playing with collections.
Just experiment with it learn some basic ropes THEN ask questions.
Yeah, for sure. I’ve already got all the collections and the menu all set up, it was just in testing the links that I realized the main collections are empty. I think I just assumed they’d be filled with the items from the subcollections. To me this would make sense.
Hey!
This is actually normal in Shopify. A main collection doesn’t automatically show products from its sub-collections.
So your Jewelry page will stay empty unless you add products to it directly.
The easiest fix is to assign the same products to both:
Jewelry (main collection)
and the subcategories (earrings, rings, necklaces)
Or, you can make Jewelry a rule-based collection so it auto-fills (for example: tag = “jewelry”).
Your theme and the Globo menu don’t affect this part — Shopify just doesn’t support parent/child collections automatically.
If you want, tell me how you categorize your products and I can suggest the best rule.
Option 1 — Add the products directly to the parent collection (“Jewelry”)
Go to Products → Collections → Jewelry
→ Add all jewelry products (earrings, rings, necklaces).
This is the simplest and works immediately.
Option 2 — Use automated collection rules
In the Jewelry collection, set rules like:
Product tag is equal to jewelry
or
Product type contains jewelry
Then tag every jewelry product with jewelry.
This automatically fills the main category.
Important note:
Shopify does not automatically merge sub-collections into a parent collection.
Each collection only shows the products assigned to that specific collection.
About Globo Mega Menu
This does not affect your collection pages.
It only controls navigation, not what products appear in a collection.
Thank you! As I had set up some of my categories I did use the smart rules, I just don’t have my store stocked fully to see those, but I do think it will start showing once it’s stocked. It’s good to know that it’s just how Shopify works!
So I had messed around with the smart rules when I made some categories. But I think it’s a matter of I haven’t added those tags to the products. So for all women’s jewelry to fall into the women’s jewelry subcategory, I’ll have to add a tag to them all that says women’s jewelry? I’m not sure which would be faster, adding tags or adding it all to two categories, though I’m sure as many tags as I can add is a good thing. Thanks!!
Others have explained really well how to create a category. I’d like to add my 2c to emphasize the importance of tags so that you can minimize the manual labor.
You definitely want to have proper tags in all the products. The best way to do that would be to bulk add tags products. Then you’ll be able to create automated collections which after a decent amount of products is the only reasonable way to go about this.
So yes, for all women’s jewellery products add “jewellery-women” or similar.
If you have tags, you can have automated collections.
If you have automated collections you can have lots of products and organize them to a hierarchy.
If you have a hierarchy you can also build it into your main menu for the shoppers to see.
And if you have a main menu, you can you Portfolytics to automatically build that inside the app and show you sales insights in a visual dashboard so you can sell more
