Browse pages: Shop by brand, Shop by category

What a browse page is

A browse page is a page on your store that shows a group of your categories as picture tiles. Each tile opens that category. The usual two are Shop by brand, with a tile for every brand you stock, and Shop by category, with a tile for every product type. Each browse page has its own address, such as yourstore.com/brands, so you can put it in your menu, your Instagram bio or an ad.

They earn their place once your categories run along more than one line. A streetwear seller tags a hoodie with its brand and also with “Hoodies”. That is one flat list of a hundred categories, but shoppers think of it as two lists. A browse page gives each list a front door.

Every category already has its own page

You do not need to set anything up for this. Each category has an address made from its name: Bracelets is at yourstore.com/bracelets, and Hand Chains is at yourstore.com/hand-chains. The name is put in small letters, spaces become hyphens, and “&” becomes “and”. The page shows only that category's products, with the category as its title on Google, so it is the right link for an ad or a story about one category.

• A category whose name matches a built-in page, such as About, Blog, Cart, Contact, Products, Policies or Wishlist, cannot have that address. Its link opens your products page filtered to that category instead.
• The same happens for a name written entirely in a script other than English letters, because no address can be made from it.
• A product you have just added appears on its category page within about a minute.

Create a browse page

1. 1Open your store dashboard and go to Settings → Categories, or type “categories” into the Search settings… box.
2. 2Give your categories pictures first. Under Category images & descriptions, upload an image for each category and, if you like, a one-line description. These pictures become the tiles.
3. 3Scroll to the Browse pages card and press + Add a browse page.
4. 4Type the page title in the first box, for example “Shop by brand”. Type its link in the second box, for example “brands”. The line underneath confirms where it will open: “Opens at /brands on your store.”
5. 5Tap each category that belongs on the page. Chosen ones turn dark, and the line below counts how many are selected. Tap again to remove one.
6. 6Press Save in the bar at the bottom.

If you leave the link box empty, the link is made from the title, so “Shop by brand” becomes yourstore.com/shop-by-brand. If the line under the boxes turns red and says “Pick a different link — this one is empty or already used by a built-in store page”, choose another word. To delete a browse page, press Remove on its row. Your categories and products are not touched.

What shoppers see

• Your page title at the top, then a grid of square tiles: two across on a phone, up to four across on a computer.
• Each tile shows the category picture, the category name, its description if you wrote one, and how many products it holds.
• A category with no picture shows the first letter of its name. It works, but a photo gets far more taps.
• Tiles appear in the order you tapped the categories.
• Only categories that hold at least one live product get a tile. An empty category appears by itself once you add a product to it. If none of the chosen categories has a product yet, the page shows all your categories so that it is never blank.

Put it in your menu

1. 1Go to Settings → Navigation & menu and find the Header menu card.
2. 2Press Add menu link and type a label, such as “Brands”.
3. 3Open the destination dropdown on that row. Your browse pages are listed by title with “(browse page)” after them, for example “Shop by brand (browse page)”. Choose it.
4. 4Press Save.

The same dropdown is in the Footer card. To link one category from the menu, choose Custom link… and type the category's address without your domain, such as bracelets. You can also point your home page banner's button at a browse page. See Hero banner. The rest of the menu editor is covered in Edit your store menu & navigation.

New categories that are on no page

When you create a category while adding a product, say a new brand, nothing puts it on Shop by brand for you. So the Browse pages card keeps watch. Once you have at least one browse page, an amber box at the top lists every category that products use but no browse page shows, with a line such as “3 categories aren’t on any browse page yet”. Next to each is a button for each of your pages, such as + Shop by brand. Press the right one and save. You can also leave a category out: it still has its own page and still shows in search.

Hide the wall of category buttons

Your products page prints one button per category above the products. That is fine with eight categories. With a hundred, the buttons push your first product far down the page. Once browse pages do the browsing, you can cut the buttons back.

1. 1Go to Settings → Pages & policies and find the Products page display card, or search “category buttons”.
2. 2Under Category buttons on the products page, choose Show every category (default), Hide them, or Only “Shop by brand”. There is one “Only” choice for each browse page you have made, and it keeps just that page's categories as buttons.
3. 3Press Save.

• This choice is only offered while Products page filters is set to Inline chips (default). The Left sidebar replaces the buttons, so there is nothing to hide.
• Category pages and links keep working whichever you choose.
• When a shopper is on a category page, that category's button always stays, next to All, so they can see where they are and step back out.
• If you delete the browse page you chose here, the products page goes back to showing every category.