Styling a Single Category Page

Your category pages normally all share one look, set for the whole store. If you want a particular collection to stand out — its own heading, its own colours, a more modern card layout — you can now set that on the category itself, and leave every other category exactly as it is.

Where to find it

Go to the category page you want to change on your own site, for example yourshop.com/catalog/christmas. Click the Settings gear at the bottom of the screen, then open the Advanced tab.

The Advanced tab only appears when you are standing on a category page, because everything in it belongs to that one category.

Choose a layout

The first setting is Category template. Leave it on Use my store default and nothing changes. Choose Bellwether and this category gets the newer layout: larger images, roomier cards, and a heading area of its own.

You do not choose between a product layout and a category layout. Bellwether works out which one this page needs:

A category with products in itShows those products as cards.
A category with sub-categoriesShows the sub-categories as large clickable image cards.
A category with bothShows the sub-category cards first, then its own products underneath.

Sorting, paging, and all your product and category links keep working exactly as before.

Give the page its own words

EyebrowA short line in small capitals above the heading, like Made just for them.
Display headingThe big heading. This is for shoppers, so it can be a sentence rather than the category name. Leave it blank to use the category name.
Page background colorThe colour behind this collection. Leave blank to use your shop's background.
Products per pageHow many products this category shows before paging. This only changes this category, never your store-wide setting.

How this category looks as a card

When a category sits inside another one, it appears on the parent page as a card. The remaining settings control that card:

Card titleWhat to call it on the card. Often friendlier than the category name — a category called Gift Collections might read Gifts for Mom & Grandma on its card. Blank uses the category name.
Card eyebrowA short line above the card title.
Card blurbOne sentence under the card title. Blank uses the start of the category description.
Card accent colorAn accent for this card. Blank uses your shop's main colour, so a row of cards still looks deliberate.

Tip: these four only show up somewhere else — on the parent page — so if you are looking at the category's own page and cannot see them, that is why.

Every box can be left empty

Blank always means "use my store setting". You can switch a category to Bellwether and fill in nothing at all: the heading falls back to the category name, the text under it to the category description, and the colours to your shop's own. Fill things in as you go.

Sub-categories follow the parent

Set a template on a category and its sub-categories use it too, so clicking a card does not land the shopper on a page that looks like a different shop. A sub-category can still choose its own template if you want it different.

The words do not carry down. An eyebrow or a heading belongs to one collection and would read oddly on its children, so each category keeps its own.

Adding your own sections

You can now place a Section Manager section on a category page — a row of reassurance messages, a newsletter sign-up, anything you have built. Edit the section, open Show on Pages, and either pick /catalog/* for every category or search for particular categories by name in Add Category Page(s).

See Sections & Layouts for how sections work.

Changing your mind

Set Category template back to Use my store default and the category returns to your store's normal look. Anything you typed is kept, so switching back later brings it with you.