Organizing products correctly is critical for a scalable marketplace. In Shipturtle, product organization happens at three levels:
- Categories – logical grouping of products (used for structure & commissions)
- Collections – storefront presentation & browsing experience
- Product Templates – standardization of product data from vendors
Each layer plays a different role but works together.
1. Category Management (Product Structure & Commissions)
Categories help define what type of product it is and ensure consistency across your marketplace.
What are Categories?
- Categories are used to classify products (e.g. Electronics, Furniture, Apparel).
- Both merchants and vendors can assign products to categories while adding or editing products.
- Categories are synced with Shopify Product Types, ensuring seamless data flow.
How to Create & Manage Categories
- Go to Products → Manage Categories
- Click Create New Category
- Save the category – it will sync automatically with Shopify Product Types
Category-Based Commissions
You can set different commission rates for different product categories.
Steps:
- Go to Settings → Product Categories
- Select a category
- Define the commission structure for that category
Note: Category-level commission overrides global and vendor-level commissions, while product-level commission overrides category, vendor, and global commissions.
Best Practice:
Use categories for business logic (commissions, reporting, product classification), not just storefront display.
How to Set Up and Manage Sub-Categories
Welcome to the Sub-Categories guide! To help you better organize your marketplace inventory, Shipturtle now allows you to build a multi-level category hierarchy (e.g., Electronics → Phones → Samsung → M50).
This makes it significantly easier for you and your vendors to classify products precisely, while keeping your product catalog clean and structured.
A. How to Create Sub-Categories
You can add sub-categories to brand new parent categories or attach them to your existing ones.
Step-by-Step Setup:
- Navigate to Products → Manage Categories on the left sidebar.
- Click Add Category to create your primary Parent Category (e.g., "Phones").
- Once the parent category is created, click on its name in your category list. This will take you inside that specific category's tab.
- Click Add Category again from within this tab to create your sub-category (e.g., "Samsung").
Need more levels? You can repeat this process by clicking into the new sub-category and adding another layer below it (e.g., adding model names like "M50" under "Samsung").
B. Assigning Sub-Categories to Products
When adding or editing a product, you can assign it to your newly created sub-categories. To save time, we have introduced two ways to find the right category:
- Method 1: Manual Selection
- You can click through the dropdown menu hierarchically, opening the parent category, then the child category, until you reach the desired option.
- Method 2: Global Search (Recommended)
- If you have a massive catalog, manually clicking through deep categories can be time-consuming. Instead, use the Global Search bar in the category selection field. Simply type the name of the specific sub-category (e.g., "M50" or "Vivo") and the system will instantly locate it for you to select.
Once the product is saved, the category section will display the parent category alongside the specific child sub-category you selected.
C. Viewing and Updating Sub-Categories
- Product List View: When you navigate to your main Products list, you will see a category breakdown. Expanding the product details will display the lowest-level sub-category assigned to that item.
Editing a Product: To change a product's sub-category, simply open the product in the Edit tab, use the search bar or dropdown to select a different sub-category, and click Update.
D. Important Note on Shopify Sync & Commissions
Shopify Synchronization: Please note that sub-category structures are strictly managed and displayed within the Shipturtle application only. Sub-categories are not passed directly to Shopify.
Commissions: Because Shipturtle relies on the Parent category to process backend calculations, your existing commission structures and category-based rules will continue to work perfectly fine without any breaking changes.
2. Collection Management (Storefront Display & Discovery)
Collections control how products appear on your website and how customers browse them.
What are Collections?
- Collections group products visually on your storefront
- Managed directly in Shopify
- Recommended to use Automatic (Smart) Collections for scalability
Recommended Automatic Collection Rules
A. Collection by Vendor Name
Automatically groups products from a specific vendor.
Use case:
Vendor-specific storefront pages
Example: “Products by Vendor A”
Rule:
Condition → Vendor Name = Vendor A
B. Collection by Product Tags
Add tags to products which determine collection placement.
Use case:
Seasonal, promotional, or feature-based collections
Example: “New Arrivals”, “Eco-Friendly Products”
Rule:
Condition → Product Tag contains “eco”
C. Collection by Category (Product Type)
Automatically groups products under a category.
Use case:
Category-based navigation
Example: “All Electronics”
Rule:
Condition → Product Type = Electronics
Helpful Shopify Resources
- Shopify Collections Guide
https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/collections - Smart (Automatic) Collections
https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/products/collections/smart-collections
Best Practice:
Use categories for backend logic, and collections for frontend browsing.
3. Product Template Management (Standardization for Vendors)
Product templates help ensure vendors submit product data in a consistent, structured format.
What are Product Templates?
- Pre-defined product forms created by merchants
- Vendors fill product details based on the template
- Reduces errors and improves product quality
How to Create & Manage Product Templates
- Go to Manage Products
- Click the Hamburger Menu (☰)
- Select Manage Product Templates
- Choose to:
- Create a new template
- Edit an existing template
- Delete unused templates
Once created, templates automatically appear on the Add/Edit Product page for vendors.
Best Practice:
Create different templates for different product types (e.g. Digital Products, Physical Goods, Services).
If you’re stuck, reach us at team@shipturtle.com or open a ticket on the support page.