Admin panels › Products
Categories
How your catalog is organized for shoppers: the tree, categories that fill themselves from ideas or your own rules, how each category presents itself, and the email tags it gives buyers. 5 parts.
Quick links
Where to find it:WP Admin › EasyCart › Products › Categories
Structure and contents
The tree and what is in it
How categories nest, the ideas that fill one for you, and the ways products end up inside one.
The category tree
Parents, subcategories and the order shoppers see
no stored settingsCategories nest. A category can hold subcategories, and those can hold their own, which lets a catalog read as departments rather than a flat list. Drag rows on the list to set the order, or type a Store order in the editor, where higher shows first.
The list shows each category’s address, products, subcategories and whether it is featured and active. A category that fills itself carries a Smart chip and its rule in words, such as Products added in the last 30 days. Tiles filter the list to Active, Hidden, Featured or Smart, and flag the ones that are Empty, have No image or are Orphaned. An empty category on the storefront is a dead end, so act on that tile rather than scrolling past it. Bulk Actions activate, hide, feature or move several under a new parent at once. Each row’s menu also adds products, adds a subcategory, duplicates the category or moves it under another, for subcategories as well as top-level categories.
In the editor, Active off hides a category while it keeps its products; its page is private and not listed. Featured shows it in featured-category widgets and on the store landing page.
💡 Note: Hiding a category keeps its products, its address and its place in the tree, and is almost always what you want instead of deleting.
Categories that fill themselves
Ideas worked out from your own catalog
no stored settingsAbove the list, Categories that fill themselves offers ideas worked out from your products and the last 90 days of orders, each with how many products it would hold today:
New arrivals, products added in the last 30 days. Best sellers, your top sellers of the last 90 days. On sale, products with a compare-at price above their price. Under a round price, and from November 1 to December 24 Gifts under a price, marked In season. Customer favourites, products that average 4 stars or more. Almost gone, products with 5 or fewer left. A brand with no category yet, a word many of your titles share, a kind of product, Instant downloads and Memberships & subscriptions.
An idea shows only when it would hold at least three products today, two for On sale, and never when you already have a category of that name or with those rules. Up to eight show at once. More ideas opens New category with every idea, and Not now puts the strip away for 30 days. Once the store has three categories that fill themselves, the strip stops showing.
Click an idea and New category opens with it chosen: the name filled in, Fill it automatically picked and the idea’s rules ready to change. The ideas and their counts are in the free plugin; a category that fills itself is PRO, with a free trial. Without PRO you can still create the category and pick its products yourself.
How products get in
I pick them, or Fill it automatically
no stored settingsAdd category opens New category: a Name, a Parent, Visibility, then How do products get into it? The same choice is the first thing in the editor’s Products card, whose changes apply immediately.
I’ll pick them ( I pick them in the editor ) means you choose each product: type a name or SKU to add one, or Browse products…. Good for staff picks or a collection you curate, and every new product needs adding by hand.
Fill it automatically ( PRO ) means you set rules once and products that match join and leave on their own as their price, stock, sales or date change. The rules read as a sentence above them, such as Products added in the last 30 days. Choose whether products match all or any of the rules, Add rule for another, or Start from an idea. A rule can look at the title, SKU, price, list price, whether it is on sale, Units sold in the last 30 days, 90 days or year, Average rating, In stock, Tracks stock, stock quantity, weight, manufacturer, another category, an option set, Made as ( the kind of product chosen in Add product ), date added, active in store, downloadable and subscription. Numbers take is, less than, greater than, at least or at most.
The preview counts the products match right now, with their pictures. Rules are checked again whenever a product is saved and once an hour; the category itself changes when you click Save. Also keep products I add by hand keeps your own picks beside the rules. Off, the rules decide everything.
Subcategories adds existing categories under this one or makes new ones. A product can belong to a parent and a child at the same time.
⚠️ Careful: With Also keep products I add by hand off, hand-picked products that do not match the rules leave the category when you save, and the card says how many will be checked. Read the match count first. For a step by step walkthrough, see How to Organize Your Catalog.
How it looks and sells
Images, search and email
The image, text and address that decide how a category page presents and ranks, and its email tags.
Images, address and search
How a category looks, and how it is found
no stored settingsImages takes a Category image, square and at least 600 by 600, used in grids and menus, and an optional Featured banner of about 1600 by 500 for themes that show a category header. The Description shows at the top of the category page, and a page with real text is far more likely to rank than a bare grid.
SEO & URL holds the slug and a Search excerpt, used as the meta description when no SEO plugin overrides it. Slugs do not change when you rename a category, and moving it under a new parent does not change the address either. With Yoast SEO active, a Yoast card adds its own fields here. With Elementor, Page layout gives the category its own template.
Deleting never deletes products: you choose what happens to the subcategories and products, the old address can redirect, and undo is available for 30 days. Hiding is usually the better answer.
💡 Note: The category filter groups in the store sidebar are built from one branch of this tree, set under Settings › Store › Products.
Email marketing
Tags and groups for anyone who buys from the category
no stored settingsWhen MailerLite, Kit or ActiveCampaign is connected, PRO adds an Email marketing card to the category editor with one picker per service: MailerLite groups, Kit tags and ActiveCampaign tags for people who buy anything in this category. Type to search or create a new tag or group. Changes apply immediately.
Setting it on a category tags a whole range at once, instead of product by product, and keeps working as products join the category.
💡 Note: The services are connected under Settings › Marketing › Email marketing. The same pickers are on each product’s Search & marketing section, on its Marketing tab.
Keep going
Related panels
Menus, the navigation built alongside categories.
The products being organized.
Category links and filter groups in the store sidebar.
Assigning a single product to categories.
Manufacturers, the other way to group products.
Connecting MailerLite, Kit and ActiveCampaign.
Ready to run your store on WP EasyCart?
Everything in this guide works with the free plugin. PRO and Premium add subscriptions, memberships, wholesale pricing and more. Try every PRO feature free for 14 days.
