Collections in Catalog and Quick Order
Applies toShopify
How it works
A Shopify store usually has far more collections than it shows customers: collections for discounts, product feeds, homepage sections or old sales. Your navigation menu is where you choose which collections customers browse, and in what order, so SparkLayer follows it too.
With the default Automatic setting, SparkLayer picks the menu like this:
- Your
b2b-menu, if it links to at least 1 collection. It's the menu our B2B-only navigation guide and the Shopify B2B Dawn theme set up for signed-in B2B customers. - Otherwise your
main-menu, if it links to at least 1 collection. - Otherwise every collection published to SparkLayer, A to Z, with no nesting.
A collection in the menu doesn't need to be published to SparkLayer itself. Its products do.
What the filter shows from a menu
| In your menu | In the filter |
|---|---|
A collection, or a link to /collections/your-collection | The collection, under its own title, in the menu's order. A link with a tag or a language prefix counts as the collection |
| All products or All collections | Nothing of its own, since the filter already has All collections. Anything under it moves up a level |
Any other item (a page, a blog, a # link) with collections under it | A heading that groups those collections, under the menu item's title. Choosing it shows the products of every collection under it |
| A heading with a child collection of the same title (Women › Shop all, linking to the Women collection) | The collection, with the heading's other children under it |
| A collection that appears twice | Shown once, where it first appears. Anything under the second one moves up a level |
| A link to a collection your store doesn't have | Left out. Anything under it moves up a level |
| A page, blog or link with no collection under it | Left out |
If your whole menu sits under one heading, such as Shop, the filter starts one level down.
Choose the menu
- Go to
SparkLayer Wholesale,Integrations,Product sync (in your Shopify admin). - In the Categories card, under Where categories come from, choose:
- Automatic: your
b2b-menu, then yourmain-menu, then every collection. - A menu you choose: pick any of your store's menus.
- Every published collection: every collection published to SparkLayer, A to Z.
- Automatic: your
- Click Save. SparkLayer syncs your collections straight away.
The card shows what your current setting and menu give, and any menu items left out, with the reason. If buyers don't have those categories yet, for example after a menu edit, the card says Not in the catalogue yet: click Save to sync them.
Want a different structure for B2B buyers?
Create a menu with only the collections your B2B buyers order from, at Online Store,Navigation (opens in your Shopify admin in a new tab), and choose it on the Categories card. With the Automatic setting, giving it the handle b2b-menu works too. You can also show the same menu in your store's header to signed-in B2B customers.
When changes show
- Renaming or deleting a collection updates the filter within a few minutes.
- A new collection, or a collection's products changing shows when those products next sync. Adding products to a manual collection, or changing a smart collection's conditions, doesn't change the products themselves, so it shows at the next full product sync.
- Menu changes: Shopify doesn't tell apps when a menu changes. After reordering a menu, or adding or removing a collection in it, click Save on the Categories card. Otherwise it shows after the next collection change or full product sync.
A full product sync is run by our team: contact support and we'll run one for you.
FAQs
Reading your navigation menus needs a permission SparkLayer didn't ask for before. Open the SparkLayer app in your Shopify admin and approve the updated permissions. Until you do, the filter shows every collection published to SparkLayer.
A buyer only sees a collection when it has products they can see, so check its products are published to SparkLayer and visible to that buyer's customer group. If the collection is in the menu twice, it shows only where it first appears. If you added it recently, it shows once its products next sync.
Yes. Create a separate menu with only the collections you want, and choose it on the Categories card. Your store's own navigation stays as it is.
No. The menu only decides which collections appear as filters. Which products a buyer can see is set by product visibility for customer groups and your price lists.
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