Organizing Brands, Product Lines, Products, Images, Categories, Tags & Attributes for Shopify's Supply Theme

This post will be useful for anyone whose ecommerce store catalog will feature over 50 products and 5 collections. Entering all of the images, product descriptions, downloadable files and so on can be daunting and requires a high level of organization. Furthermore, you must ensure that, while you enter data, you keep in mind your end goal of adding value to the shopping experience by allowing potential customers to quickly find products that meet their needs precisely based on as many filters as they need. This post provides a step-by-step guide on how to achieve this level of organization. 

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A high level of organization may seem tedious at first, and maybe it is. However, once you begin to enter products into the store, a well organized storage of your files will allow you to proceed very quickly and minimize common errors.

For the sake of illustration, let's imagine that I am building a website to sell ingredients for baking natural vegan cakes. My current interest is planning for products that are sweeteners. Before filling in the specific names for brands, product lines, SKUs and so on, complete this entire hierarchy of folders, sub-folders and documents as a blank template that you can copy for other product types, brands and so on.

1.

Create the first set of folders and files

• Using 'File Explorer' on a MS Windows computer or Finder on an Apple Mac computer, create a new folder (like 'cake') to hold all of your ingredient sub-folders
• Within that global 'cake' folder, create a sub-folder for the current product type. In this case, the new sub-folder will be cake 'sweeteners'
• Within the 2nd level folder (named 'sweeteners' in this example), create 2 documents. Use basic text edit programs like 'Notepad' for MS Windows computers and Text Edit' for Apple Mac computers. Name these 2 documents 1) 'SWEETENERS - Collection - DESCRIPTION' and 2) 'TAGS - Sweeteners - ALL BRANDS'. Leave the contents of these files blank for now. The important thing is that the files are in a location that is logical for easy access later on. Read about Shopify Collections (in this case, 'sweeteners' will be one collection. Eventually other ingredients like flours, egg substitutes and so on will make up separate collections). When your store visitors select 'Collections', they will see a short keyword-rich description for all sweeteners, regardless of the brand, type or other classification. This is useful for search engine optimization (SEO), ie a means of ensuring that you attract sufficient website traffic. Collection descriptions often include content like a lists of all brand names within the collection, lists of product applications and so on.
• Find supplier brands of sweeteners.
• Also within the 2nd level folder (named 'sweeteners' in this example), create new sub-folders for each brand; Abrand, Bbrand and so on.

3.

Manufacturers and wholesalers often have numerous product lines from which to choose. Identify the product line(s) that are relevant to the ethos of your business. Product lines are groups of related products that share collective brand name and are also sold by the one company. Product lines usually have different unique group brand names that group together member items on the basis of common key characteristics. In short, at this preliminary stage, look first for product lines (versus individual products) as a means to obtain an immediate source of multiple items. Additionally, do not attempt to re-classify individual product items from different product lines. There is no immediate need to note the details of each item. Furthermore, the group tags will do all of the appropriate re-classification for you.

• Search through a supplier's website to identify product lines. These lists often appear on downloadable brochures and or webpages.
• Note the product line brand names and the codes for individual products that exist within each product line. These are the products that will populate your website's catalog.

Abrand

• Solid Sweet Product Line
• DS3SS - Demarara raw brown sugar crystals
• SP1PP3 - Stevia powder
• Liquid Sweet Product Line
• BSM33 - Black Strap Molasses
• AN14D - Agave Nectar

Bbrand

• Natural Goodness Product Line
• XLYUML - Xylitol crystals - large 
• XLYUMS - Zylitol crystals - small

4.

Within the folder for each brand, create the following sub-folders and files that apply. 

Create FOLDERS with the following name(s).

• "Product Lines & Items - IMG, DATA SHEETS"  (This applies for cases in which each individual product within a product line will have content that is unique to it. In this case, the unique content consist of images and data sheets.)
• "Product Page - ATTACHMENTS"  (This folder applies if visitors need downloadable attachments like data sheets, specification sheets, manuals and so on. Since some of the sheets apply to all of the items within a single product line and, in some cases, the entire brand, this is the best location for them.)
• "Accessories"  (This folder applies if your brand created non-core products that are accessories to their main products. For instance, Bbrand might have a glass dispenser that can be refilled for reuse. Some brands have product lines for accessories. This folder should therefore be treated as a master folder as its current master folder. In other words, for complex situations, it will also have the abovementioned folders. Do not place accessories folders directly into product lines or deeper yet into folders for individual units. You may have trouble finding them later on. See how group tags will resolve the issue of their relationships with core products.)

Create a basic text edit program FILE with the following name

• "[BRANDNAME] Lines ([line 1, line 2]) - DESCRIPTION, PRICES, WGT"  Example: "ABRAND Lines (Solid, Liquid) - DESCRIPTION, PRICES, WGT" (This file will store single product description templates that apply commonly across all items within entire product lines. In other words, all of the product items within Abrand's 'Solid Sweet' product line share the same or very similar product description. Consequently, the master version is maintained here. Furthermore, the master descriptions for all of the product lines are in a single file. Since one brand often has similar information that applies even across all or several product lines, I find one shared file makes it easier to manage these commonalities when editing requires swaps, comparisons, copy and pasting and so on.)

BTW, I forgot to do and mention this earlier. Notice the organization of folders in the Desktop (in bold print in the image directly above). See how the 'sweeteners' folder exists inside the 'products' folder which, in turn, is inside the 'cake store' folder. Remember that Shopify displays dynamic content of products - for which this post prepares. However, the other folder (not seen here) within the 'cake store' folder is the 'static page' folder for real static pages like 'About Us', 'Contact Us' and so on. As you will see below, I also have an 'admin' folder for legal and other records that are neither static pages nor product listings.

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5.

Within the "Product Lines & Items - IMG, DATA SHEETS" folder, create the sub-folders for each product line. 

Example: Within the Abrand folder, create 2 new sub-folders for 1) SOLID SW - product line and LIQUID SW - product line.

6.

Within each "[LINE NAME] - Product Line" folder, create the sub-folders for each product item by model number or SKU. 'SKU' is abbreviation used in retail to refer to a 'stock keeping unit' code that is unique to individual product items. (Eventually, you will put only unique item-specific content within each SKU folder. This content usually includes an image and a unique data sheet in PDF format.) If you are still unsure of the unique product item codes, name the folders 'SKU' and leave them empty for now until you are ready to apply real SKUs. 

Abrand

• Solid Sweet Product Line
• DS3SS - Demarara raw brown sugar crystals
• SP1PP3 - Stevia powder
• SKU 3
• SKU 4

7.

Before filling in the specific names for brands, product lines, SKUs and so on, use the entire hierarchy of folders, sub-folders and documents as a template for other brands and so on.

This is what your store documents should now look like.