Quick answer
Organise your catalogue around how shoppers think, not how your stockroom is arranged: a handful of main collections by product type, extra collections by occasion, price or fabric, a short menu with no more than six or seven top items, and consistent product names that include what the item is. Use variants for sizes and colours instead of duplicate products.
A well-organised catalogue lets a shopper find what they want in two or three taps. The trick is to organise around how customers think, not how your stockroom is arranged: a few main collections by product type, extra collections for occasions, price bands or materials, a short menu, and product names that say plainly what each item is. Sizes and colours belong inside one product as options, not as separate listings. Get this structure right early and adding your hundredth product is as easy as your tenth.
This guide explains collections, menus and naming, with examples by trade, and how to tidy a catalogue that has grown messy.
What is the difference between collections and categories?
Different platforms use different words. In general:
- A category is usually the one main type a product belongs to: "Kurtas", "Earrings", "Pickles".
- A collection is any group of products you choose to show together, and a product can sit in several: "Kurtas", "Festive edit", "Under ₹999", "Cotton".
Collections are more flexible because the same product can appear in many places. Think of your main product types as the backbone, and other collections as different doors into the same rooms.
How do shoppers look for products?
Shoppers usually start from one of a few angles:
- What it is: sarees, kurtas, rings, candles, millet flour.
- Who it is for: men, women, kids, babies, a gift for mother.
- The occasion: Diwali, wedding, office wear, return gifts.
- A feature: cotton, silver, sugar-free, handmade.
- Price: under ₹500, under ₹1,000.
Your main collections should cover the first angle. Add a few collections for the others where they matter to your customers.
What does a good structure look like by trade?
| Trade | Main collections | Extra collections |
|---|---|---|
| Ethnic wear | Sarees, Kurtas, Kurta sets, Dupattas, Blouses | Cotton, Silk, Festive edit, Office wear, Under ₹1,499 |
| Jewellery | Necklaces, Earrings, Bangles, Rings | Bridal, Everyday, Silver, Gifts under ₹999 |
| Food and groceries | Pickles, Snacks, Spices, Flours, Sweets | Gift boxes, Festive specials, No onion no garlic |
| Home decor | Cushion covers, Bedsheets, Lamps, Wall decor | Diwali decor, New arrivals, Bestsellers |
| Electronics accessories | Cases, Chargers, Cables, Audio | By phone brand, Under ₹499, New launches |
Keep main collections to roughly five to eight. If you have more, group some under a parent ("Clothing", "Accessories").
How many items should your menu have?
On a phone, a long menu is hard to scan. Aim for six or seven top items at most: your main collections, plus perhaps "New arrivals" and "Sale". Put "About", "Contact" and policy pages in the footer, where people expect them. Order menu items by what sells, not alphabetically.
Your home page does some of the menu's work. In UpMinutes, the homepage editor lets you feature collections, offers, new arrivals and reviews in sections, so a shopper can jump straight into "Festive edit" without opening the menu at all. See building a homepage that sells.
How should you name products?
Product names do a lot of work: they help shoppers scan collections, they appear in search results and on Google, and they help your store's own search find things. A clear pattern works well:
[Key feature] + [Material or style] + [Product type]
- "Mustard Block-Print Cotton Kurta" rather than "Sunshine".
- "Oxidised Silver Jhumka Earrings" rather than "Design 47".
- "Andhra Gongura Pickle, 250 g" rather than "Gongura Special".
You can keep a pretty name too ("Sunshine Mustard Block-Print Cotton Kurta"), but make sure the product type is in it. Use the words your customers type, including common regional terms. Our guide to product descriptions covers the rest of the page.
Should sizes and colours be separate products?
Usually no. Put sizes, colours and similar choices inside one product as options. That keeps collections tidy, gathers all reviews in one place, and avoids a page of near-identical items. Make a separate product only when items are truly different (a different design, not just a different colour), or when each colour is a distinct product you want to feature separately.
UpMinutes supports up to three options per product, such as size, colour and fabric, with each combination having its own price, stock and photo, shown as colour swatches or size buttons. Our guide to product variants goes deeper.
How do you help shoppers search?
Search inside your store works only as well as your product data. Help it by:
- Including the product type and key features in the name.
- Writing descriptions that mention materials, colours and uses in plain words.
- Adding common alternative words in the description where natural: "jhumka earrings", "kurti" and "kurta", "lehenga" and "ghagra".
- Checking what customers ask for on WhatsApp, and making sure those words appear on the right products.
Good names and descriptions also help Google show your products. UpMinutes builds sitemaps with product photos and structured data automatically; read SEO for a new store.
How do you tidy a messy catalogue?
If your catalogue has grown over time with inconsistent names and overlapping collections, fix it in one go:
- Export your product list to a spreadsheet.
- Add columns for the new name, main collection and extra collections.
- Rename using your naming pattern, in the sheet.
- Merge duplicates that should be one product with options.
- Re-import or bulk edit. UpMinutes has CSV import with a preview before anything changes, and bulk edits so you can change many products at once.
- Set redirects if product addresses change, so old links and search rankings still work.
If you are moving from another platform, the switching guide explains CSV columns and redirects.
What about stores in more than one language?
If your store runs in English and an Indian language, translate collection names and product names with the same care as descriptions. A Tamil-speaking shopper may look for "பட்டு புடவை" rather than "silk saree", and a Hindi menu that mixes English and Hindi words can be easier to read than a formal translation. In UpMinutes, the storefront can run in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, and you translate products, pages and menus side by side, by hand or with "Fill in the rest" machine translation, where available, that you then review. Keep the structure identical across languages so shoppers who switch language do not get lost. Read selling in Indian languages for more.
How often should you review your structure?
Look at your collections every few months and before every major festival. Remove empty or tiny collections, add seasonal ones a few weeks early, and move bestsellers to the top of each collection. Your sales reports, which show top products for any dates, tell you what deserves the best spots.
A catalogue structure checklist
- Five to eight main collections by product type.
- A few extra collections for occasion, material or price.
- A menu of six or seven items, with policies in the footer.
- Product names with the product type in them.
- Sizes and colours as options, not separate products.
- Bestsellers at the top of each collection.
More product guides are in the products and photos category.
Frequently asked questions
How many products should be in one collection?
There is no fixed rule, but a collection with only one or two items looks empty, and one with hundreds is hard to browse. Split very large collections by style, material or price.
Can one product be in more than one collection?
Yes, and it usually should. A cotton festive kurta can sit in 'Kurtas', 'Cotton' and 'Festive edit', so shoppers find it from whichever angle they start.
Should I use SKUs in product names?
Keep SKUs out of the name shoppers see. Use them in the SKU field for stock and imports, and keep names descriptive.
Will renaming products hurt my Google rankings?
Changing a name is fine. If the product address changes too, set up a permanent redirect from the old address so links and rankings carry over.
