Brands and categories on your stores
Brands and categories are shared across your catalog, but every store keeps its own copy of them. This page explains how Fulify keeps those copies in step, what it checks before a product goes to a store, and what happens to things that were already on a store before you connected it.
Fulify is the source of truth
You edit brands and categories in Fulify and sync them out. When Fulify syncs a brand or category, the store's copy is overwritten with what's in Fulify, including the name. If someone renames a brand or category directly on the store, the next sync from Fulify puts Fulify's name back. Make the change in Fulify instead.
Nothing flows the other way. Edits made on a store are never copied back into Fulify.
Each store has its own IDs
Every store gives its brands and categories its own IDs. The brand "Acme" might be brand 12 on one BigCommerce store and brand 47 on another. Fulify keeps a separate link for each brand and category on each store, and when it syncs a product it uses the IDs that belong to the store it's sending to.
This means a brand or category has to exist on a store before products can use it there:
- Brands reach a store when you sync them to it. Assigning a brand isn't enough on its own, so sync it as well.
- Categories reach a store when you assign them to it. Sync them to create or update them on the store.
Checks when you assign products to a store
When you add products to a store, either one product with Add to Channel in the editor or many at once from the Products list, Fulify checks whether the store can take them before anything is assigned. It looks for:
| Problem | Effect |
|---|---|
| Sync is off for the product | Blocks. The product won't reach any store until you turn Sync on. |
| The product has no SKU | Blocks. Products are matched by SKU. |
| No categories, on a BigCommerce store | Blocks. BigCommerce needs at least one category on every product. |
| None of the product's categories are on this store | Blocks on BigCommerce. On Shopify it's a warning. |
| Some of the product's categories aren't on this store | Warning. The product syncs into the categories the store does have. |
| The product's brand isn't on this store | Blocks. Sync the brand to this store, or clear the product's brand. |
| Channel Sync is off for the product | Warning. You can assign it, and it syncs once you turn Channel Sync on. |
If anything would block, nothing is assigned. A dialog lists the problems product by product. If you're about to create the missing brand or categories on that store, click Assign anyway (or Add anyway for a single product). The products will sync once those exist.
On a product's channel tab, the category picker greys out categories that aren't on that store, so you can see straight away which ones the store will use.
URLs stay put when you rename
When you create a brand or category, Fulify generates its URL from the name. After that, the URL is fixed. Renaming a live brand or category doesn't change its address, so links, bookmarks and search results that point to it keep working. If you do want a new URL, click Reset next to the Custom URL Slug, but bear in mind old links will stop working.
Existing Shopify collections
If your Shopify store already has a collection at the address (handle) a category would use, perhaps one you built before connecting Fulify, the category's sync fails with "Handle has already been taken". To sync the category, give it a different Custom URL Slug, or change or remove the existing collection's handle on Shopify, then sync again.
If you want Fulify to leave a collection alone, set the category's Shopify Collection Mode to Unmanaged before you sync. See Categories.
A category's image has to be reachable when its collection syncs. If Shopify can't fetch it, the collection doesn't sync. Upload the image again or remove it, then sync.
Disconnected stores
When you disconnect a store, its brand and category assignments are kept but hidden. Brands, categories and products stop showing a status or errors for that store, and delete warnings stop naming it. If you add the same store again, it's reconnected with its products, categories and brands as they were. See Manage channels.
Deleting
Deleting a brand or category in Fulify removes it from Fulify and unlinks it from your stores. It isn't deleted on the stores, so remove it there as well if you no longer want it.