Shop section
A category bucket inside your shop that organizes listings on your shop home page.
- Maximum sections per shop: 20
- Listings per section: unlimited (one section per listing)
- Where it lives: Shop Manager > Listings > Sections
- Buyer impact: shows in your shop sidebar and as a filter on your shop page
- Also called: section
A shop section is your internal grouping - different from Etsy’s global category taxonomy. Buyers see your sections in the sidebar of your shop home page and use them to browse just your shop, not all of Etsy.
A listing belongs to exactly one section, and you get up to 20 sections total. The order of sections in the sidebar is set in Shop Manager > Listings > Sections, drag-to-reorder.
Section vs. category
- Category is Etsy-wide (“Home & Living > Mugs”). It controls which Etsy search results you appear in.
- Section is shop-only (“Mugs,” “New Arrivals,” “Sale”). It controls how buyers browse your shop.
A listing in the “Mugs” Etsy category can sit in any section you want - including a section called “Holiday Gifts” that mixes mugs, prints, and keychains.
Why sections matter for repeat buyers
First-time buyers usually arrive on a single listing and never see your shop page. Repeat buyers, favoriters, and people who came from your social channels land on the shop home page - and that’s where sections do the work. Empty or generic sections (“Section 1”) hurt conversion for the audience that already trusts you.
- Default-named sections ("Section 1") shipped to production. Always rename.
- Too many sections (15+) - buyers skip the sidebar entirely and just use search.
- Mismatched casing or punctuation across sections. "New arrivals," "New Arrivals", "NEW ARRIVALS" looks careless.
Other glossary entries that connect to this one
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