Build a Product Catalog That Sells in Egypt

A catalog sells for you when a shopper finds the item, understands it in ten seconds, and buys without messaging you first. That is the whole job. Not a long product list — a clear one.

This checklist follows the order that works: categories first, then one product with its variants, photos and search words. Everything happens on Products → Categories and Products → Catalog.

1. Build a shallow category tree first

• Open Products → Categories and click New category. Fill the Arabic and the English name; your storefront shows both.
• Keep it shallow. Storix only lets a product sit in a category that has no sub-categories, so a deep tree leaves you with categories you cannot use.
• Drag rows to set the order shoppers see, and use the status switch to publish or hide a category.
• Hiding a parent hides its sub-categories too, and showing the parent again does not bring them back.
• Do not plan to tidy up later. Storix refuses to delete a category that still has sub-categories, and refuses again while products are linked to it.

Eight categories that each hold real stock beat thirty empty ones.

2. Use variants, not copies of the same item

One product with options beats five near-identical products.

• On Products → Catalog, click Add product, add an option such as Size, then its values (S, M, L). Every combination becomes its own variant row.
• Set Cost, Price and Sale price on each row, and switch Track stock and Active on or off per row.
• Click a variant name to open Variant details, where you set the SKU, the barcode, sale dates and Stock per warehouse.
• Leave a SKU empty and Storix builds one from the product link and the option values.

3. Photos: the first one does the selling

• JPG, PNG, WEBP or GIF, up to 5 MB each.
• The first photo you upload becomes Primary. Use Set primary to change it.
• The Media card shows only the first four photos. The rest appear as a count such as "+2 more" and cannot be edited there.

More on shooting and cropping: product media that converts.

4. Write the words Egyptians actually type

Egyptian shoppers search in a mix of Arabic and Franco-Arabic, and often use the everyday name rather than the formal one. Put the most common word first in the product name, then work the alternatives into the description.

• Reread your own WhatsApp messages and reuse the customer's wording.
• Give sizes in centimetres and weight in grams, and add a size chart for clothes.
• Say whether the price includes delivery, and which governorates you cover.
• Add the words people search with: "للأطفال", "مقاوم للماء", "أصلي".

The full method is in descriptions that convert and search keywords for Egypt.

5. Fill the search fields

SEO title and SEO description sit on every product, and SEO keywords takes up to 200 entries. Write one short title and a description that matches what the page really says. Leave URL slug empty and Storix makes one when you save — note that Generate from default name uses only the English letters and numbers in the name.

6. Tax mode is a store setting

Do not type "price includes VAT" into every product. Set it once in Accounting → Tax & Invoices → VAT calculation, where Pricing mode is either tax-exclusive (VAT added at checkout) or tax-inclusive (shelf prices already include it). A new store starts with a default VAT rate of 14.

7. Three things must be true before a product appears

A product shows on your storefront only when it has a category, at least one active variant, and a warehouse stock record for every active variant that tracks stock.

And only Active products are public. Show on store switched on saves the product as Active; switched off saves it as a Draft. When a product is missing from your shop page, this is nearly always the reason.

The final tick list

• Category chosen, with nothing nested under it.
• One variant per real option, each with a price and stock.
• Primary photo set, under 5 MB.
• Name and description in the buyer's own words.
• SEO title and SEO description filled.
• Deposit set, if you ask for one (1% to 99%).
• You opened your own shop page and found the product there.

Build a product catalog that sells on a free Storix store — create your store.