Shopify Menu Customization 101: Easy & Effective Guide

By the end, you’ll have all the tools to build a Shopify store that’s easy to explore and impossible to resist!

A well-structured menu is the secret to a smooth and enjoyable shopping experience. When customers visit your Shopify store, they should be able to navigate effortlessly, finding exactly what they need without confusion. That’s where Shopify menus come in. 

A menu in Shopify is a structured collection of links that customers use to navigate your store. It serves as a roadmap, allowing users to access different sections such as product collections, blog pages, or customer service information.

Each menu consists of multiple menu items. A menu item is an individual link within the menu that directs customers to a specific destination - this could be a product page, a collection, an external URL, or even a contact form.

For example, in a fashion store, a Shopify menu might include menu items such as:

• Homepage: A quick way for customers to return to the main page.
• Catalog/Shop: Direct access to all products or categorized collections.
• About Us: A place to share your brand’s story.
• Contact: Customer support and inquiries.

In some cases, menu items can be nested within a drop-down menu, creating a more organized structure. For instance, a menu item named "Clothing" might expand into sub-menu items like "Men", "Women", and "Kids".

Shopify allows merchants to create several types of menus, each serving a unique purpose in improving navigation and enhancing the customer experience. Let’s break them down.

• Main menu: The primary navigation bar, usually found in the header, best for key pages like Home, Shop, and Contact.
• Footer menu: Located at the bottom of the store, often used for policies, FAQs, and customer service links.
• Drop-down menus: A way to organize multiple links under a single menu item for easier navigation, ideal for stores with large catalogs.
• Customer account menu: Available for stores with customer accounts, providing quick access to order history, profile settings, and saved addresses.

Overall, with Shopify menus, you can:

• Add menu items: Create links to products, collections, webpages, blog posts, policies, or external websites.
• Edit menu items: Change the name or destination of existing menu items.
• Remove menu items: Delete items from your menus, which also removes any nested items in drop-down menus.
• Reorder menu items: Change the display order of menu items by dragging them to new positions.

You can manage these actions from the Menus page in your Shopify admin. This helps in organizing your store's navigation to improve customer experience.

Now that you understand the different types of menus in Shopify, it’s time to put that knowledge into action! In the next section, we’ll walk you through how to add a menu item on Shopify, so you can start building a navigation system that enhances your store’s usability and boosts sales. Let’s dive in!

To add a menu item on Shopify, you can follow these simple steps:

• From your Shopify admin, go to Content > Menus.

• Click the name of the menu that you want to edit.
• Click Add menu item.

• In the Name field, enter the name of the link that you want to add. This name will display in the menu for your customers.
• In the Link field, select a link type:

• If you choose Collections, Products, Pages, Blogs, Blog posts, or Policies, then from a drop-down menu select the specific destination that you want to add to the menu.
• Click Save menu.

• From your Shopify admin, go to Content > Menus.
• Click the name of the menu that includes the item you want to edit.
• In the Menu items section, click Edit beside the name of the item.

• Make any changes you need:

1. To change the name of the menu item, enter new text in the Name field.
2. To change the destination of the menu item, click the x next to the link field, and then enter or select a new destination.

• Click Apply changes.
• Click Save or Save menu.

• Qikify Mega Menu & Navigation: A Shopify menu app to improve user experience with customizable navigation styles.
• Meteor Mega Menus: Create beautiful a Shopify menu with images and dynamic layouts.
• Buddha Mega Menu: Add flexible dropdowns and advanced styling options.

• From your Shopify admin, go to Content > Menus.
• Click the name of your main menu.
• Choose one of the main menu items to be the header for your drop-down menu, or add a new menu item to be the header. If you don't want the header to link to anything, enter # in the Search or paste a link field for the header menu item.

• To add a menu item to include in the drop-down menu, complete the following tasks: