---
title: "Business categories: how customers browse"
description: "Business categories are the shelves of your marketplace: Food, Grocery, Pharmacy, Flowers."
canonical: https://docs.ordering.co/docs/discovery-ordering/launch-your-marketplace/part-3-build-the-marketplace/business-categories/
---

# Business categories: how customers browse

Business categories are the shelves of your marketplace: Food, Grocery, Pharmacy, Flowers. They help customers find stores fast and make a mixed marketplace feel organized.

**Time:** 20 min

## Plan your categories before you add stores

Think about how your customers search, not how you organize suppliers. Start with five to eight broad categories with clear icons. You can add more as you grow.

### Food-first marketplace

Restaurants · Fast food · Bakery & café · Healthy · Desserts · Drinks

### Multi-vertical marketplace

Food · Grocery · Pharmacy · Flowers & gifts · Pets · Liquor · Beauty

## Create a category and assign stores

1. **Open a store's details.** Go to **Stores**, open any store, and choose the **Categories** tab in its details.
2. **Add a new business category.** Give it a name and upload a simple icon. Use the same icon style for every category so the row looks consistent.
3. **Assign the store.** Tick every category the store belongs to. A bakery-café can sit in both Bakery and Breakfast.
4. **Repeat for each store.** Categories you created are available to every store.

> **Tip**
>
> Mark your best stores as **Featured** from the store list. Featured stores appear first, which is useful for launch partners or merchants who pay for promotion.

> **Real scenario: Food trucks next to beauty supplies**
>
> A US marketplace owner delivering for very different businesses (food trucks, restaurants, beauty supply stores) asked how to keep them apart. The answer was business categories: one category per vertical with its own icon, and each store assigned to the right one. Customers tap "Food trucks" and only see food trucks.