How to Use Shopify Category Metafields / Specifications | Breakdown & How To

Hey folks — in this post, I'll show you what Shopify category metafields are, how to use them, and how to build a specification table with them based on a real example.

Why Category Metafields Matter

Category metafields automatically populate on your Shopify site once you assign a product to a category and accept the suggestion. It's Shopify's attempt at standardizing product data across the web — but most stores never end up using this data, even though it can support both SEO and AEO (AI answer engine optimization).

A Brand Getting It Right: MAAP

Cycling apparel brand MAAP has a clean specification table on their product pages that inspired this breakdown — a great example of using structured product data without it looking like a spec sheet.

Building the Specification Table with Flexi

You can either prompt your way through building your own specification area that references the category metafields, or use the specification section from Flexi. Once the app is installed, drop the section into your theme and toggle it to pull from your category metafields automatically. The section also outputs a JSON-LD snippet in the page's DOM, making the data easier for Google and other AI tools to crawl.

Watch the Full Breakdown

The video above walks through the MAAP example in more detail, then shows exactly how to build this specification table in your own Shopify theme using Flexi — including what to search for in the Shopify App Store to get started.

Ready to add this to your own store? Try Flexi Sections.