Overview
A Custom Category creates a dedicated, featured section in your Shop that surfaces the services and products tied to your promotion. When patients tap a button on your Content Card, pop-up, or banner, the Custom Category is where they land to browse and purchase.
Custom Categories are created inside the promotion builder and live only for the duration of the promotion. They give patients a curated, campaign-specific shopping destination rather than sending them to the full Shop catalog.
This article is for practice owners, managers, and admins who configure promotions in the Admin Panel.
Why It Matters
A Custom Category gives a Promotion its own dedicated shelf: a named, described, branded section that shows exactly what your offer is, with nothing else mixed in. That matters most when a Promotion covers more than one item — patients get a single destination that matches the promotion, instead of being dropped into your full catalog to go find it themselves.
How It Works
Editing the category
Category Name — click the name directly on either preview (the Browse tile or the detail page). Maximum 20 characters. It's the same field in both places — edit it once, both update.
Description — click the description text on either preview. This is also a single shared field, shown as a short line on the Browse tile and a longer overlay on the detail page, both capped at 100 characters. There's no separate "short" and "long" description — it's one field displayed twice.
Thumbnail — click the small square image on the Browse tile preview. This is what represents the category in the Shop's list of categories.
Hero Image — click the wide image at the top of the detail page preview. This is the hero image patients see once they tap into the category.
Included Items
If the Promotion has no Offers: you pick items manually. An Add items dropdown lets you multi-select services, packages, and products from your catalog to include.
If the Promotion has an offer: the manual picker disappears entirely. Included Items instead shows a read-only list of whatever items those Offers discount — pulled in automatically, kept in sync as the Offers change.
Step-by-Step Instructions
In your Admin Panel, go to MedCommerce Engine™ → Promotions.
Open an existing draft or click New promotion.
From the block picker, add the Custom Category.
Click the category name on either preview to set it (20 characters max).
Click the description on either preview to set it (100 characters max) — one field, shown in both places.
Click the thumbnail image on the Browse tile preview to upload it.
Click the banner image at the top of the detail-page preview to upload it.
Check Included Items: if the Promotion has no Offers, use Add items to choose manually. If it does have Offers, there's nothing to do here — the list is automatic.
Continue building any other components, then Schedule the Promotion or Save as Draft.
Best Practices and Pro Tips
Decide your Offer(s) before touching Included Items. If you're planning to add an Offer, don't bother manually selecting items first — the moment the Offer exists, your manual selection is replaced by the automatic list anyway.
Build the Custom Category before configuring the Discover Card, Pop-Up, or Banner buttons. Those blocks can only link to a Custom Category that already exists — build this one first to avoid having to go back and reconfigure the others.
Keep the Category Name short on purpose. 20 characters isn't much — lead with the promotion itself ("Fall Savings"), not a full sentence.
Write the description once, thinking about both views. Since the same text shows as a short line on the Browse tile and a longer overlay on the detail page, keep it useful at a glance and still make sense in full.
FAQs
Q: Will the Custom Category appear in my Shop permanently?
A: No. Custom Categories are tied to a promotion and only appear in the Shop during the it's scheduled dates. They do not persist after the promotion ends or is archived.
Q: Can a promotion have more than one Custom Category?
A: No. Each promotion itself supports one Custom Category. You can update it at any time before or after scheduling. You can however, schedule multiple promotions at one time.
Q: If I update the items in my Offers, does the category update automatically?
A: Yes. Using Use Items from Offers keeps the category in sync with your Offer inclusions. Changes to the Offers are reflected in the category.
Support
Need help? Email support@repeatmd.com