Shopify Color Families

Color families group raw product colors under a consistent parent color such as Red, Blue, or Mixed. This improves storefront filtering and helps AI Commerce Search understand the catalog more consistently.

Why Use Color Families

Color families help merchants:

Normalize inconsistent color names such as Burgundy, Wine, and Crimson
Give shoppers cleaner and more predictable color filters
Improve AI understanding of similar products
Keep search and collection filtering easier to browse

Default Color Families

The Retail Cloud Connect Shopify App supports a recommended default set of 13 color families:

Red
Pink
Orange
Yellow
Purple
Green
Cyan
Blue
Brown
White
Gray
Black
Mixed

Merchants can add the default set, edit it, or replace it with custom families.

Compound Color Values

The Color data settings control how compound values are split and mapped.

Setting	What it does
Color delimiters	Splits compound values using one literal delimiter per line. `/` preserves the existing behavior. Multiple delimiters are supported, and leaving the field empty keeps compound values together.
Color family mapping	Maps every split part or only the first part to a family. This does not change the split raw color values stored in the catalog.

For example, White/Black produces the color values White and Black when / is configured. Map every color part assigns both families, while Map only the first color part assigns only White.

Mapping Workflow

Configure the Color source, delimiters, and family mapping behavior under Filters & Data.
Add the default families or create custom families.
Open Enrichment to review coverage and, when available for the store, enable the automatic color family resolver.
Review pending or unmapped colors. Assign a family manually, or use Predict Color Family when a suggestion is needed.

The color table shows discovered catalog colors, mapped families, automatic or manual provenance, pending colors, and AI-assisted suggestions. Use Accept Suggestion when a prediction is correct, or choose a different family manually. Automatic resolution preserves manual choices.

The Enrichment summary also distinguishes colors deliberately reviewed and left unmapped, so its mapping states add up to the discovered total. The resolver control shows both the saved configuration and whether automation is currently active. You can configure it before rollout; if it is inactive, the page identifies whether platform availability or the current plan is the blocker.

When an effective mapping changes, the app schedules a catalog refresh so AI Commerce Search receives the updated family values. A separate manual import is not required.

When to Customize the Defaults

Customize the defaults when:

The catalog uses brand-specific color language
Merchants want broader shopper-facing groups
Merchants need to collapse seasonal names into stable merchandising colors

Use Color Families for color normalization. For non-color value normalization such as size abbreviations, use Merged Filter Values.