---
title: UI optimization for large categories
slug: commerce-connect-13/docs/user-interface-configuration
docTags: 
createdAt: 2026-07-23T09:44:49.000Z
---

You should model the catalog using category hierarchies to avoid having too many items in a category. Too many items in a category makes it difficult for the user to find an item using the catalog UI components. Also, the catalog UI may become slow, and handling the items can consume a large amount of system resources, on both the server and client side.

If a category contains more than a certain number of items (by default 2000), a simplified UI mode is used, disabling the following features to try to stay responsive.

- Sorting
- Grouping variants into their parent products
- Bundling/packaging items into a bundle/package

In simplified UI mode, a message appears in the catalog listing: **This category listing contains too many items. Some features were disabled to improve performance.**

To configure the simplified mode threshold, use the **SimplifiedCatalogListingThreshold** appSetting.

```xml
<appSettings>
  <add key="SimplifiedCatalogListingThreshold" value="1000" />
</appSettings>
```

If not set, a default value of 2000 items per category is used.