Large catalogues create two problems: pages that are too deep to be crawled, and near-infinite URL combinations from filters.
Structure
Keep products within a few clicks of the homepage. Category pages should be genuinely useful pages, not just grids, they are frequently the pages that rank for the commercially valuable terms.
Faceted navigation
Filters multiply URLs combinatorially. Decide which combinations deserve indexing, usually a small set with real search demand, and for the rest use canonical tags pointing at the unfiltered category, or noindex, or keep the state out of the URL entirely.
Pagination and infinite scroll
Each page of results should have its own crawlable URL with real links. Infinite scroll must be backed by paginated URLs, or Googlebot sees only the first screen. “Load more” buttons need the same treatment.
Alien Road recommends: give every category page a short piece of genuinely useful copy, what the range covers, how to choose, what the differences are. On the shops we work with, category pages are usually the highest-value and least-invested pages on the site, sitting on commercial queries with nothing but a product grid.