This is important for not yet established shops with some still empty categories, because it looks terrible to present visitors a Shop with mostly empty shelves.
So, I had this strange Idea.

All it requires is a look if any Products exist, if so, display an image as shown on the right part of the
image. If no product is in thes category. it does NOT display anything.
The 'place' of the image would be where the Numbers usually are visibly.
I would even try to place all such icon's on the right edge of the Cat-Line to make them look 'equal' positioned.
Anyone interested to write a routine or even publish the Mod und his/her Name?
Something like this would speed up this time-intensive procedure dramatically, since the FIRST Product found would already return a 'positive' result and so immediately terminate the search for more...
I am not (yet) able to do this on myself...
Ernie