diff --git a/src/pretix/control/views/item.py b/src/pretix/control/views/item.py
index 9c48f789f..31e8dcbef 100644
--- a/src/pretix/control/views/item.py
+++ b/src/pretix/control/views/item.py
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ class ItemList(ListView):
         ).annotate(
             var_count=Count('variations')
         ).prefetch_related("category").order_by(
-            F('category__position').desc(nulls_first=True),
+            F('category__position').asc(nulls_first=True),
             'category', 'position'
         )