The Starter plan doesn't support grouping your products into collections to make it easier for customers to find them by category. If you require the ability to create collections, then you need to upgrade to a higher plan such as Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Shopify Plus. Learn more about the different plan features.

If you're on the Basic plan or higher, then you can group your products into collections to make it easier for customers to find them by category. Here are a few examples of collections that you might create:

• clothes for men, women, or children
• items of a certain type, such as lamps, cushions, or rugs
• items on sale
• items in a certain size or color
• seasonal products, such as holiday cards and decorations

You can create two types of collections, a smart or manual collection. After you create a collection, it can be displayed on your online store as a webpage with a gallery of the products that are in the collection. Your customers can then click a product image on the collection page to visit a specific product's page. You can help customers find and view collections by adding links to the collections in your store's menus.

The exact layout and appearance of collection pages depends on your theme.

You can view, create, and edit collections from the Collections page of your Shopify admin.

Collection types

Collections are groups of products that you organize together to make it easier for customers to find them in your online store. For example, you can create collections such as New arrivals, Sale items, or Men’s shoes, and then display those collections on your online store navigation, home page, or in marketing campaigns.

You can create two types of collections, a smart or manual collection.

Smart collection

A smart collection uses selection conditions to automatically include matching products. You can add up to 60 selection conditions. You can also specify whether products need to meet all of the conditions or any of the conditions to be included in the collection.

When you add a new product that matches the selection conditions for a collection, the product is automatically added to the collection.

Smart collections are usually preferred because, after you set up the conditions, future products are added automatically. You can save a lot of time by using smart collections if you have a large selection of products or if you have seasonal or rotating inventories. For example, suppose that you run an apparel store. If you tag all your products with a seasonal tag, such as summer or fall, then all your seasonal attire can automatically be included in the matching collection.

One drawback to creating a smart collection is that you can't remove particular products from it unless you change the collection's conditions or edit the product details so that they no longer match the selection conditions.

Manual collection

A manual collection includes only the products that you choose individually. Because of this, the collection always contains the same products unless you specifically add or remove products.

Manual collections take more work to maintain, but can be a good choice for small or specialized collections that you intend to curate personally. For example, if you plan to hold a one-time flash sale of just a few products, then you can create a manual collection for them and set up a discount for just the products in that collection.

After you create a collection, you can't change its type.

Smart collections

A smart collection uses selection conditions to automatically include matching products. You can add up to 60 selection conditions, and you can specify whether products need to meet all conditions or any condition to be included in the collection.

If you want to choose specific products for a collection, then you can create a manual collection instead.

The Starter plan doesn't support grouping your products into collections to make it easier for customers to find them by category. If you require the ability to create collections, then you need to upgrade to a higher plan such as Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Shopify Plus. Learn more about the different plan features.

Creating and modifying smart collections

Creating a smart collection involves defining conditions to match the products that you want in the collection. You can also apply a sort order and other details. You can create up to 5,000 smart collections.

Collections can have a maximum of 60 conditions.

Considerations for smart collection limits

The 5,000 smart collection limit ensures optimal performance. Having a large number of smart collections can slow down your Shopify admin and delay products displaying in collections on your storefront, especially with a large product catalog.

If you're approaching the limit, then consider deleting unused smart collections or converting some to manual collections.

If you already have a collection that has more than 60 conditions, then you can still use it. You can edit or delete its existing conditions, but you can't add any conditions when it's over the limit.

Before you update a collection, ensure no other staff are making changes to the same collection.

Create a smart collection

Automated collections are now called smart collections.

If you don't want to publish the collection as soon as you create it, then you can set a specific date when the collection will be published to your online store. Learn more about future publishing.

You can create up to 5,000 smart collections.

You can add only entire products to a collection. You can't add specific variants.

Steps:

Add selection conditions for a smart collection

When you create a smart collection, you can add one or more conditions for it in the Conditions section. That section also displays any conditions that you've already added to the collection.

For more information about conditions, refer to Conditions for smart collections.

Steps:

Change the publish date of a collection

You can set a specific publishing date for a collection to become available in your online store.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click a collection.

3. In the Sales channels section, click the calendar icon beside Online Store.

4. Set the date and time that you want to publish the collection.

5. Click Save.

Change the contents of a smart collection

You can change the contents of a smart collection by editing the conditions or by editing a product so that it doesn't meet the conditions.

Steps:

Replace a manual collection with a smart collection

You can't change a manual collection into a smart collection, but you can create a new smart collection to replace the existing manual collection.

Steps:

1. Add a tag to all of the products in your manual collection.
2. Create a new smart collection and set the tag as a condition.
3. After you set up the smart collection, you can delete the original manual collection.

Duplicate a collection

You can duplicate an existing smart collection, including the title, description, image, and product conditions.

When you duplicate a collection, the new collection that you create has the text (copy) added to the end of the title. The new collection isn't automatically included in any sales channels.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click the collection that you want to duplicate.

3. Click Duplicate.

4. Edit the Title of the new collection.

5. Optional: Make any necessary changes to the Description, Image, Conditions, or other parts of the collection.

6. To publish the new collection to your sales channels, click Manage sales channels.

7. In the Manage sales channel dialog, select the sales channels where you want to publish the collection.

8. Click Done.

9. Click Save.

Delete a collection

Steps:

Conditions for smart collections

You can add one or more conditions for a smart collection to match products based on many details, including product title or type, tags, price, or even inventory stock. Collections can have at most 60 conditions. Defining conditions for smart collections can automatically organize products without manual management, saving time as your catalog grows.

Set conditions based on product title, variant title, type, or vendor

You can add a condition to include a product in a collection based on the product's title, variant title, type, or vendor. You can select from the options in the second drop-down list to control how a product needs to match the condition value that you enter in the third field. The text that you enter in the third field is compared to your products according to the condition's settings, and matching products are included in the collection. The condition isn't case-sensitive.

You can select from the following options to control how a product needs to match the condition value that you enter:

Conditions for variants

If you set up a condition for a product that has variants, then that condition is true whether any variant matches the condition. This applies whether all conditions or any condition is selected.

For example, suppose you have a product that has five variants. Four of the variants have inventory, but one is out of stock. If you have a collection that has a condition of Inventory stock is greater than 0, then the product is included in the collection because at least one of the variants matches the condition.

Set conditions based on product category

You can set a condition to include products with a particular product category. For a condition that uses product category, select the desired category from the drop down.

For example, to set up a condition that selects products with the product category Televisions:

1. Select Product category from the first drop-down list.
2. Select is equal to from the second drop-down list.
3. Select Televisions.

You can also include products from all sub-categories of a selected category by using the includes sub-categories of selected category condition. This will return products for all categories that are children nodes of the category you select.

For example, to set up a condition that selects products with the product category Clothing Tops and all its sub-categories, such as Shirts, Cardigans, and Bodysuits, set the following conditions:

1. Select Product category from the first drop-down list.
2. Select Clothing Tops.
3. Select includes sub-categories of selected category checkbox from the drop-down list.

Set conditions based on product tags

You can set a condition to include or exclude products that have a particular product tag.

When a condition uses product tags, you need to enter the exact tag as a condition value. If you enter an invalid tag, then all your store's products are matched to the condition.

Example: Set up a condition that includes products tagged with accessories

1. Select Tag from the first drop-down list.
2. Select is equal to from the second drop-down list.
3. In the text field, enter accessories.

Example: Set up a condition that excludes products tagged with accessories

1. Select Tag from the first drop-down list.
2. Select is not equal to from the second drop-down list.
3. In the text field, enter accessories.

For more information about tags, refer to Tag formats.

Set metafield definition conditions based on metafield values

You can add a condition to include products or variant with a particular metafield value.

In order to have the metafields available to you when creating collections, you need to activate the smart collections setting for the metafield definition. You can have the smart collections setting activated on a maximum of 128 definitions per product metafield definitions and variant metafield definitions.

The first column of the drop-down list for your smart collection conditions is the name of your metafield definition. The second drop-down list or text box is your metafield values.

For example, to set up a condition that selects products with the metafield definition Color and the value #FF0000, do the following:

1. Select Color from the first drop-down list.
2. Select is equal to from the second drop-down list.
3. Enter #FF0000.

Learn more about smart collections by metafields.

Metafield types support the following conditions:

Set conditions based on metaobject reference metafields

You can add a condition to include a product in a collection based on the value of a metaobject reference metafield. You can set conditions for both product and variant metaobject reference metafields.

For example, to set up a condition that selects products with the metaobject reference metafield Material that has the value Cotton, do the following:

1. Select Material from the first drop-down list.
2. Select is equal to from the second drop-down list.
3. Select Cotton.

This functionality enables you to create smart collections that are based on standard taxonomy attributes.

Set conditions based on price, weight, or inventory stock

You can add a condition to include a product in a collection based on its price, compare-at price, weight, or inventory. You can set the condition to include products that match its value exactly, or products that are greater or less than its value:

The behavior for "compare-at price is empty" and "compare-at price is not empty" is based on the values of all product variants:

• If any variant has an empty compare-at price, then the product matches the is empty condition.
• For is not empty, all variants must have a compare-at price value (including zero) for the product to match.

For example, to set up a condition that includes products that are priced $100 USD or less:

1. Select Product price from the first drop-down list.
2. Select is less than from the second drop-down list.
3. Enter $100.01.

Using multiple selection conditions

You can set more than one selection condition to control which products are included in a collection. You can choose whether products must match all the conditions to be included in the collection, or any of the conditions.

For example, suppose that you set the two following conditions for a collection:

• Product tag is equal to shirt.
• Price is less than $100.01.

If you select all conditions, then products are included only if they're tagged with shirt and are also priced at $100 USD or less. Products need to match both conditions to be included in the collection.

If you select any condition, then products are included if they're tagged with shirt or if they're priced at $100 USD or less. Products need to match only one condition to be included in the collection.

Set multiple conditions to define a range

To include the products with a price, weight, or inventory value within a range, you need to set more than one condition. The low end of the range is defined in one condition, and the high end of the range in another. You need to select all conditions to include only the products that fall within the range.

For example, to set up a collection that includes products priced within a range of $50-$150 USD, you would set up the two following conditions:

1. Product price is greater than $49.99.
2. Product price is less than $150.01.

Troubleshooting smart collection conditions

If you're experiencing issues with your smart collections, then review the following troubleshooting information.

Examples of smart collections

Review these examples to get ideas on how you can use smart collections for your particular needs.

Example: Create a sale collection

You can create a smart collection to feature products that have a sale price. To make your collection display only the products that are on sale, you can set a condition for the collection to include products that have a Compare-at price. Learn more about setting sale prices.

Steps:

Example: Create a collection that contains products from other collections

Collections always contain products. You can’t create collections of collections. However, by using product tags and smart collection conditions, you can create a collection that contains all the products that are in other collections.

Jayla runs a clothing store that also sells belts, hats, and other accessories. She wants to create a collection for belts and a collection for hats. She also wants a collection that contains all of her accessories, including all the belts and hats. By creating these collections, she’ll be able to display her related products in various ways on her online store.

She starts by creating the products, and enters a tag to identify each one:

Next, she creates two smart collections, each with a single condition:

Now, Jayla can create another collection for all of the accessories, by using multiple conditions:

The collection, which she calls Accessories, has two conditions:

• Product tag is equal to hat
• Product tag is equal to belt

The any condition option is selected, so a product that matches either of those conditions is included in the new collection.

Later, if she adds other types of accessories, such as scarves, then she can tag them with scarf and add the condition Product tag is equal to scarf to her Accessories collection.

Having created the collections, Jayla can display them in her online store, and can update her online store menu to link to the collections from menus.

Manual collections

A manual collection includes the specific products that you choose. The collection will always contain the same products unless you add or remove them. Before you update a collection, you can review the top of the page to ensure no other staff are making changes to the same collection.

Plan requirements for creating manual collections

The Starter plan doesn't support grouping your products into collections to make it easier for customers to find them by category. If you require the ability to create collections, then you need to upgrade to a higher plan such as Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Shopify Plus. Learn more about the different plan features.

Create a manual collection

You can create a manual collection and add products to the collection. If the collection is available to your online store, then you can change the order in which the products are displayed from the collection page.

You can add only entire products to a collection. You can't add specific variants.

If you don't want to publish the collection as soon as you create it, then you can set a specific date when the collection will be published to your online store. Learn more about future publishing.

Steps:

Add products to a manual collection

You can add only entire products to a collection. You can't add specific variants.

Steps:

Add a product to existing collections from its details page

You can add a product to one or more existing manual collections from the product's details page.

Steps:

Remove products from a manual collection

Change the publish date of a collection

You can set a specific publishing date for a collection to become available in your online store.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click a collection.

3. In the Sales channels section, click the calendar icon beside Online Store.

4. Set the date and time that you want to publish the collection.

5. Click Save.

Duplicate a collection

You can duplicate an existing manual collection, including the title, description, image, and product list.

When you duplicate a collection, the new collection that you create has the text (copy) added to the end of the title. The new collection isn't automatically included in any sales channels.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click the collection that you want to duplicate.

3. Click Duplicate.

4. Edit the Title of the new collection.

5. Optional: Make any necessary changes to the Description, Image, Products, or other parts of the collection.

6. To publish the new collection to your sales channels, click Manage sales channels.

7. In the Manage sales channel dialog, select the sales channels where you want to publish the collection.

8. Click Done.

9. Click Save.

Delete a collection

Steps:

Adding links to collections

After you create a collection, you need to make sure that your customers can find and view it by adding a link to the collection in the menu for your online store.

You can also create a drop-down menu in your online store with a link to a collection.

Before you add any links, make sure your collection is available on your online store sales channel.

To link to a collection from an existing menu:

Managing collections on your sales channels

After you create a collection, you need to make sure that it's available on the sales channels that you use. You can also specify a future date when the collection will be published.

Plan requirements for managing collections on your sales channel

The Starter plan doesn't support grouping your products into collections to make it easier for customers to find them by category. If you require the ability to create collections, then you need to upgrade to a higher plan such as Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Shopify Plus. Learn more about the different plan features.

Adjusting the availability of a collection

You can publish or hide a collection from your active sales channels by changing the collection's availability settings. There are a few reasons that you might want to hide a collection:

• It's a collection of seasonal or sale products that you want to make available for only part of the year.
• You want to sell only one type of product with a particular sales channel.
• The products in the collection don't meet the eligibility requirements for a particular sales channel.

Considerations for adjusting the availability of a collection

Before you adjust the availability of a collection, review the following considerations:

• Making a collection visible to the Online Store sales channel doesn't automatically link the collection to your store's menus. To help customers find a collection in your online store, you need to add a link to it from your store's menus.
• Changing the collection availability doesn't change the availability of the individual products within the collection. If you want to make a product available or unavailable, then you need to update the product.

Change the availability of a collection

Change the publish date of a collection

You can set a specific publishing date for a collection to become available in your online store.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click a collection.

3. In the Sales channels section, click the calendar icon beside Online Store.

4. Set the date and time that you want to publish the collection.

5. Click Save.

Edit the search engine listing for a collection

You can edit the text that's displayed in search engine results for a collection. Descriptive titles and descriptions can help new customers to find your online store and encourage them to click the link. Learn more about search engine optimization.

When you make changes to a collection's search engine listing, you can view a preview of how it might display.

If you enter more than 70 characters for a title, or if you enter more than 320 characters for a description, then your text might get cut off in search engine results.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click the name of the collection that you want to edit the search engine listing for.

3. In the Search engine listing section, click the pencil icon.

4. In the Page title field, enter a descriptive title for your collection. The title displays as a link in search engine results.

5. In the Meta description field, enter a description for your collection. Consider including relevant keywords and your store's name to help new customers find your collection.

6. Optional: Adjust the collection's URL:

7. In the URL handle field, you can change part of the web address for your collection. The web address can't contain any spaces.

8. Select whether to create a redirect from the old URL to the new URL. This ensures customers who click a link to the old URL are redirected to the new URL instead of landing on an 404 "page not found" page.

9. Click Save.

Searching and viewing collections

A list of your collections are displayed on the Collections page in the Shopify admin, and includes the number of products in each collection and any existing product conditions. You can create and customize your collection views to include searches, filters, and sorting that help you access and organize your list of collections.

Learn more about searching, filtering, and sorting your list views in the Shopify admin.

Search for a collection

To find collections based on words that are in their titles or descriptions, click the sort and filter button on the Collections page, and then use the search bar to enter the specific search terms. You can use search terms in combination with filters to display more specific search results.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click the icon.

3. In the Searching all collections field, enter your search terms. The collection list automatically refreshes to display only the products that have the words in the collection titles and descriptions.

4. Optional: To save this view, click Save as to enter a name for the saved view, and then click Save view.

Sort your collection list

You can sort your collection list by using the following sort options:

• collection title
• updated

Sorting affects the order of the collections in your Shopify admin, but not in your online store or menus. Learn more about changing the layout or appearance of a collection.

Steps:

Filter your collection list

By default, all of your collections are listed in the Collections page. You can filter this list to display a smaller subset of collections. You can also use search terms in combination with filters to display more specific search results.

Filtering your collection list can help you find the specific collections that you need to edit, review, or update. The following filter options are available:

• Sales channel - Displays the collections that are included or excluded on a particular sales channel.
• Type - Displays the collections that are either automated or manual.

Steps:

Collection views

A collection view is a customized view of your collections based on criteria that you set up to help you complete a task more efficiently. Collection views are displayed as tabs on the top of the Collections page. You can customize collection views, and create, duplicate, rename, edit, or delete views. When you create a new collection view, it's added as a new tab on the Collections page.

Create a collection view

You can create a collection view based on filters and search terms.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click the icon.

3. Do any of the following to customize your collection list results:

   • Select a filter and apply the criteria you want to use.
   • Enter search terms into the field labelled Searching all collections.

4. Click Save as.

5. In the Save view as dialog, type a name for the collection view.

6. Click Save.

Create a new collection view by duplicating an existing view

You can create a new collection view by duplicating an existing view. You can then edit the filters applied to the new view to customize it.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click the ⌄ next to name of the view you want to duplicate.

3. Click Duplicate view.

4. In the Duplicate view dialog, type a name for the new collection view.

5. Click Create view.

6. Click the icon, and apply the new filters to the new view.

7. Click Save.

Edit the filters in a collection view

You can edit the filters in a collection view if you want the view to contain different collections. If a collection view contains search terms, then you will only be able to save the updated view as a new collection view instead of updating the existing view.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click the name of the collection view you want to edit.

3. Click the icon.

4. Select a filter and apply the new criteria you want to use.

5. Click Save.

Rename a collection view

You can rename a collection view if the existing name isn't what you want it to be.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click the ⌄ next to name of the search view you want to rename.

3. Click Rename view.

4. In the Rename view dialog, type the new name for the collection view.

5. Click Save.

Delete a collection view

Deleting a collection view can't be undone. Deleted views aren't available in your admin.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click the ⌄ next to the name of the collection view.

3. Click Delete view.

4. Click Delete view again to confirm.

Collection layout and appearance

You can edit a collection's name or description, change its featured image, or change the display order of its products. If you've created custom templates for your collection page, then you can also use a different template. Before you update a collection, you can check the top of the page to determine whether another staff is also making changes to the same collection.

Edit the name of a collection

Edit the description of a collection

Add a featured image to a collection

Change the featured image for a collection

Change the sort order for the products in a collection

When a collection is displayed in an online store, the products in that collection display in the sort order that you select. Products are sorted alphabetically by product title by default.

You can select from the following sorting options:

• Best selling product: Sort products based on the all-time number of orders that include the product. If you haven't sold any products yet, then this option sorts your products from newest to oldest.
• Product title: Sort products in alphabetical order or reverse alphabetical order.
• Highest or lowest product price: Sort products based on highest or lowest product price.
• Newest or oldest product: Sort products based on the date that the product was created.
• Manual: Sort products based on your own preferences.

Steps: