Creating and Setting Up Product Collections

Product collections let you group related products together and present them on your storefront, making it easier for customers to browse and discover products. You can create collections by manually selecting products or by defining conditions that automatically determine which products are included.

This guide explains how to create a collection, configure its basic information and storefront settings, and add products manually or through smart collection conditions.

Understanding Manual and Smart Collections

SHOPLINE supports two collection types. When configuring your collection, choose the Collection type based on how you want products to be added:

• Manual collection: Select the products to include individually. Choose this option when you want full control over exactly which products belong to the collection.
• Smart collection: SHOPLINE automatically includes existing and new products that meet the conditions you define. Choose this option for collections that may change frequently, such as one containing all products tagged New Arrival.

In the Collection type section, select Manual collection or Smart collection based on your needs.

Accessing the Collection Creation Page

To create a collection: 

1. From your SHOPLINE admin panel, go to Products > Collections.

2. Click Add collection.

   

3. Follow the steps in the sections below to complete the collection setup.

Configuring Basic Collection Information

In the Collection details section, enter the information used to identify and present the collection:

• Title: Enter a name for the collection, such as Summer Sale or Best Sellers.
• Collection description: Add a description using the rich text editor. Depending on your theme settings, the description may appear on the collection page in your storefront.

Configuring Collection Settings

On the right side of the collection creation page, configure the collection's availability, search engine information, images, and other settings:

• Sales channels: Click the pencil icon and select the sales channels where you want the collection to be available, such as your Online Store or POS.
• Search engine optimization: Click the pencil icon to customize how the collection appears in search results. Configure the following:
  • SEO title: Enter the title you want to display for the collection in search results.
  • SEO description: Enter a brief description of the collection to help search engines understand the page and encourage customers to visit it.
  • URL: Customize the collection page URL. Availability of custom URLs depends on your current plan.
  • Preview: Review how the collection's URL, SEO title, and description may appear in search results.
• Collection cover: Upload an image to represent the collection. Supported formats are .jpg, .png, .webp, and .gif, with a maximum file size of 20 MB.
• Collection banner: Upload a banner image for the collection. Supported formats are .jpg, .png, .webp, and .gif, with a maximum file size of 20 MB. How the banner is displayed depends on your theme and its configuration.
• Theme template: Select the collection page template you want to use. The Default template is selected by default.
• Collection notes: Enter an internal note of up to 50 characters for your own reference. Collection notes aren't visible to customers.

Configuring Products in the Collection

How products are added to the collection depends on the collection type you selected.

For a Manual Collection

Manual collections give you full control over which products are included. Add the products you want to include individually:

1. In the Collection type section, select Manual collection.

   

2. In the Products section, click + Add products.

   

3. Select the products you want to include, then click Add.
4. The selected products appear in the product list.

By default, Manual collections use Custom for Product display order. 

You can select another sorting method or click Custom display order to arrange products manually. For detailed instructions, refer to "Setting the Product Display Order for a Collection."

For a Smart Collection

Smart collections automatically include existing and new products that meet the conditions you define. Products can't be added manually to a Smart collection. To set up a Smart collection:

1. In the Collection type section, select Smart collection. The Smart collection conditions section appears.

   

2. In the Smart collection conditions section, under Must meet, choose how products should meet the conditions you set:

   • All conditions: A product must meet every condition to be included.
   • Any condition: A product only needs to meet one of the conditions to be included.

   

3. Select the field you want to use as the condition. Available fields can include product information, inventory, performance data, product types, and metafields.

   Note: Metafields are available as Smart collection conditions only to selected merchants who have applied for and been granted access to this feature. Contact SHOPLINE Support to apply for access.

   

4. Select a comparison rule. The available options depend on the field you selected. For example, a Tag condition can use Equal to or Not equal to.

   Note: When you set Tag to Not equal to, the condition applies only to products with at least one tag. Products without any tags are excluded from the collection, even if they don't have the specified tag. For example, if you set Tag to Not equal to "Summer", products tagged "New Arrival" are included in the collection, but products without any tags are excluded.

   

5. Enter or select the value the product should match. For example, when using Tag, select the applicable product tag.

   

6. To define another condition, click + Add and configure the additional rule.

   

For example, if you set Tag to Equal to New Arrival, SHOPLINE automatically includes existing and new products with that tag in the collection.

By default, Smart collections use AI smart sorting for Product display order, which automatically ranks products based on conversion rate, sales performance, and time created. 

You can select another sorting method or click Custom display order to arrange products manually. For detailed instructions, refer to "Setting the Product Display Order for a Collection."

Previewing and Saving the Collection

After completing the collection setup:

1. Review the collection information and product settings.

2. Click Preview to check how the collection will appear on your storefront.

   

3. Click Save to create the collection.

After saving, you can return to Products > Collections to find and manage the collection. For details about managing existing collections, refer to "Managing Product Collections."

Frequently Asked Questions About Product Collections

Q1: Can a product belong to multiple collections?

Yes. A product can belong to multiple collections at the same time, whether it is manually added to a Manual collection or automatically included in a Smart collection based on the collection conditions.

Q2: Can I change the collection type after it is created?

No. Once a collection is created as either a Manual collection or Smart collection, its collection type can't be changed. To use a different collection type, delete the existing collection and create a new one with the desired type.

Q3: Why can't I manually add products to some collections?

Products can't be manually added to a Smart collection. SHOPLINE automatically includes existing and new products that meet the conditions defined for the collection.

To manually select which products to include, create a Manual collection instead.

Q4: Why does my collection page show different products from the collection settings?

If your store has configured a Collection Tree, the storefront collection page follows the collection tree hierarchy rather than displaying only the products directly assigned to the collection.

Parent collections automatically include products from their subcollections. As a result, the products displayed on the storefront collection page may differ from those directly assigned in the collection settings.

Q5: Why don't products added to a collection appear on my storefront?

If a product is assigned to a collection but doesn't appear on the corresponding collection page, check the following:

• Product status: Make sure the product's Activate toggle is turned on. Deactivated products aren't displayed on your storefront.
• Sales channel: Make sure the product is published to the Online Store sales channel.
• Markets: If your store sells to multiple markets, make sure the product is available in the market the customer is browsing.

• Visibility: Make sure the product's Visibility on the product edit page is set to Visible, not Hidden. 

  Note: Product visibility is synced with the Hide Product app, so changes made in either location are reflected in the other. For details, refer to "Hide Product: Setup and Usage Guide."

• Collection assignment: Make sure the product is assigned to the correct collection. 
• Smart collection conditions: If the collection is a Smart collection, only products that meet the specified conditions are automatically included. Products that don't meet the conditions won't appear in the collection.
• Smart collection updates: If a Smart collection has multiple conditions or includes a large number of products, the system may take some time to update the products that meet the conditions. Check your storefront again later.
• Collection tree: If you've configured a Collection tree for your store, products on the storefront collection page are displayed based on the collection tree hierarchy. As a result, the products shown may differ from those assigned directly to the collection.
• Scheduled publish date: If you've scheduled the product to be published to the Online Store sales channel, it won't appear on your storefront until the scheduled date and time.