How Shopify Collections Can Organize Your Products and Increase Your Sales

How you organize your products in your Shopify store has a major impact on the way users browse and shop, as well as their overall experience. When used correctly, Shopify Collections can go a long way toward helping you achieve that organization and ultimately increase your sales.

You’ve probably agonized over your collection and tag structure since the launch of your store—and invested too much of your time getting it all together. But you know it could still be better, and knowing how to organize products on Shopify can help you get there.

Fortunately, you’re not on your own. We’ve helped countless Shopify store owners just like you organize their products while designing themes meant to impress and, in the end, convert. Our main goal is—and always will be—to increase conversions for your store.

It all starts and ends with Shopify Collections.

Just the Basics: What Are Shopify Collections?

Knowing how to organize products on Shopify begins and ends with the software’s core organizational functionality: Shopify Collections. It’s a simple organizing principle that allows you to organize and filter your products at the same time. You can even customize your theme to refine your display and user experience further.

In other words, collections can help you gather similar products into their own groups that make sense for your potential customers. You can name and rename collections as your inventory and business goals change. Examples include:

• T-shirts
• Short-sleeve t-shirts
• Ugly sweaters
• Products on sale or clearance
• Specific colors
• Gifts for children or a specific gender
• And more

Any category that makes sense can become a Shopify Collection. Combined, these collections help your store and inventory move from a big and difficult-to-browse inventory to individual sections that are easier to browse. Easy browsing makes for happy customers, and happy customers make for conversions.

Automated vs. Manual Collections: What You Need to Know

Not every collection on Shopify is created equal. Instead, the platform distinguishes between two types of collections that influence how your store is organized: automated and manual. While these two types look identical to the user, their management differs on the back end. Let’s examine each of them in more detail.

Manual Shopify Collections

The most basic type of collection is one you create manually. After creating it, you can select each product that should be a part of the collection, which remains static until you choose to either remove or add other products to it.

As you might imagine, manual collections take constant work. You’ll have to check in on them frequently to make sure all products in them are still appropriate. But if you’re planning on curating the collection anyways, like running a limited-time seasonal sale on apparel, manual collections can be the right choice.

Automated Shopify Collections

As its name suggests, an automated collection takes much of the manual upkeep out of the equation. Shopify offers 60 individual conditions that allow a product to be added or removed manually from any collection you specify. Some examples of these 60 selections include:

• Products that share the same name, or the same beginning of the name
• Products that share the same product category
• Items that share the same meta information, like color
• Products that share the same product tag
• Products that share the same price or are in the same price range
• And more.

You can also combine multiple conditions to narrow it down even further. For example, you can show products in the same price range sharing the same product category. Once the conditions are set up, Shopify will automatically add any product to the collection that matches the criteria and remove products that no longer do.

The setup possibilities here are nearly endless. For example, you can tag products with seasonal or audience tags. Then, watch them be dynamically added to collections as needed. But keep in mind that once you automate the process, manual adds and removals are no longer possible, reducing flexibility unless you change the criteria or change the product details.

How to Plan Your Organizational Structure Using Collections

Shopify Collections are the tool you can use to organize your online store. But you still need the organizational strategy behind it to make it work. So, before creating collections for your store, it’s time to think through that organizational structure.

That starts with a review of every product. This step becomes even more important if you’ve got a huge selection of different products, in which case you’ll need to find a good balance between the number of potential collections and the number of products in each collection.

Take a look at your competitors and see what’s working for them. Look at any audience research and information you have available to learn about their preferences. Finally, think of the experience your users will have and how you can prevent them from clicking or scrolling for more than a minute.

From there, map out the collections that make the most sense. Especially if you’re organizing your store through this principle, it’s critical to avoid leaving out any products. An organizational structure should always look to avoid an ‘other’ category where audiences will rarely look.

How to Implement Your Organizational Structure in Shopify

Implementing your organizational structure on your online store cannot be done incorrectly or at the last minute. Getting it right can be incredibly time-consuming, but it’s essential if you want to ensure a positive user experience for your potential customers.

You’ll want to think through things like how to add links to collections and how the collections’ layout and appearance play into your store’s overall look and feel. You can even create a strategy to change collections’ availability and publication dates to account for time-limited sales or seasonal items.

Hiring an outside resource tends to be your best option, especially when that outside resource can become a true partner. Handing the organizational project off to an expert will give you the time to focus on other aspects of your business while still staying involved in the strategic part of building the collections.

With the right partner, you can significantly reduce the stress of organizing your Shopify store while maximizing the potential of Shopify collections for an improved user experience and conversions. Ready to get started? Get in touch today to schedule a meeting.