How to create a collection: with manual and automatic collection of products

When a customer visits your website, they want to quickly navigate to the products they're interested in purchasing. Shopify makes this easy by allowing you to create collections.

Collections allow you to organize your products into structured groups. Keep in mind that products can be in multiple collections. This is beneficial because it helps your store stay organized and makes it easier for your customers to navigate.

Here are some examples of collections: clothing or merchandise for men, women, or children; best-selling or discounted items; items in a specific color or material; seasonal items for holidays or special events.

There are two types of collections you can create: manually collected products and automatically collected products.

A hand-picked collection includes only items that you select yourself. This type of collection requires more work to create and maintain, but it allows you to create specialized collections that you personally curate.

An auto-collection collection uses the conditions you choose to automatically include matching products. This type of collection is ideal for businesses with a large selection of products. You can add up to 60 product selection rules. And you can specify whether products must meet all or just one of the conditions to be included in the collection.

Let's set up a manual collection together. In the Shopify admin, go to "Products" and click "Collections". Click "Create Collection". Make sure your collection name is clear and descriptive. When naming your collection, be clear, not clever.

In the collection type section, select "Manual". Now click "Save". In the "Products" section, search for products or click "Browse" and then add the products you want to have in the collection. Set the sort order for the products. Some Shopify themes give you the option to add a collection image. If you do not select a collection image, the image of the first product in your collection will be used.

The SEO section shows how the collection will appear in search results. If you want to edit this information, click "Edit website SEO". Just like the SEO of your product pages, you can edit the SEO of your collection pages if you want. This is a great way to suggest collections that are relevant to search queries to search engines. If you don't want the collection description to appear on your collection page, at least add the collection description to the SEO section so that search engines can find your collection.

In the "Product availability" section, click "Manage" to select the sales channels you want to display your collection in. To start, make your collection available in your online store. Later, after you review the sales channels tutorial, you can come back and add more channels.

In the "Collection image" block, click "Add image" to upload an image of the collection. You want an image that best represents the contents of the collection. Click "Save". Click "View" to see your collection.

If you come to Shopify with a large inventory of products, or your inventory has increased as your business grows, then auto-collected collections can save you time and effort.

Now that you know how to create a collection, you're one step closer to launching your online store. In the next tutorial, I'll show you how to add payment gateways to your Shopify store.