Shopify Collections Tutorial — Manual & Automated Setup

How to Create Shopify Collections (Manual & Automated)

Shopify collections are one of the most important ways to organize your store and guide customers toward the right products. In this post, we’ll break down how to create both manual and automated collections, how the conditions work, and how to use them to save time as your inventory grows.

Collections are the backbone of your Shopify storefront — they make navigation easier and help customers find what they’re looking for faster. To create one, head to your Shopify Admin → Products → Collections. You can then choose between a manual collection or an automated collection.

Manual vs. Automated Collections

Manual collections are perfect for new stores or small catalogs. You simply choose which products belong in the collection — no conditions required. For example, you can create a “Featured Products” collection and manually add your top sellers.

Automated collections use Shopify’s built-in condition system to automatically group products that match your chosen rules. You can filter by product tag, type, price, vendor, inventory, weight, or even variant titles. This means as your catalog grows, new products automatically sort into the right categories — no extra work needed.

Understanding Shopify Collection Conditions

Shopify gives you powerful logic controls for automated collections. You can select whether a product must match all conditions or any of them. For example:

• All conditions — A product must meet every rule (e.g., product tag = “hat” and price > $20).
• Any condition — A product can meet one or more rules (e.g., product tag = “red” or product type = “cards”).

This logic helps you build dynamic, flexible collections — like a “Sale” page where Compare at price is not empty, or a “Clearance” section where inventory is less than 5.

Common Use Cases for Shopify Collections

Some of the most popular automatic collections you can create include:

• On Sale — Compare at price is not empty.
• Clearance — Inventory stock is less than a set number.
• Seasonal — Product tag equals “Valentines,” “Summer,” or “Holiday.”
• By Product Type — Product type equals “Shirts,” “Shoes,” or “Accessories.”

Pro Tips

✅ Use product tags as your main automation trigger — they’re invisible to customers but powerful for backend organization. ✅ Avoid over-complicating conditions early on. Start simple, then scale up. ✅ Combine manual and automatic collections strategically — for example, feature your best automated “Sale” items manually on your homepage.

Remember, every Shopify store evolves. What starts as a few manual collections will eventually turn into a network of smart, self-updating automated collections — saving hours every week.

If you’re just getting started, check out the 30-Day Beginner’s Shopify Program — it walks you through your full setup, step by step. You can also explore the homepage for tutorials and free resources, or join our Patreon to support future videos and get your brand featured.