‍Issue 3, Creating Shopify Product Collections

‍Issue 3, Creating Shopify Product Collections

Welcome to the third installation of Shopify Best Practices. If you’re new, please check out our previous edition here.

It’s time to explore how to tag and upload your wares with Shopify product collections. Selling products is the name of the game, so clean and enticing product collections are imperative for converting customers in the e-commerce environment.

Understanding Product Collections‍

A Shopify product collection is an assortment of products that customers can browse and shop from, forming the base of your store’s user experience (UX).

At the top of your homepage, your product collections will be organized into categories. If you sell clothing, you can make collections for “Dresses,” “Shirts,” or “Pants.” Common practice is to place collections on the top of your home page like a navigation menu, to help your customers find exactly what they are shopping for.

Add a few broad categories to help your customers quickly find the collection they’re looking for and then further organize your collections by tagging your products with specific attributes.

Shopify comes with templates but you can make tags yourself. Here are some example tags for a potential clothing store:

• Material Used
• Product Color And Sizes
• Product Type (Shirt, socks, pants, dress, shoes, etc…)
• Seasonality
• Style

Product tagging helps organize your automated collections and filters. Think of them as lists that you can pull from to organize the merchandising aspects of your business when needed.

Filters, on the other hand, help customers quickly narrow down products in your collections. Using all of these elements together helps create a memorable user experience that converts visitors into customers.

Creating Shopify Product Collections‍

To start, find the Products page on Shopify, then Collections, and finally the Create Collection button in the top right. Give the collection a title, a description, and an image to represent it.

Titles should summarize your products in a few snappy words to capture visitors’ attention. It should read like a newspaper headline because it will appear anywhere your collection lives.

Your description should summarize the product, but it’s also a great place to use SEO terms to make this feature work twice as hard for you. Some keyword research to tag with your descriptions will go a long way in boosting your organic search results. The same thing applies to the collection’s URL.

Uploading Shopify Products‍

Shopify allows you to upload products with a manual or automated feature, depending on the limitations of your theme. For example, the default theme limits you to 25 products per collection.

You can add products to Shopify through your administrative account using the Add Product button. Enter your product’s titles, descriptions, and images. Remember, to use SEO terms in your product descriptions and you can also use 3D models, videos, and other media in your product’s background images instead of photos to provide a more fulfilling shopping experience.

Once you’ve uploaded your products, you’ll need to price your items and set up your currency and tax information on the General Settings page.

Now to add filters to your collections, go to the Online Store page in Shopify and then Navigation. Scroll down to Collections and Search Filters, and add a filter. Browse through your options and add filters to your Shopify product collections and then save.

Shopify Product Collection Apps And Banners‍

There are other resources available to you to help elevate your Shopify product collections from the competition, like Shopify apps and banners. A well-placed banner, offering a discount on other products during checkout will encourage your customers to buy more products, thus increasing sales.

Mintt Studio’s Instafeed adds an Instagram feed to your store page, giving shoppers the ability to browse your products and shop from their Instagram feed. It can host social product galleries, add multiple feeds, and advanced product tagging capabilities for your store page. Pricing starts at $4.99 per month.

Keep An Eye Out For Issue Four‍

We know your store page has never looked better, but you still need to launch! Luckily, our next Blog issue tackles how to publish your Shopify store for the first time.

Click here to read our previous issue on best design practices.

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