Collections from Shopify can also be utilized through Shopify Apps to control and display collections of items. In the final part of this article, I’ll explain the way I intend to utilize Shopify Collections within my forthcoming Best Sellers Shopify App.

In this blog, I’ll go over:

Shopify Smart Collections
Shopify Custom Collections
Sorting of Shopify Collection
How will my Best Sellers App will work? Shopify Collections

Shopify Smart Collections

Smart Collections, often known as automated collections, offer the ability to add items to the Shopify collection based on the rules.

You can choose any of the attributes to match with:

Product title
Type of product
Product vendor
Price of the product
Tags for the product
Price comparison
Weight
Stock of inventory
Variant’s name

In addition to the type of match that will be performed:

is the same as
is not the same as
is higher than
is less than
begins with
is completed with
includes
is not a source of

The rules are dynamically applied. As new products are introduced, or the attributes of a product change and the Smart Collection will be automatically adjusted to reflect these changes.

Shopify Custom Collections

Custom Collections, sometimes known as manual collections, offer an option to manually add items to an existing Shopify collection.

Custom Collections permit you to directly control the items that comprise the collection. This means that items need to be added manually, to the collection and then removed.

Sorting of Shopify Collection

The majority of sort options are easily explained. However, I’d like highlight a few things about manual sorting and the Sort using the best selling Sort choices:

Sort by hand

A Sort by hand feature requires the users to use a manual drag and drop items to indicate their sorting order in the set. For large collections it can quickly become difficult to manage.

Sort by most popular

The Sort by best-selling sort option allows a set of products to be classified based on the total sales of each item. Here’s Shopify’s description of the By best-selling sorting option:

The By best-selling sorting method can be made by the frequency the variant is featured in order but not the total amount of variant units sold. The variant that is featured at the top of the list will be listed first, while the variant that appears in the smallest number of orders will be placed last. Sorting the collection is calculated every week.

Shopify determines the highest selling rank based on sales data from all times. This means that the top selling type could not be a true reflection of the current top sellers because it favors the most popular items.

How does my Best Sellers app will make use of Shopify Collections

My Best Sellers app will make use of Shopify Collections as a way to display the top products in a store. In the beginning, I had hoped to utilize Smart Collections. Smart Collections since they have rules built-in. However, after more research, Smart Collections are probably not the ideal choice for customized Shopify Apps.

Because Smart Collections are dynamic, Smart Collections don’t allow for precise control over the products that are included within the collection. To be specific, for Shopify Apps in particular, making sure that the collection has the correct grouping of items is among the top most important demands. Furthermore, Smart Collections do not allow the order of items within this collection. It is determined by using a Smart Collection API.

My Best Sellers App needs to monitor both the top-selling items that are placed in collections in addition to the custom order that is with respect to the best-selling guidelines. In the end, this Best Sellers app will be made up of Custom Collections combined with some specific settings for the app to decide the way to handle and group the best-selling items.

The specifics regarding these Best Sellers App rules are currently in the process of being developed. The first Best Sellers collection options could include the following methods:

Type of product
Tags for products
product vendor

The Best Sellers app will automatically manage the items within the Custom Collection, making them reflect the current top sellers and sort them according to their sales rank as calculated. Additionally, as I’ll be in charge of all sales rank and sorting calculations in-line The collection of Best Sellers App might be able to support custom sorting options, such as:

By sales revenue
By sales quantity
The month that has the best-selling record.
The best-selling of all time.
With the weighted formula (i.e. weight sales from the past more significantly)

The Best Sellers app may not be able to support all these options at first. But, due to the control offered by the Custom Collection, I’ll be able to expand and expand this list of choices over time.

Summary

There are two kinds of Shopify Collections:

Smart Collections, also referred to as automatic collections
Custom Collections are also referred to as manual collections

Smart Collections offer a convenient way to manage the collections of your products on your Shopify store. If the rules supported and sorting options are in line with your requirements, Smart Collections may be the best option.

Custom Collections permit you to directly manage the products included within the collection. If you require greater control of your collection, Custom Collections should satisfy your requirements.