If you’ve ever wanted more control over where products appear on your Shopify collection pages, you’ve probably asked the question: how do I manually sort products in Shopify? The good news is that yes, you can manually sort products in Shopify. The bad news is that if you have large collections, the process can get frustrating really fast.
In Shopify, manual sorting happens inside a collection. To manually reorder products, you go to Products > Collections, click the collection you want to edit, and in the Products section choose Manually from the Sort dropdown. From there, you can drag and drop products or select products and use the Move to option to place them in a specific position, then save your changes.
So yes, Shopify gives you a way to manually sort products. But for many merchants, that is where the real headache begins.
The Problem With Manually Sorting Products in Shopify
On paper, manual sorting sounds simple enough. In reality, it can turn into a very time-consuming project, especially if you have collections with a lot of products.
One of the biggest frustrations with Shopify’s native interface is that it only loads 15 products at a time. That means if you’re working with a collection that has dozens or even hundreds of products, you’ll be stuck clicking Load more products over and over again just to get the full collection visible. That alone is tedious.
Then comes the actual sorting. Shopify lets you move products around, but it is not exactly built for speed when you are trying to merchandise a large collection page. While you can reposition items, the overall experience becomes clunky when you have to work your way through long collections in small batches. If you frequently adjust product placement, this can eat up a lot of time that could be spent on more valuable tasks.
A Better Way to Manually Sort Products in Shopify
Our Magic Sorter app has been helping BigCommerce merchants merchandise collection and category pages for years, and now it is available for Shopify merchants too.
With Magic Sorter, you simply select the collection you want to sort and use an easy drag and drop interface to move products exactly where you want them. Need to move one product? No problem. Need to select multiple products at once and place them together in a new position? Magic Sorter makes that easy too.
Instead of fighting Shopify’s interface and repeatedly loading more products just to see what you’re working with, Magic Sorter gives you a much easier and quicker way to manage collection page merchandising.
Why Would You Want to Manually Position Products?
Manual sorting is a very real merchandising strategy that can help drive more visibility to the products you want customers to see first.
One of the most common reasons to manually sort products is manufacturer promotions. If a brand is offering incentives, co-op advertising dollars, discounts, or special terms, it makes sense to move those products closer to the top of the page where shoppers are more likely to see them.
Another major use case is seasonal items. If you sell products tied to a holiday, season, or event, those hot-selling items should not be buried halfway down a collection page. Moving them to the top gives them more exposure during the time they matter most.
There are plenty of other smart merchandising reasons to manually position products too. You may want to push new arrivals to the top so shoppers immediately see what is fresh in your catalog. You may want to highlight higher-margin items in premium spots to increase profitability. You may want to feature best sellers near the top because popular products can help create trust and encourage shoppers to keep browsing. If you are running a sale, you may want to move clearance or promotional items higher up for extra attention.
Just as important, there are times when you may want to move products down on the page. Maybe you want to push older, less relevant inventory lower. Maybe you want to move products with lower margins out of the prime positions. Maybe there are discontinued colors, outdated styles, or slower-selling items that still need to remain in the collection, but don’t deserve top billing.
Take Control of your Product Merchandising with Magic Sorter
The goal of merchandising is simple: put the right products in front of the right shoppers at the right time. Shopify’s built-in manual sorting can technically get the job done, but for merchants with larger catalogs, it can be a slow and frustrating process.
Magic Sorter solves that problem by giving merchants a faster, easier way to sort products on collection pages. Whether you want to promote seasonal inventory, feature a specific manufacturer, push best sellers, highlight new arrivals, or move low-priority items further down the page, Magic Sorter makes it much easier to control your collection layouts.
Best of all, the features of Magic Sorter are the same for both BigCommerce and Shopify. The app is available on both platforms for $25 per month and includes a free 3-day trial so you can explore everything it has to offer. That includes features like automatically moving out-of-stock products to the bottom of the page and then returning them to their original position once they come back in stock, along with even more tools designed to make merchandising easier.
If manually sorting products in Shopify has become a chore, Magic Sorter was built to fix exactly that.
Get started now, click here to install Magic Sorter for Shopify, and if you’re a BigCommerce merchant, Magic Sorter for BigCommerce is located here.
Scott Sanfilippo began his eCommerce journey in 1994 by co-founding one of the Internet’s first online retailers, TheFerretStore.com, which was acquired by PetCo in 2006. In 2001, he co-founded the eCommerce design and marketing firm Solid Cactus, which was acquired by web.com in 2009. Today, Scott is the General Manager of Your Store Wizards and lives in Delray Beach, FL. Scott can be contacted at scott@yourstorewizards.com.