Product collections — overview and activation
A product collection is a group of products that show together on the product page. You use them for colour variants, related products, complete outfits and other products that belong together. Product collections replace the old related products and the Shop the Look bundles.
💡 Rollout
Product collections roll out step by step. If you do not see the Collections tab on your products, the feature is not on for your store yet. Contact support if you want it.
Two places to work with product collections
Place | What you do there |
|---|---|
The Collections tab on a product | Create Related products, Shop the Look and Custom collections for this product only. Connect the product to Product variations and Global collections |
Products › Product collections | Create and change Product variations and Global collections, which apply to many products |
Both places look the same. On the left, the types are folders that you open and close. Each folder shows how many collections it has. On the right, you see the collection you selected, with its products in a table.
Click the i icon next to the heading to get a step-by-step explanation of all the types.
How to show a collection on a product
"Activate a product collection" can mean three things. Pick the one that fits:
You want to | Do this |
|---|---|
Turn on product collections in the store | Contact support. Read Turn on product collections further down |
Show a collection on a specific product | Follow the table and steps below |
Turn on a collection you turned off | Turn on the Active switch on the collection. Read Product collections — creating and managing on a product |
How you connect a collection to the product depends on the collection type:
The type is | Open the product, go to the Collections tab, and |
|---|---|
Global | Open Global, click Connect global collection, and select one or more collections. The product does not have to be in the collection |
Product variations | Open Product variations, click Connect a connected collection, and select the collection. The product becomes a member and shows the other products in it |
Custom, Related products or Shop the Look | Create the collection on the product itself. It belongs to this product and needs no connection |
Then the Product collections block must be on the product page in the design builder, set to the same type. Without the block, nothing shows in the online store. Read Showing product collections on the product page.
If you are not sure whether to pick Global or Product variations, read Global product collections and Product variations.
The five types
Each product collection is one of five types. The type decides what you can do with the collection.
Product variations | Related products | Shop the Look | Custom | Global | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Used for | Variants of the same product, for example colours | Products that go with this one | Outfits or rooms where each product can be bought | A free collection for one product | A collection you reuse on many products |
Belongs to | All the products in the collection | One product | One product | One product | The products you connect it to |
Number per product | One | One | Several | Several | Several |
Display type | Basic, Image, Color or Dropdown | Fixed (Related products) | Fixed (Shop the Look) | Basic, Image, Color or Dropdown | Basic, Image, Color or Dropdown |
Created and changed | Under Products › Product collections | On the product | On the product | On the product | Under Products › Product collections |
Can be copied | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Can be imported from another product | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Order can be dragged | No | Not relevant (only one) | Yes | Yes | No |
Can be connected to many products at once | No | No | No | No | Yes |
Requires | All plans | All plans | Smart or higher | All plans | All plans |
Read more about the display types in Product collections — display types.
If you have used Related products for variants of the same product, you can turn them into Product variations. Read Product collections — turning related products into product variations.
Shop the Look and plan
Shop the Look requires Smart or higher to create, change, copy, import, sort and turn on and off. If you are on a lower plan, you keep the Shop the Look collections you have. They show in the online store, and you can delete them. Everything else is locked, and the collections are marked with a lock.
Internal name
A collection has two names:
Name | Who sees it |
|---|---|
Name in store | The customer. It shows above the collection on the product page |
Internal name | Only you and the other users in the admin. It is optional |
The internal name tells apart collections that have the same name in the store. Two collections can both be called "Size" in the online store, while you see them as "Drumhead size" and "String size".
In the admin, the collection shows as the internal name with the name in store in brackets, for example Drumhead size (Size). Search finds the collection by both names. If the collection has no internal name, only the name in store shows.
You set the internal name when you create the collection, or later under Settings.
Turn on product collections
You do not turn on product collections yourself. Mystore does it for you, and only for stores that use a template from the design builder. Contact support when you want them.
Before they are on, the Collections tab on the product shows only an activation card. The card leads to the page where Mystore turns them on, and that page is closed to the store's own users.
⛔ Cannot be undone
When product collections are turned on, your related products move to product collections in the background. You cannot go back to the old solution.
The move runs in the background. While it runs, the page shows a message about it, and the page updates itself when the move is done. You can close the page and come back later. Stores without related products are ready at once.
Each product that had related products gets one product collection of the type Related products, with the same products as before. This activation does not move old Shop the Look bundles. They move separately.
Changes affect the whole store
If you rename or delete a Global collection, the change applies to all the products that use it. The same applies to Product variations.
Products that are hidden or deactivated stay in the collection, but do not show in the online store. The Status column in the product table shows if a product is active, hidden or deactivated.
Next steps
- Product collections — creating and managing on a product
- Product collections — display types
- Global product collections and Product variations
- Product collections — turning related products into product variations
- Product collections — AI help
- Showing product collections on the product page