Set Up Shopify Collections in Airtable: Fields and Steps

Collections group your Shopify products for the storefront. Manual collections list products picked by hand, and automated collections add products that match their rules. Each collection has its own title, description, image, sort order, and search listing.

Editing collections in the Shopify admin means opening each collection page one at a time. For seasonal merchandising, bulk descriptions, or coordinated SEO updates, that is slow.

AirPower brings collections into Airtable. Manual and automated collections land in the same table, so you can review every collection in one grid, edit them in bulk, and send the changes back to Shopify.

For a summary of every field and what goes back to Shopify, see Bulk edit Shopify collections with Airtable.

What collections contain

The Collections tab is laid out like a collection page in the Shopify admin, with a value from one of your recently updated collections.

Title and description
The collection title and its description as HTML.

Products
The collection type, the number of products, the sort order, and the link to your Products table.

Search engine listing
Page title, meta description, and URL handle.

Publishing and Image
When the collection was published, its sales channels, and its image with alt text.

Behind the scenes
The Shopify ID, the last update, and the store URL.

Collection type

Collection type says whether a collection is a Manual Collection, an Automated Collection, or an Advanced Collection. It comes from Shopify and can’t be changed from Airtable.

Shopify doesn’t turn a manual collection into an automated one, or the other way around. Create a new collection instead.

Bring collections into Airtable

The New sync setup’s Product catalog starting point adds Collections with their table. See Set up your first sync.

To add them to a sync you already have:

1. On the dashboard, click Edit on your Shopify to Airtable sync
2. Click Add data, then Collections
3. Click Create a Collections table, or pick one of your tables from Use a table
4. Click Save in the save bar
5. In Save changes, keep Collections ticked and click Save changes

Manual and automated collections both arrive, each with its Shopify ID. To download them again, click Settings, find Download data, and click Download next to Collections.

Update or create collections from Airtable

The data type needs to be on the sync. If it isn’t, add it with Add data first.

1. On the dashboard, click Edit on your Airtable to Shopify sync
2. Click Collections, then Whole collection
3. Click Send from Airtable on the fields you want to update
4. Click Save in the save bar
5. Edit the rows in Airtable
6. Click Sync now

A row with a Shopify ID updates that collection. A row without one becomes a new manual collection, as long as it has a title, and the products linked to it join in the same run. The sync writes the new Shopify ID back to the row.

Collection images

Image URL takes the web address of an image, and Shopify downloads it. An Airtable attachment column works too, because the sync sends the attachment’s URL. Image alt text describes the image for search engines and screen readers.

Image width and height come from Shopify and can’t be changed from Airtable.

Add products to collections

Membership of manual collections follows the linked-record column between your Products and Collections tables. See Add or remove products in collections.

What you’ll see after the download

Every collection in your store has a row in the Collections table, with its Shopify ID. After an Airtable to Shopify run, the collections in the Shopify admin show your changes, and new collections appear in the list.

Related pages

• Add or remove products in collections
• Bulk edit Shopify products and variants
• Update product SEO