Use this article to set up how shoppers narrow down and reorder the products on your collection pages: which filters they can use, the order those filters appear in, how the filter panel looks, which sort options they can choose from, and which sort order applies before they choose anything.
To configure any of it, go to Smart Collections → Template & Settings in your Rebuy admin, open the Collection Template Editor, then select Filters or Sort By under General Settings in the editor's left navigation. Both pages apply globally to every collection on your store. This article is part of the Smart Collections Template & Settings documentation set — for a general introduction, see Smart Collections: Template & Settings Overview. The filters and sort options that appear to shoppers are built from the product data you have set up in Shopify, so your Shopify catalog determines which options are available to configure here.
Choose which filters shoppers can use
The Filters page controls which filter types shoppers can use to narrow down products on every collection page. The page opens with the description Configure the default filter options that apply to all collections, and it has two areas: a drag-and-drop list of your active filters, and an EDIT button that opens the Filter Options panel where you enable, relabel, and configure each filter.
Standard Shopify filters
These filters come from your Shopify product catalog and are available on every store. Each one can be enabled or disabled individually with its toggle, and each can be renamed using its label field.
Availability — filters products by whether they are in stock or out of stock.
Product Type — filters products by their Shopify product type.
Price — filters products by price range.
Product Tags — filters products by Shopify product tag. This filter has three modes: All displays every tag, Specific displays only a hand-picked list of tags, and Exclude Specific displays every tag except a hand-picked list.
Vendor — filters products by their Shopify product vendor.
Product options
Product options are the variant options you configure in Shopify, such as Color, Size, Material, or Style. This list is not fixed — Smart Collections pulls it dynamically from your own Shopify catalog, so each store sees only its own options. A store whose products use Color, Size, and Material sees those three; a store using different options sees its own set. Toggle on any product option to offer it as a filter, and use its label field to change how it appears to shoppers.
Product and variant metafields
You can also use metafields as filters to give shoppers more advanced ways to narrow a collection. You can enable up to 25 product metafields and up to 25 variant metafields. The following metafield types are supported for both:
Single line text
Single line text (list)
Decimal
Integer
True or false
Why a metafield does not appear as a filter option
If a product or variant metafield is missing from the Filter Options panel, one of these constraints is usually the reason:
If the metafield type is not supported. Only single line text, single line text (list), decimal, integer, and true or false can be used as filters.
The value is too long. A metafield value is not surfaced as a filter option if it exceeds 256 characters or 40 words.
The value contains HTML. Any HTML detected in a metafield value is stripped from the filter data, and values containing HTML are not surfaced as filter options.
You have no metafields configured in Shopify. If you have no product or variant metafields at all, the corresponding section does not appear in the panel.
Your product data needs a resync. If the metafield exists in Shopify, meets every rule above, and still does not appear, refresh your synced product data. See Sync Product Data, Store Data, and Clear Cache.
If the metafield is still missing after a resync, contact Rebuy support through the messenger on this page.
Reorder the filters shoppers see
Filters appear to shoppers in the same top-down order shown in the list on the Filters page, so the filter at the top of the list is the first one a shopper sees. To change the order, drag a filter up or down in the list. The editor's own guidance says the same thing: You can prioritize filters by dragging them into your preferred order.
Style the filter panel
The Filter Settings section below the filter list controls how filters look and behave for shoppers. These settings apply to every filter at once rather than to individual filters:
Setting | What it does | Default |
Icon Selectors | Sets the icon shoppers use to expand and collapse filter sections. Choose PLUS / MINUS or CHEVRON. | Plus / Minus |
Show Product Count | Displays the number of matching products next to each filter option. | On |
Show Selected Filters | Displays the filters a shopper has chosen at the top of the filter list. | On |
Keep All Filter Options Collapsed | Starts every filter section collapsed when the page loads, so shoppers expand them as needed. | On |
Always Show First Filter Expanded | Automatically expands the first filter in the list when the page loads. | Off |
To style the filter panel beyond these settings, add your own CSS in the editor's Custom CSS block. For ready-made selectors and examples, see Smart Collections CSS Guide.
How Smart Collections filters combine when a shopper selects more than one
When a shopper selects more than one filter, Smart Collections combines those selections to decide which products appear. It uses two behaviors, depending on whether the selections come from the same filter or from different filters. A filter is a single category a shopper can narrow by, such as Color, Size, or Price, and each filter contains the individual values a shopper can select within it, such as Blue or Green within Color.
Different filters combine with AND, which narrows the results. When a shopper selects values from two or more different filters, a product must match all of them to appear. Selecting a Color and a Size together shows only products matching both.
Multiple values in the same filter combine with OR, which widens the results. When a shopper selects two or more values within one filter, a product matching any of those values appears. Selecting two colors shows products in either color.
For example, a shopper filtering by Color: Green, Size: 42, and Size: 43 gets the logic Green AND (42 OR 43). The results include:
A green size 42 shirt is included, because it matches the selected color and one of the selected sizes.
A green size 43 shirt is included, for the same reason.
A red size 42 shirt is excluded, because red is not a selected color.
A green size 40 shirt is excluded, because 40 is not a selected size.
Because this logic is precise, shoppers may see fewer results than a looser match would return, and a collection shows zero results when no product matches every selected filter. That is expected behavior, not an error. This logic applies to every Smart Collections page and to headless integrations, it requires no action from you, and there is currently no setting that switches it to OR across different filters.
Choose which sort options shoppers can use
The Sort By page controls which sort options shoppers can choose from on every collection page. Select Sort By under General Settings in the editor's left navigation — the screen that opens is headed Sorting. Like the Filters page it has a drag-and-drop list of active sort options and an EDIT button, which opens the Sort By Options panel described as Configure the options shoppers can use to sort any collection.
Each sort option in the panel has a toggle and a Sort By Label field.
The available sort options are:
Featured — the base collection order. It starts from the products assigned to that collection in Shopify, then applies any Rebuy Merchandising Rules you have configured to determine the final ranking. This option is always on and has no toggle, so it cannot be disabled.
Best Sellers — sorts by sales volume over a lookback period you choose.
Highest Price — sorts by price, highest first.
Lowest Price — sorts by price, lowest first.
New Arrivals — sorts by date, newest first.
Oldest — sorts by date, oldest first.
Highest Rating — sorts by average product rating, highest first. Requires a connected review app.
Lowest Rating — sorts by average product rating, lowest first. Requires a connected review app.
Name (A-Z) — sorts alphabetically by product name.
Name (Z-A) — sorts in reverse alphabetical order by product name.
Highest Rating and Lowest Rating both sort on review data that Smart Collections pulls from your review app, so they need a connected and enabled review provider to work. See Smart Collections: Display Product Review Star Ratings for how to connect one.
A collection running in a live campaign uses the Sort By Options configured in that campaign instead of the options set here. See Smart Collection Campaigns: Scheduling, Filters, and More.
Choose whether New Arrivals and Oldest use the created or published date
New Arrivals and Oldest each have their own date setting that controls which Shopify date they sort on. You can choose Date Created in Shopify or Date Published in Shopify. Both default to Date Created in Shopify. The two dates differ whenever a product was created in Shopify well before it was made available to a sales channel, so pick the one that matches how your team adds products.
Set the default sort order
The Your Default Sort box at the top of the Sorting screen shows the sort order that applies when a shopper first lands on a collection page, before they choose anything from the Sort By dropdown. Its tooltip reads Choose how products are sorted when the collection page first loads.
You do not set this box directly — it is not a drag target and there is no separate default-sort picker. Smart Collections shows whichever enabled sort option sits highest in the Sort Options list, so you change the default by dragging that option to the top of the list. The box then updates to match.
Rename a filter or a sort option
You can override the name shoppers see for any filter or any sort option without changing your Shopify data:
Filters — use the label field beside a filter in the Filter Options panel. For example, you can relabel the Product Type filter as "Care Type".
Sort options — use the Sort By Label field beside a sort option in the Sort By Options panel. Its tooltip reads Rename the sort by options shoppers will use to sort your products. Leave a label blank to keep the default name.
Set the Best Sellers lookback period
The Lookback Period dropdown determines how far back Smart Collections looks when it calculates the sales volume used to rank products under Best Sellers. The dropdown appears below Best Sellers once that option is enabled, and offers:
Today
Last 7 Days
Last 30 Days (the default)
Last 60 Days
Last 90 Days
Custom — reveals a Days input that accepts any whole number from 1 to 365
Tip: A short lookback such as Last 7 Days surfaces what is selling right now and reacts quickly to seasonality. A long lookback such as Last 90 Days emphasizes consistent sellers and stays more stable. Pick the period that matches how often your bestsellers actually shift.
Style the Sort By dropdown
The Sorting Dropdown Styling control sets how the "Sort by" dropdown appears on your collection pages. Its tooltip reads Select a styling option for how the "Sort by" dropdown appears on the site. Two styles are available, each shown as a live example beside its radio button:
Boxed — renders the dropdown inside a bordered box. This is the default.
Inline — renders the dropdown as plain text with no surrounding box.
To style the dropdown beyond these two options, add your own CSS in the editor's Custom CSS block. See Smart Collections CSS Guide.
Frequently asked questions
Why don't my product metafields appear as Smart Collections filter options?
If a product or variant metafield does not appear as a filter option, check it against the four constraints Smart Collections applies. Only five metafield types are supported as filters: single line text, single line text (list), decimal, integer, and true or false. Values longer than 256 characters or 40 words are suppressed. Values containing HTML are suppressed. And if you have no metafields configured in Shopify at all, the metafields section does not appear in the Filter Options panel. You can also enable a maximum of 25 product metafields and 25 variant metafields. If your metafield satisfies all of that and still does not appear, refresh your synced product data — see Sync Product Data, Store Data, and Clear Cache — then contact Rebuy support if it is still missing.
Why am I seeing fewer results when shoppers use multiple filters in Smart Collections?
Smart Collections combines filters from different categories using AND logic, so a shopper who applies filters across two or more categories, for example Color and Size, sees only the products that match every selected category. That returns fewer and more precise results than matching any selected filter across categories. Multiple options within the same category still combine as OR, so selecting Size 42 and Size 43 still matches either size. A collection can return zero results when no product matches every selected category, which is expected behavior rather than an error, and no action is required from you.
What does the Relevance sort option mean in Smart Collections?
Relevance is the base collection order in Smart Collections. It starts with the list of products assigned to that collection in Shopify, then applies any Merchandising Rules you have configured in Rebuy — such as boosting, demoting, or hiding products by attribute — to determine how products are ranked and displayed. Note that this is different from Relevance in Smart Search, where Relevance is powered by Rebuy's search algorithm to match products against a shopper's query. Smart Collections has no search term, so there is no query to match against. Relevance is one option in the Sort Options list like any other — to make it the order shoppers see first, drag it to the top of that list so it becomes Your Default Sort.
How do I change which sort order shoppers see first in Smart Collections?
Drag the sort option you want to the top of the Sort Options list on the Sorting screen, and make sure it is enabled. Smart Collections uses the highest enabled option in that list as the default, and the Your Default Sort box updates to show it. There is no separate default-sort picker to set, and dragging an option into the Your Default Sort box is not how it works — that box is a read-only display of what the list order already produces.
Can shoppers sort a Smart Collections page by rating?
Yes, using the Highest Rating and Lowest Rating sort options on the Sort By page. Both rank products by their average review rating, and both need a connected and enabled review provider because the rating data comes from your review app. Enable the sort option on the Sort By page and connect a provider on the Product Reviews page. See Smart Collections: Display Product Review Star Ratings.