Shopify Product Sorting: How to Use Basic Sort Options — and What's Missing for Growing Stores

Every Shopify merchant has experienced this. You launch a new collection. You refresh the page. And something doesn't look right. Your newest products aren't showing first. A sold-out item sits in the hero row. A campaign spotlight product is buried somewhere in the middle. Or your inventory has changed overnight — but your collection layout hasn't.

Shopify's default sorting gives every store a solid start. But as your catalogue grows, seasons change, and customers expect faster browsing, merchants quickly find that basic sorting rules no longer match real-world merchandising needs.

This guide looks at what Shopify offers today, where the gaps appear, and how smarter automation can fill them.

1. What Shopify Lets You Sort By — And How to Use It

Shopify includes a few simple sorting options for every collection:

• Best selling
• Alphabetical (A→Z / Z→A)
• Price (High→Low / Low→High)
• Newest / Oldest (based on the date the product was created)
• Manual (drag-and-drop)

To change the sort order:

1. Go to Products → Collections in your Shopify admin.
2. Open the collection you want to edit.
3. In the Products section, open the Sort dropdown.
4. Choose one of Shopify's built-in sorting options.

If you choose Manual, you can also:

• drag items using the ⠿ icon, or
• select multiple items and move them to a specific position.

These tools work well for small catalogues or stores with very stable stock.

But as product ranges grow, seasons shift, and inventory changes daily, merchants often find that basic sorting rules no longer reflect what customers actually need to see.

2. Where Shopify Sorting Starts to Feel Limiting

2.1. "New Arrivals" don't always appear first

Shopify sorts by date created, not date published. So if you upload early, adjust drafts, or import products, your new releases can sink into the middle of the collection.

A fashion merchant recently told us:

"We launched 20 Spring products, but only 3 appeared in the top row."

This is extremely common.

2.2. You cannot sort by inventory or inventory value

Real-world merchandising is stock-driven:

• High stock → promote
• Low stock → deprioritise
• Out of stock → hide or push down
• High inventory value → surface first

Shopify doesn't support any inventory-based sorting natively. This is one of the biggest everyday pain points for scaling stores.

2.3. Seasonal stories don't fit static sorting rules

During BFCM, summer, Mother's Day, gifts, or sale events:

• Seasonal hero products need top visibility
• Bundles should sit together
• Discounted items need to be clear
• Fast sellers shouldn't be blocked by slow movers
• Sold-out items must be hidden automatically

Shopify's static rules can't adapt to seasonal changes or campaign flows without constant manual updates.

2.4. Manual sorting doesn't scale

Dragging products works for 20 items. It's stressful at 200. And impossible at 2,000+. Most merchants eventually end up spending hours rearranging products…only to redo everything the next day when stock changes.

3. How Ouiteo Helps

We built Ouiteo to help merchants solve exactly these gaps — without replacing Shopify's structure, and without forcing you to learn anything complicated.

3.1. Real "New Arrival" sorting

Sort by date published, or custom logic that better reflects real launch timing.

3.2. Inventory-aware merchandising

Automatically sort by:

• In-stock first
• High → low stock
• Inventory value
• Push down low-stock
• Hide sold-out items
• Auto-unhide when restocked

This keeps collections fresh and prevents customer frustration.

3.3. Collections that maintain themselves

Instead of dragging products every week, merchants set rules like:

• Promote best performers
• Group related products
• Seasonal uplift
• Keep locked positions for key items
• Push slow movers lower

The collection reorganises itself based on real data.

3.4. Cleaner browsing for customers

When collections stay up-to-date automatically, customers find what they want faster — and convert more often.

Final Thoughts

Shopify's default sorting gives every store a solid foundation, but growing stores need more flexibility.

With Ouiteo | Collection Sort & Manage, you can automate product sorting, keep your collections fresh, and maintain better merchandising—without manual work.