Supercharge Your Shopify Automated Collections: A Guide to 'Starts With' and 'Contains' Tag Logic

The Automated Collection Tag Dilemma: Beyond 'Equals'

Hey everyone! Your friendly neighborhood Shopify expert from Shopping Cart Mover here, diving into a super common frustration I've seen pop up time and time again in the community forums. It's about automated collections and product tags, specifically that nagging feeling that the 'equals' condition just isn't quite cutting it.

Recently, a thread started by @Khalid_AlGhamdi perfectly captured this pain point: "Add 'starts with' or 'contains' matching to the Product Tag condition in automated collections." And honestly, who hasn't wished for this?

We all love automated collections, right? Set it and forget it! They're fantastic for keeping your store organized and ensuring products land in the right places without manual effort. But here's the rub: when you're trying to build a collection based on product tags, Shopify's built-in conditions are pretty basic. You get 'Product tag is equal to' or 'Product tag is not equal to'.

That's fine if you're using very specific, single-purpose tags like new-arrival or on-sale. But what if your tags are more descriptive, like summer-collection-2023, winter-collection-2024, or even something like material-cotton, material-linen? You want a collection that pulls in all 'summer-collection' items, regardless of the year, or all 'material-cotton' products, even if the tag is material-cotton-organic. You need a 'starts with' or 'contains' operator, and it's just not there natively.

As @Khalid_AlGhamdi pointed out, this functionality would be a game-changer for "filtering and organizing collections." And he's absolutely right!

Why Native 'Starts With' and 'Contains' Tag Matching is Crucial

Imagine you run a fashion store. You might tag products with:

• season-summer-2023, season-summer-2024, season-winter-2023
• material-cotton, material-organic-cotton, material-recycled-polyester
• sale-clearance, sale-flash

Without 'starts with' or 'contains', creating a collection for all 'summer' items, regardless of year, or all 'cotton' items, regardless of organic status, becomes a manual nightmare. You'd have to list every single specific tag variant in your collection conditions, which is not only tedious but prone to errors and difficult to scale as your product catalog grows.

Community Solutions: Code vs. The Clever Workaround

When this kind of limitation arises, the Shopify community often steps up with ingenious workarounds. While some, like @suyash1, suggest custom code editing to check for specific tags, this approach can be complex and require developer expertise, making it less accessible for many merchants.

However, a much more elegant and powerful solution emerged from the thread, courtesy of @lumine: leveraging Shopify Flow.

Mastering 'Starts With' and 'Contains' with Shopify Flow

Shopify Flow is an automation tool (available on Shopify Plus and Advanced plans, and sometimes other plans depending on region/promotions) that allows you to automate tasks and workflows within your store. It's perfect for faking 'starts with' or 'contains' logic for your automated collections.

The Strategy: Canonical Tags

The core idea is to use Flow to automatically assign a single, consistent, or 'canonical' tag to products that match your desired pattern. Your automated collection then simply matches this canonical tag using the standard 'equals' condition.

Step-by-Step Flow Setup:

1. Trigger: Product Created or Updated
   Set Flow to activate whenever a product is created or an existing product is updated. This ensures new products are processed and changes to existing product tags are captured.

   Trigger: Product created
   Trigger: Product updated

2. Condition: Check Product Tags for 'Contains'
   Add a condition that checks if any of the product's existing tags contain your desired pattern (e.g., "summer-" or "material-cotton").

   Condition: Product tags CONTAINS "summer-"

3. Action: Add a Canonical Tag
   If the condition is met, add a new, consistent tag (e.g., collection-summer or material-cotton-group) to the product.

   Action: Add product tag "collection-summer"

4. Automated Collection Setup
   Create your automated collection with a simple condition: 'Product tag is equal to' your canonical tag (e.g., collection-summer).

   Collection Condition: Product tag IS EQUAL TO "collection-summer"

Crucial Considerations & Best Practices:

@lumine highlighted two critical points to ensure your Flow works flawlessly:

• Backfilling Existing Products: Flow only triggers on creation or update. Products already in your catalog won't automatically get the canonical tag until they are 'touched'. To backfill, you can perform a bulk edit on all products (even a minor, non-impactful change like adding a space to a description and then removing it, or simply saving them) to force an update.
• Stripping Canonical Tags: You need a second Flow rule to remove the canonical tag if the original pattern-matching tag is removed or changed. Otherwise, products might remain in your automated collection incorrectly. This second Flow would look like:
  • Trigger: Product Updated
  • Condition: Product tags DOES NOT CONTAIN "summer-" (and importantly, the product does have the canonical tag)
  • Action: Remove product tag "collection-summer"

This method works particularly well for matching prefixes (e.g., season-, material-). While 'contains' anywhere in the tag is possible, prefixes tend to be cleaner and less prone to accidental matches.

The Benefits of Advanced Tagging Logic

Implementing this 'starts with' or 'contains' logic, even through a workaround, offers significant advantages:

• Enhanced Organization: Keep your product catalog impeccably organized, making it easier for both you and your customers to find what they're looking for.
• Improved Customer Experience: Well-structured collections lead to intuitive navigation, boosting user satisfaction and potentially conversion rates.
• Reduced Manual Effort: Automate the tedious task of updating collection conditions, freeing up your time for more strategic tasks.
• Scalability: As your product range expands, your automated collections will adapt seamlessly without constant manual intervention.
• Better Merchandising: Quickly create targeted collections for promotions, seasonal launches, or specific product attributes.

If you're considering starting your own e-commerce journey or migrating an existing store to Shopify, you can get started with Shopify today and discover the power of its ecosystem, including advanced tools like Flow.

When to Call in the Experts

While Shopify Flow is a powerful tool, setting up complex automations, especially with multiple conditions and actions, can sometimes be daunting. If you're migrating from a platform with highly sophisticated tagging and collection rules, or if you find yourself overwhelmed by the intricacies of Flow, that's where experts like Shopping Cart Mover come in.

We specialize in seamless migrations, ensuring that your existing product data, including complex tagging structures and collection logic, is accurately translated and optimized for your new Shopify store. Don't let platform limitations hinder your store's potential – with the right strategy and tools, you can achieve sophisticated product organization on Shopify.

Experiment with Shopify Flow, embrace canonical tags, and unlock a new level of efficiency and organization for your automated collections!