How to add product badges to the Dawn theme

Option A: tune Dawn's built-in badges

Dawn shows Sale and Sold out on its own, and the theme editor tunes how they look.

1. In the theme editor, open Theme settings → Badges.
2. Pick the badge position on product cards.
3. Pick the color schemes for Sale and Sold out.
4. Trigger them from product data: set a compare-at price and the Sale badge appears; sell out a product and Sold out takes over.

The honest virtues: automatic, accurate, zero upkeep. A Sale badge driven by a real compare-at price never lies, and there is nothing to remember to take down.

Where it stops: two words is the whole vocabulary. No "New", no "Low stock", no "Bestseller", no "Staff pick". And no scheduling, because badges follow product state, not your calendar. The weekend you want every gift set wearing a "Holiday pick" label, Dawn has nothing.

Option B: the tag-and-code route

Shopify has no native feature for custom badges, and Search & Discovery does not do badges either. So the manual route runs through tags and theme code:

1. Tag the products, for example "badge-new".
2. In a copy of Dawn, edit the product card snippet so it reads the tag and prints a label.
3. Style the label with CSS so it sits alongside Dawn's own badges.
4. Remove the tags by hand when each label should leave.

Credit where due: this costs nothing but time, renders with the page like Dawn's own badges, and for a single permanent label, "Handmade", say, it is a one-afternoon job for a developer.

Where it stops: it is a developer task, and the edits live in your theme copy, so every Dawn update means carrying them over. Nothing is scheduled, so "New" stays until someone remembers the tag. Targeting is hand-tagging, product by product. And each new badge is another code change, which is why most stores that start here stop at one.

Option C: run badge campaigns with Sledge

Sledge treats badges as campaigns: written, aimed, scheduled, and retired on time. No template edits.

1. Install Sledge from the Shopify App Store, start the 14-day free trial, and switch on the app embed.
2. Create a badge campaign: write the label, pick the colors and shape.
3. Aim it at chosen products or a whole collection, and set the start and end dates.
4. Publish. Badges land where Dawn's product cards expect them, on collection pages and in search results.

Beyond Options A and B: scheduling retires campaigns themselves, so the "Holiday pick" badge leaves with the holiday. Targeting a whole collection replaces tagging products one at a time. Placement is tuned for Dawn out of the box, so there is no positioning fiddling. And labels are worth testing: Sledge A/B tests badges, so "Almost gone" can compete with "Low stock" and the winner is a number, not a hunch.

One rule travels with all of this: badge what's true. "Low stock" that's really low, "New" that's really new. Shoppers can tell.

Dawn alone, code edits, or Sledge?

The honest read: if Sale and Sold out say everything your store needs to say, Dawn already says it. One permanent label and a developer on hand: the code route works. Seasonal campaigns, rotating labels, or badges you point at this month's bestsellers yourself, scheduled to start and stop on their own: that is Sledge.

Related reading

Sledge on Dawn · Product badges · Merchandising · What is a product badge? · What is merchandising?