How to build a Shopify gift guide shoppers can filter
Shopify's Search & Discovery is the free app that builds the filters shoppers tap. It gives your whole store 25 filters, and every collection shares the same 25. Your other collections are already using some of those, and the guide's three questions come on top of them.
You've tagged two hundred products with who each one's for, sorted them into price bands, and built the holiday page. A shopper opens it looking for something under $50 for him, and there's no recipient filter to tap. Size, color and material got there first, along with every option your other products are sold in.
What a gift guide actually asks of a filter
Most Shopify filters answer a question about the product: what size, what color, what price. A gift guide asks a different one: who is this for, what's the occasion, what are they into. Those answers already sit on your products, as tags or as metafields. They are just scattered. A size filter reads one field. A gift guide reads three, and that is before price.
Search & Discovery can build a filter out of an extra field you have added to a product yourself. It can do the same with a field you have added to a single variant. Since September 2024 it can also use the fields Shopify fills in for you when you set a product's category. What it doesn't give you is room. The ceiling is 25 filters for the whole store, not 25 per collection.
Two names for one thing cost you twice. One supplier calls a shirt "Navy," another calls the same shade "Dark Blue." Left alone, your color filter lists both, each holding half the products. Grouping them buys room. One filter shows 100 values at most. Fold several names into one group and that group holds up to 200 of them, while a shopper still sees a single choice.
The gaps that only show up once shoppers start clicking
A filter value with nothing behind it is a dead end a shopper can tap. Search & Discovery keeps that choice in its Settings, under Filters > Empty values, and Shopify doesn't publish which option a new store starts on. Until you pick one, you don't know what a shopper sees when "stocking stuffers under $20" comes back with nothing.
Count the filters your other collections have already spent before you design the guide, not after.
Price is the field a gift guide leans on hardest. It is also the one that can go missing. With international pricing or multiple currencies switched on, Shopify's price filter disappears for anyone shopping in a currency other than your store's default. Shopify calls that a current limitation.
| Question | Shopify native | Sledge |
|---|---|---|
| What can you filter by | Tags, vendor, product type, collections, availability, price, and the extra fields you have added to a product or a variant. All of it inside the store's 25 | The same fields your catalog already carries, in as many filters as it needs, built in Sledge rather than in Search & Discovery |
| Two names for the same thing | Under Manage values, you tick the values that mean the same thing and name the group. Filters built on a category field Shopify filled in for you also offer an Automatic setting that groups them for you | Grouped in the same place as the rest of the guide's filters, and Navy next to navy counts as one, without you touching it |
| A filter value with nothing behind it | Hide it, show it at the end, or show it in the default order. Set once for the whole store, under Filters > Empty values | Dropped automatically, so a choice only shows when there are products behind it |
Filters that don't count against Search & Discovery's 25
Sledge builds the guide's filters from the fields your catalog already carries, as many as the guide needs, and none of them count against Search & Discovery's 25. Navy and Dark Blue sit under one name, and you choose the name. Every choice carries the number of products behind it, and that number keeps up as stock moves.
With that room, put "who it's for" first. Let occasion, price and interest narrow it from there. A guide that treats all four as equals reads like a regular collection with extra checkboxes.
Search and personalization finish the guide
A shopper who types "gift for dad" still has to land somewhere. From Pro up, Sledge reads your product titles, vendors, product types, and tags, and writes you a starter list of synonyms, so a shopper who words it differently still reaches the gift. Synonyms you add yourself work on every plan.
Personalized search and personalized browsing both start on Pro, the first paid plan. A shopper who has opened three watches on this visit sees watches lead the guide as they keep browsing. On Scale and up, the same visit also changes which products count as a match in the first place, not just the order they land in. If the guide promises "picked for you", the plan you are on has to deliver it.
Check all of this before the guide goes live
- Recipient, occasion, and price are separate filters, not one field doing three jobs.
- Colors and other near-identical names are grouped, so no one filter is showing more than 100 values.
- You've chosen what happens to a filter choice with nothing behind it, under Filters > Empty values.
- In Search & Discovery, every filter counts against the same 25, including the ones your other collections are already using.
- Price filtering has been checked in a second currency, not just your store's default.
- A starter synonym list, written for you on Pro and up, covers the words shoppers use when they don't use yours.
- If the page promises "picked for you", your plan includes it.
Questions, answered
Can I filter a Shopify collection by more than one metafield?
Yes. Shopify's Search & Discovery builds filters from metafields, the extra fields you add to a product yourself, and from the same kind of field on a variant. Since September 2024 it can also use the fields Shopify fills in for you when you set a product's category. That 25 covers the filters Shopify gives you and the ones you build from your own fields, and every collection draws on the same 25.
Why does the same color show up twice in my filter?
Because two suppliers named it differently. In the Search & Discovery app, under Manage values, you tick the values that mean the same thing and give the group a name. That name is what shoppers see. Some filters are built on a category field Shopify filled in for you when you set the product's category. On those, Manage values also offers an Automatic setting that does the grouping itself. You can rename the group and change its swatch, the color chip a shopper taps, but you cannot change which values sit inside it.
What does Shopify do with empty filter values?
Whatever you tell it to. An empty value is a filter choice with no products behind it. In the Search & Discovery app, under its own Settings, the Filters > Empty values section lets you hide them, show them at the end of the list, or show them in the default order. Shopify doesn't publish which of the three a store starts on, so pick one yourself rather than keeping whatever it came with.
How many filters can a Shopify store have?
Twenty-five, for the whole store. Shopify's Search & Discovery counts its own built-in filters and the ones you build from your own fields against the same 25, and every collection draws on it. A gift guide asking about who it's for, the occasion, the interest and price adds four to the ones your other collections are already using.
Do gift guide filters work the same across currencies?
No. With international pricing or multiple currencies switched on, Shopify's price filter disappears for anyone shopping in a currency other than your store's default. Shopify calls that a current limitation. Check the guide in a second currency before the season starts.
Can I build synonyms for gift-related search terms?
Yes. Sledge reads your product titles, vendors, product types, and tags, and writes you a starter list of synonyms, so a shopper who uses different words from yours still reaches the right gift. That written-for-you list starts on Pro. Synonyms you add yourself work on every plan.
Does personalization work the same on every Sledge plan?
No. Personalized search and personalized browsing both start on Pro, the first paid plan, where a shopper's own recent clicks and carts reorder what they see. On Scale and up, those same clicks and carts also change which products count as a match in the first place, not just the order they land in. Check which one your plan includes before the guide promises picks tailored to the shopper reading it.
A gift guide only works if the filters narrow it.
Install free. On a paid plan, Growth Intelligence reads which searches on your store came back empty this season, then puts a dollar figure on fixing it. That figure comes from your own orders, and from published research on what changes like these earn.
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