# What collections are

Collections are the groups a shopper browses your catalogue in, filled either by rules that keep themselves current or by products you pin yourself.

Few shoppers want a list of everything you sell. A collection is the narrowing: a named group with a page of its own, holding the products that belong together in the way your customers already think about them.

![The Collections list showing fifteen collections. Five carry a Smart badge with a products count and a last-resolved time; the rest carry a Manual badge and a dash in the Last Resolved column. Every row reads Active under Status.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/storefront/collections/collections-list.png)

*Smart and manual collections in one list, with what each holds.*

## Two kinds, one screen

Every collection is either smart or manual, and the choice is made on the collection itself under **Collection type**.

**Smart** (Rules decide the membership)

- Yes: You write conditions, such as Tag is equal to next-day.
- Yes: A product that starts matching joins on its own.
- Yes: A live preview shows what matches before you save.
- No: You cannot keep one awkward product out by hand.

**Manual** (You decide the membership)

- Yes: You pin the products you want, in the order you want them shown.
- Yes: Nothing joins or leaves unless somebody puts it there.
- No: A new product that belongs stays out until it is added.

A seasonal edit, a clearance run or a hand-picked six for the homepage suits a manual collection. Anything that follows a rule you could describe out loud, such as everything under fifty pounds, suits a smart one.

## What the list tells you

- **Collection**: The name a shopper sees, with an icon marking whether it is smart or manual.
- **Type**: Smart or Manual.
- **Products**: How many products are currently in it.
- **Last resolved**: When a smart collection last recomputed its membership. A manual one shows a dash, because nothing recomputes.
- **Status**: Active or Inactive. An inactive collection keeps its contents and stops being offered.

## Membership and publishing are separate

A collection can hold a draft product. It simply will not show it, because an unpublished product has no page to show. That is deliberate: it means you can build a collection ahead of a launch and publish the products when you are ready, without rebuilding anything.

> **Note:**
>
> Your product categories and your storefront collections are not the same thing. A category is how your business files an item. A collection is how a customer browses it, and one product can sit in as many collections as suit it.