Product Groups

You create one or more groupings. A grouping is one way of relating products, defined by a rule. Every product whose rule produces the same group key becomes a sibling in that group — equal peers, with no “master” product.

Behind the scenes, on each sync the app:

• —Reads your whole catalogue and applies each grouping's rule to extract a group key per product.
• —Creates or updates one metaobject per group, holding the ordered list of member products.
• —Writes a reference metafield back to each product so the storefront block can find its group instantly.

A product can belong to several groupings at once — for example a colour group and a print family — each rendered in its own way.

1. 1

   Install the app

   Add Product Groups to your store from the Shopify App Store. It opens straight into your Shopify admin — no account or API keys to wire up.

2. 2

   Create a grouping

   On the dashboard, choose New grouping, give it a name, and define how products relate (the rule — see below). For colour swatches that's usually a tag prefix or a metafield.

3. 3

   Run Sync now

   Click Sync now. The app reads your catalogue, groups products by your rule, and writes the metaobjects and reference metafields. Large catalogues are read in the background, so you can leave the page.

4. 4

   Review your groups

   Open the Groups list to see what was created, search and paginate, fix edge cases by hand, and optionally set swatch values like a colour name or hex.

5. 5

   Add the storefront block

   In the theme editor, drop the Group switcher block onto your product template. Optionally enable collection-card swatches too (see below).

A rule is a set of conditions combined with AND or OR. Each condition checks one product field with an operator. A condition can also be marked “use as group key”, meaning its matched value (or a regex capture group) becomes part of the key that decides which products are siblings.

Fields

Tag

Match against a product's tags — the most common source for colour groups (e.g. a shared style code in a tag).

Product type

Match the product type.

Vendor

Match the vendor / brand.

Title

Match against the product title.

SKU

Match the SKU of the product.

Metafield

Match a metafield value by namespace and key — ideal when an ERP already writes a style or group id.

Status

Match the product status (active, draft, archived) — used as a filter, not a key.

Operators

equals / is not

Exact match (case-insensitive).

starts with / doesn't start with

Prefix match — e.g. tags beginning with a style code.

ends with / doesn't end with

Suffix match.

contains / doesn't contain

Substring match.

matches / doesn't match regex

Regular expression — with a capture group you can extract just part of the value as the group key.

in / not in

Comma-separated list membership.

Example: one condition — Tag starts with style-, use as group key — groups every product sharing a style-1234 tag. Matching is case-insensitive.

Each grouping has a Behavior card with one main toggle and an Advanced section:

Sync enabled

When off, this grouping is skipped during sync. Existing groups and the storefront keep working; only auto-updates pause.

Delete orphan groups on sync

Delete groups whose key no longer matches the rule. Off by default, to preserve manual changes you made in the Shopify admin.

Include single-product groups

Create a group even for a product with no sibling yet. A second product added later auto-joins. On the storefront a single-product group shows one swatch — useful for visual consistency across collection grids.

Skip draft and archived products

When on (recommended), only active products are grouped, so hidden products never appear on the storefront.

Auto-create collections for new groups

Automatically create (and, with Delete orphans on, delete) a linked Shopify collection per group during sync. Existing linked collections always stay in sync regardless of this toggle.

Publish groups as storefront pages

Make each group its own public page on your storefront. Best for outfit / print / pattern groupings. Needs a templates/metaobject.{type}.json file in your theme; Shopify renders a basic fallback if it's missing.

Colour swatches can be driven by data you manage per product. A grouping can define visual attributes — typically a colour and a label — resolved in a cascade:

• —Colour: an image override → a hex value → a letter fallback. Hex can come from a source metafield (e.g. ERP-managed) with an optional app-managed override on top.
• —Label: the product title or a metafield such as a colour name.
• —Swatch image: upload and crop a swatch image right in the app for products that need a pattern or texture rather than a flat colour.

You edit these values directly in the Groups area; the storefront block reads the same metafields.

The Groups area gives you full control after a sync:

Groups list

Search and paginate across thousands of groups, with a coverage badge showing how complete each group's swatch values are.

Bulk actions

Select multiple groups to delete, or bulk create / remove their linked collections.

CSV import / export

Export groups to a CSV and re-import to edit names and membership in bulk.

Group detail

Drag to reorder members (keyboard-accessible), edit swatch values per product, and create a linked collection on the spot.

Overrides

Force-add a product to a group, or force-remove one, regardless of what the rule produced. Overrides survive every sync.

An app block you add in the theme editor (no code). It reads the group from the product’s reference metafield and renders the swatch row. Settings are grouped:

To show swatches on product cards (collection grid, search, related products), turn on the Group card swatches app embed for styling, then render one snippet in your product-card template:

The snippet accepts optional arguments — an explicit grouping handle (and a fallback), a mode (swatch / product image / custom image), metafield paths for hex and image, an image_source, and eager loading. The app-embed settings control how they look:

Swatches

Width, height, corner radius, spacing, image fit, and an optional border with colour.

Stock

Show / dim / cross out out-of-stock members, or hide them entirely on cards.

Overflow

Wrap, horizontal scroll, or collapse to “+N” — with threshold, labels, and button/scroll colours.

Outer margin

Top / right / bottom / left spacing around the card swatches.

Custom CSS

Scoped CSS under .pg-card-swatches for any fine-tuning the controls don't cover.

Sync is always something you trigger — there are no automatic product webhooks. That’s a deliberate design decision: a typical fashion catalogue generates thousands of product updates a day from ERP, POS and other apps, and reacting to all of them would be noisy and unpredictable.

Click Sync now whenever you want groups rebuilt — after a colour drop, a range change, or a catalogue import. Each sync only writes what actually changed, and your manual ordering inside a group is preserved.

Billing runs through Shopify, so it appears on your normal Shopify invoice — no separate payment details.