Your catalog is more than title, vendor, and tags
Brands already store the merchandising truth in metafields: seasonal codes, internal grades, buy-now scores, restock ranks, lookbook IDs, “new until” dates. Shopify will not sort a collection on those fields. SortWise will.
Custom fields as ranking signals
Use product metafields inside a strategy the same way you use inventory or revenue. Typical uses:
- A numeric grade from wholesale or PLM that should outrank raw sales.
- A custom date that defines “new” better than created or published.
- A campaign key that groups products into a scheduled bucket without another tag taxonomy.
- Boolean flags for core / fashion / clearance that change the stack per collection.
Metafield sorting sits on paid plans. The free plan still automates collections on native Shopify attributes — then you add metafields when the catalog is too specific for tags.
If it is in Shopify, it can be in the sort
That is the design rule. Combine metafields with margin and lookback windows and hourly automation so a PIM update in the morning becomes a merchandising update by the next sort.