Troubleshooting

Answers for when a Siftori sort did not do what you expected. Not covered here? Email support@siftori.com.

Why isn’t my collection sorting?

The app answers this for you. Home, the collection page and the strategy page each show a line naming the one thing that stops the sorting, and a link or button to fix it when the fix lives on another screen. Work down this list, which is the order the app checks in:

1. The collection has a strategy. On No strategy, Siftori does not reorder it. Pick one in the Sorting Strategy section. Sold-out handling is a separate setting and reaches the collection either way.
2. That strategy is set to Enabled. A Manual only strategy sorts its collections when you press Apply Sort, and never on your store schedule. Sold-out products still move down while sold-out handling covers the collection: Manual only is about the order, not about them. Open the strategy and set Sorting to Enabled.
3. You are within your plan’s collection limit. Over the limit, every collection an Enabled strategy ranks stops being ranked and keeps the order it was last given. Sold-out handling keeps running on them. See Scheduling.

One more thing, checked separately and only on a collection page: Shopify may be sorting the collection itself. A row reading Sorted by Shopify means the collection’s sort order in Shopify is not Manually, so your strategy is not deciding what shoppers see. It shows alongside the list above rather than in it, so a collection can be waiting on two things at once. Let Siftori sort it, or change the sort order in your Shopify admin.

Product changes are picked up at the next run, so press Apply Sort to sort now. Apply Sort keeps working through every one of the situations above, on every plan.

Why did the sort fail?

First check whether it failed at all. Siftori writes an order by setting the collection’s sort order to Manually, so an automatic sort passes over a collection set to Best selling, Newest, or any other Shopify sort order. That is a skip, not a failure: no run is recorded, the row reads Sorted by Shopify, and the collection page’s Automatic sorting section says it is set to sort by that order in Shopify.

Press Let Siftori sort on the collection, or Apply Sort on its page. Both are explicit requests, so they set the sort order back to Manually and apply your order. Prefer Shopify’s order for that collection? Clear its strategy in Siftori instead.

A run marked Failed is a different thing. Shopify would not accept the new order. Close and reopen the app, then try Apply Sort again. Still failing? Email support@siftori.com.

How do I undo a sort?

Open Sort history in the app’s navigation and find the run (a collection’s own page also lists its last five runs under Sort history). Open Details, switch Show to Before this sort, and press Restore this order: the collection returns to the order it had before that sort ran. Products that joined the collection since stay in it and go to the end of the order, and products that left are skipped. Restores are recorded too, so you can undo one the same way. See what restore does exactly.

Why does Apply Sort say the sort is taking a while?

Sorts run in the background. A very large collection can take a few minutes. The sort keeps going after the message, so reopen or refresh the collection a little later and the result will be there.

Why is a sold-out product still near the top?

• Open the Sold-out handling page and check that Push down sold-out products is ticked and the collection is picked: All collections is chosen, or it is listed under Selected collections. A collection you have not picked is left alone, with or without a strategy.
• On a covered collection, newly sold-out products move down within minutes. That holds whether the collection carries an Enabled strategy, a Manual only one, or none at all.
• That check does not run on a collection Shopify sorts itself.
• The product may not count as sold out. See the next answer.

Why is a product at zero stock not counted as sold out?

Siftori follows Shopify’s own answer to “can a shopper buy this?”. A product counts as sold out only when none of its variants is available for sale and its total stock is zero or below. If Shopify will still take the order, the product stays in stock and nothing moves it down.

Three kinds of product read as out of stock and can still be bought:

• The product is set to Continue selling when out of stock, or you sell it on backorder. Shoppers can still order it.
• Track quantity is off on every variant, so there is no stock figure to run out. The product is always buyable.
• One variant is oversold while another still has stock, so the total is below zero but the product can still be bought.

To make a product count as sold out, make every variant unbuyable in Shopify. Turn on Track quantity, turn off Continue selling when out of stock, and set the quantity to zero. Check the quantity afterwards. A variant that was untracked can still hold an old number. There is no way to mark one product sold out in Siftori alone.

In the app’s product list, any product whose total has gone below zero is marked oversold, with or without a Sold out badge beside it. See what counts as sold out.

Why isn’t a pinned product at the top?

• If the product is sold out and sold-out handling covers the collection, it moves down with everything else that sold out. The pin is not lost: it reclaims its position once the product restocks.
• If the pin shows Not in collection, the product has left the collection. The pin waits and takes its slot back when the product returns.

See Pinned products for how pins are added and ordered.

Why won’t my strategy save?

• A section is incomplete or invalid. The strategy page puts the message on the section’s line, and on the exact field it concerns when you open that section: usually an empty condition value, limit, or range size.
• The name is empty, longer than 60 characters, or already used by another of your strategies.
• You added more new collections than one save can import. Press Update from Shopify on the Collections screen, then add them.
• The save would put you over your plan’s collection limit. The banner reads Plan limit reached and says what the count would be. Set a strategy to Manual only, give it fewer collections, or move to a bigger plan.

What happens when I uninstall Siftori?

Your collections keep the order they were in when you uninstalled. Nothing is reverted or removed from your store. They stay on Shopify’s Manually sort order, so you can rearrange them by hand or switch them to another sort order in the Shopify admin. Siftori stops sorting immediately, and your app data is deleted afterwards as set out in our Privacy Policy.

How do I get support?

Email support@siftori.com and include the collection name and what you expected to happen.