Balancing Simplicity and Sophistication: Setting Up Dual Product Collections in Shopify's Dawn 15.2 Theme

Years ago, we sat in a tiny cafe, its shelves brimming with homemade preserves, each jar exuding a charm that screamed "buy me!" yet lacked any price tag. Tantalized but uncertain, we had to chat with the owner to unravel the jar's mysteries—price, flavor, perhaps a secret recipe. This memory prompted us to reimagine that experience for online shops. So here we are, poised to set up a Shopify store where some items delightfully prompt conversation and others ring up with a click.

The journey through Shopify's Dawn 15.2 theme is much like those jars in the cafe: a mix of direct purchase options and 'let’s talk first' items. You, the thoughtful entrepreneur, desire two shelves—collections, in Shopify speak—distinct and purposeful. One with clear, clickable buy buttons, the other seductively withholding, whispering for customers to reach out. Shall we?

Prepping for Action: Sorting Out the Collections

Standing at the start line, our first step is to wield Shopify’s organizing powers. Picture yourself in the backroom of a store, sorting through products, deciding, for each, 'easy buy' or 'conversation piece?'

Step 1: New Collections

Head into your Shopify admin dashboard, a digital command center that almost feels like it should twirl villainously on a spinning chair. Here, navigate to Products > Collections. Let’s create two new collections:

1. Buy Now: The self-explanatory shelf where customers can click that buy button without a second thought.
2. Contact Us: The more enigmatic array where items prefer a tête-à-tête before departing your digital storefront.

Step 2: Tag, You’re It!

Grab those virtual sticky notes. We’ll use product tags as the distinguishing feature. Assign a tag like buy-now to those straightforward products and contact to those hush-hush ones.

• On the product page, scroll to the Tags section.
• Start typing your chosen identifier—buy-now or contact—and add it.
• Bask in the knowledge that you’re organizing like a pro with a penchant for simplicity over opacity.

Style and Substance: Customizing the Dawn 15.2 Theme

Having sorted and tagged your wares, it’s time to don the attire that best suits each occasion. This isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s function meeting form, each helping us present collections the way they’re meant to be seen.

Step 3: Theme Code Adventures

Now, don’t be intimidated by the lines of code awaiting us. It’s more of a friendly puzzle than a daunting list of enigmas. First, from the Online Store tab, click Customize next to your Dawn theme. Then, navigate down to Edit Code—here's where the magic happens.

Displaying Products Without Pricing

For the Contact Us collection, we must suppress those pesky price tags and the buy button. That’s right, we’re about to bend the web to our will.

In the sidebar, navigate to Sections and find product-card-grid.liquid.

In this file, wrap the code responsible for displaying prices and buttons with a conditional check for your contact tag:

{% if product.tags contains 'contact' %}
    {%- comment -%} Display custom contact message here {%- endcomment -%}
    <p>Please contact us to learn more!</p>
{% else %}
    {%- comment -%} Current code for price & buy button {%- endcomment -%}
    <!-- Existing code to display price and button -->
{% endif %}

And that’s it! Your conversation starters are now intent on being just that—slowly savoring the moment rather than rushing off at a touch.

Step 4: Enhance the Contact Game

For that second collection, ensuring folks have an easy out to initiate a chat is top-priority. Add a 'Contact Us' button instead of a Buy button:

Still within product-card-grid.liquid, inside the conditional if block for the 'contact' tag, replace or enhance the code with:

<a href="/pages/contact" class="btn">Contact Us for Purchase</a>

This step ensures that even in our digital realm, a good conversation starter is just a click away.

Wrapping It All Into One Lovely Package

Looking back on our afternoon in the cafe, the moments of discovery were what stood out. With Shopify’s Dawn 15.2 theme now tailored just so, we’ve not only matched the physical with the digital but elevated it. Customers will have the immediacy they crave tempered with the opportunity for curated, meaningful interactions. Tech wizardry or practical homage to simpler times? Perhaps a little of both.

In this mix of clicks and conversations, our virtual shelves are ready—some shouting “buy me” and others inviting a story. So, here’s to embracing both simplicity and sophisticated charm in our online endeavors. To a store—your store—perfectly calibrated.