API call to set manual product sort order within a collection?

Topic summary

Main issue: how to programmatically set a manual product sort order within a collection in Shopify.

What’s proposed:

  • Use the REST Collect endpoint to add products to a manual collection and control order via position and sort_value (Collect links a product to a collection and stores its ordering metadata).

Problems reported:

  • A sample POST including sort_value returns a created collect with a different position and a zero‑padded sort_value (e.g., requested 14, returned position 7 and sort_value “0000000007”). Multiple users say this approach does not reliably apply the intended order.

Newer updates/options:

  • Two reordering endpoints highlighted:
    • REST: update ordering of products in a smart collection (PUT smart-collections/{id}/order). Reported as unreliable/broken for bulk moves.
    • GraphQL: mutation collectionReorderProducts. Being tested as a potential working alternative.
  • Evidence that some apps can reorder/shuffle collections suggests there is a viable API path, but it’s unclear which method they use.

Status:

  • No confirmed solution in-thread. REST approaches appear inconsistent; GraphQL option under evaluation. Discussion remains open with unanswered questions about a reliable programmatic method.
Summarized with AI on December 25. AI used: gpt-5.

Did you ever figure this out? This does not work on my end either,