Shopify Liquid Explained: A Practical Guide for Store Owners

Objects represent dynamic data pieces from your Shopify store. When wrapped in double curly braces, Liquid outputs the value directly onto the page.

Examples include `{{ product.title }}`, `{{ cart.total_price | money }}`, and `{{ customer.first_name }}`.

Tags control the programming logic of the template: conditional statements, iterations, and theme file inclusion. Unlike objects, tags do not output text directly.

Common tags include `{% if product.available %}`, `{% for item in cart.items %}`, and `{% render 'icon-star' %}`.

Filters modify the output of numbers, strings, dates, and arrays. They are passed after a vertical pipe character `|` inside an object tag.

Examples include `{{ product.price | money }}` (formats raw cents into formatted currency), `{{ article.content | strip_html | truncate: 100 }}` (strips HTML and caps length), and `{{ image | image_url: width: 600 }}` (generates responsive image URLs).

Displaying a sense of urgency when inventory drops below a specific threshold:

{% if product.selected_or_first_available_variant.inventory_quantity < 5 and product.selected_or_first_available_variant.inventory_management == 'shopify' %} <p class="low-stock-alert">Hurry! Only {{ product.selected_or_first_available_variant.inventory_quantity }} left in stock.</p> {% endif %}