Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote about the paradox of choice—that is, when you’re faced with too many options, it can be difficult to make a selection.
Shoppers are often faced with a vast array of options. This abundance of choices—while seemingly advantageous—can lead to indecision and ultimately drive shoppers away from your site. Thankfully, ecommerce product filters can help them narrow down offerings, so customers can easily find and buy the right product for them.
What are ecommerce product filters?
Product filters narrow your site’s product offerings based on criteria—size, color, features, etc. Built around the unique attributes of your products, filters let your customers sort what you sell to find what they’re looking for.
If you have more than a handful of items in your online store, filters let your customers narrow their searches, allowing for a fluid user experience, more sales, and fewer abandoned carts.
Most ecommerce websites allow customers to apply multiple filter values. Let’s say a customer is shopping from a home essentials brand: They might filter by product type (“dinnerware”), material (“stoneware”), color (“cream”), and style (“rustic”).
By applying multiple filters, the customer saves the effort of sorting through hundreds of items and instead only has to choose from a few. If the applied filters still don’t narrow down the selection enough, the customer can check more filter boxes to further hone in on the product they want.
Types of ecommerce product filters
Filters allow your customers to sort products based on a few common criteria:
Price filters
Price filters let your customers sort by price range, displaying only the products within their budget. Some ecommerce sites let customers choose from a predetermined menu of filtering options (“under $20,” “under $100,” etc.) while others allow customers to input their own upper and lower price limits.
📚Read more: How To Price a Product in 3 Simple Steps
Ratings filters
Customer ratings filters organize your site by the number of stars customers have given your products. You can add a filtering option to sort products from highest-rated to lowest-rated. This helps customers feel confident the product’s they’re looking at are tried and true—a form of social proof.
Brand filters
Brand filters are best for sites carrying large numbers of products from many different brands. If you’re listing all your brand filters in a sidebar, it’s a good idea to put the most popular brands at the top, for ease of navigation.
Category-specific filters
These filters are for attributes unique to one kind of product (think resolution for TV or waterproof rating for outerwear). Category-specific filters can help customers who know exactly what they’re looking for quickly navigate to the right product page.
This type of filter may only be accessible on individual category pages. That way, the customer can begin their journey on a simple homepage, click over to the relevant category page, and further refine their search from there.
Color
Color filters tend to be most relevant for clothing brands. If you offer products in a range of colors, you can help customers narrow their searches by providing a drop-down menu with swatches of colors to choose from. Once a customer selects one (or more) colors, only matching products are displayed.
Thematic filters
Assign thematic filters to sort items based on seasons, styles, or uses. You’ll have to manually tag your products with these attributes, but assigning thematic filters can prove immensely helpful to your customers in the long run. For example, you might allow customers to sort clothing by vibe, offering clever categories like “pumpkin spice latte season” or “goth girlfriend.”
Tips for creating effective ecommerce filters
Filters are a great way to help direct your customers to what they want—but if you don’t set them up the right way, they can hinder sales by hiding products and frustrating customers. Here’s how to effectively implement ecommerce filters:
Use your intuition
Your filtering system should align with your customers’ instincts. Keep categories simple and easy to understand. Instead of industry jargon, use language your customers use in real life.
For example, you might allow customers to sort clothing based on whether it’s formal or casual. If you sell skin care products, it’s natural to sort products based on the skin type they’re designed for—oily, dry, normal, or sensitive.
Arrange filters with the most popular at the top
Sort your filters by how often they’re used. You can do this initially by using search data from your site to determine which product attributes customers care about most.
For instance, if customers purchasing ski goggles are most concerned about polarization, place the filter close to the top of the menu. Important filters should be the easiest to find.
Use promoted filters
You can drive traffic to your most popular categories by incorporating filters into banner images on your homepage. By displaying top-level categories in an eye-catching way, you enable customers to easily find the type of product that suits them.
Once they’ve clicked over to the category page, you can offer a more thorough filtering process. For example, a company selling bicycles might include clickable graphics on its homepage for “road,” “trail,” and “touring.”
Ecommerce filters FAQ
How do I set filters on Shopify?
Adding filters to your Shopify site is simple:
- In the Search & Discovery section, navigate to “Filters” and click “Add filter.”
- Select the product attribute you want to turn into a filter. You can rename the filter if you like, so your customers see a different word or phrase than you do.
- Click Save.
- You can reorder your filters by clicking and dragging them into the sequence you want to show your customers.
What are filters on Shopify?
Filters are organizing features that sort your site’s products based on attributes like size, color, and use.
Why should you use ecommerce filters?
Filters are a great way to help your customers find what they’re looking for without having to sort through an overwhelming number of options. When it’s easy for your customers to navigate your site and find what they need, they’re more likely to click the Buy button.