The Comprehensive Guide to Adding Custom Filters on Shopify & Shopify Plus

Implementing  Custom Filters on Shopify & Shopify Plus can significantly improve the user experience by making it easier for customers to navigate and find products. Large inventory stores benefit substantially from custom filters, as customers can filter by exact specifications. This guide will cover creating the custom filter in your Shopify Store and Shopify Plus through methods with clear steps for best practices, AKA PRO TIPS.

 Why even bother installing custom filters on your Shopify Store?

Custom filters help enhance the shopping experience on your website. Top clothing stores on Shopify are a must-use feature for most eCommerce websites. They create the ability to make a faster search of your products by customers, resulting in lower bounce rates and higher conversions. This way, you can make your store more user-friendly, help customers find their desired product, and increase the sales of your online eCommerce business.

Shopify Default Filtering Options Explained

Shopify comes equipped with simple filtering options like filtering by price, product type, or availability for more advanced needs, such as multi-attribute filtering or custom tag-based lookup, so further customization is needed. Shopify Plus has more advanced features and is less restrictive, meaning it will be easier to create custom filters.

How to Add Custom Filter on Shopify

• Step 1: Filter Criteria Map Out
• We suggest creating a custom filter next, but the only thing to remember is what will be most relevant and valuable for your customers. Attributes to consider:
• Product Type
• Price range
• Brand
• Size
• Color
• Material
• Customer ratings
• Your filters can better meet your clients’ requirements if you organize them properly, which is why it helps to have a clear plan.
• Create tags and collections for your products.
  In this tutorial, I will show you how to create these custom filters using tags and collections. Tags in this context are effective keywords you can place on a product to help categorize or filter your products.

Add Tags to Products:

• Open the Shopify admin.
• Go to Products and click on an individual product you want to tag.
• Enter relevant keywords (e.g., summer, blue, cotton) in the Tags field.
• Save your changes.
• Create Collections:
• Navigate to Products -> Collections.
• Create a Collection with a Title and Description
• Choose AutoMap
• Establish the predicates and store them as a collection.

Customize Theme for Filters;

While basic filtering is supported in most Shopify themes, you may need to edit your theme’s code or install an app if custom filters are required.
Modify Theme Code:
From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes, then find the theme you want to edit and click Actions > Edit code.
Locate the collection. Group or collection template narrowed into liquid-liquid files.
Copy and paste this code into the file and place where you want to filter based on which attributes. This usually includes injecting custom JavaScript and Liquid code so we can create filter options dynamically.

Use a Shopify App:

Read more: Schema and product-structured

• If you prefer a more direct solution, a filter-oriented Shopify app like Product Filter & Search by Boost Commerce or Smart Product Filter & Search by Globo could be more accessible.
• Get the app from the Shopify App Store.
• For more specific needs, custom filters can also be created and set up by following the setup instructions on the app.
  Step 4: Test Your Filters
• After you create your custom filters, test them to ensure they return the expected results correctly. Check the following:
• Filter appears as the first two images in screenshots on collection pages.
• True to their word, the filtering options represent the products available.
• Filters can be combined, and there will not be errors or slowdowns.
• Filters display nicely on desktop, mobile, and other small-screen devices.

How Do I Add Custom Filters to Shopify Plus?

Accepting that you are utilizing Shopify Plus (and benefiting from its benefits), the first – and discrete, splendidly capitalized tip will be to use Scripts.
There is one relationship with scripts in general, and it comes down to the Shopify Scripts available with your purchase of Shopify Plus. Scripts can be used to build more complex advanced filters.

Access Shopify Scripts

• Visit Apps > Script Editor on your Shopify Admin.
  You can create a new script for this or edit an existing one, adding the required logic to filter.
• Write Custom Scripts:
  Write a Ruby script for use in filtering and displaying products. This includes the ability to create scripts that will filter products based on custom data about your customer (i.e. purchase history/preferences)
  Step 2: API Integration with Middleware
  Shopify Plus: Use advanced API integrations to build complex filters
• Use the Shopify Admin API:
  Use Shopify Admin API to get product data dynamically and apply real-time custom filters respectively.
  You can use custom apps or integrations that extend filtering capabilities beyond what is available natively in Shopify.
  Use Third-Party Services
  Third-party services such as Algolia or Elasticsearch for more advanced search and filtering capabilities. Ultimately, it provides powerful indexing and search capabilities that substantially increase user experience.
• Step 3: Work with a Shopify Plus Expert
  Since the complexity of designing custom filters on Shopify Plus is relatively high, you can contact a Shopify plus expert or agency for help. Skilled professionals will assist you with highly customizable filtering applications based on your business requirements.
  More Tips on Writing Custom Filters
• Keep It User-Friendly
  Make your custom filters easy and intuitive to use. Filters can quickly become overwhelming, so offer only a few or lay them out higgledy-piggledy.
• Optimize for Speed

Extensive Custom filters slow extensive inventories. Make your filter logic as fast and smooth UX as possible to load speed.

• Regularly Update Filters

Recycle these processes occasionally as your products and customer requirements shift to match their style. This practice keeps filters up-to-date and relevant.

FAQs

Do you manually add the filters to Excel?

The Filter function on the Data tab can add custom filters in Excel. You create custom criteria to filter data according to specific conditions. Advantages of Shopify Custom Filters Improving the filter functionality helps shoppers discover products and increases your conversions.

Can Custom Filter be added to any Shopify Theme?

Twitter Bootstrap is considered the standard for module filters, and almost all Shopify themes support simple filtration out of the box. If you require custom filters to lay behind advanced, then modifying your theme’s code or using a third-party app may be necessary.

In what way are Shopify Plus custom filters different from regular Shopify?

Customization options are also more robust on Shopify Plus, with access to Shopify Scripts and API integrations.