When you use product filters in your Lightspeed eCom (E-Series) online catalog, your customers can find what they need much faster and, thus, convert more easily. 

As you enable filtering options, site visitors can use them within your category pages as well as on the search page of your online catalog to refine their search by prices, categories, SKU, availability, special offers, brands, colors, sizes and more.

Enabling filters

To switch on product filtering for your online catalog:

1. From Retail POS, go to the Online tab > Webstore (or Website) > Filters.

2. Click Enable filters:

   

That’s it! eCom enables a list of filters that are most relevant to your catalog based on the information about your products, like price, stock level, category, and attributes:

If you don’t see the filter you want among the suggested options, read on to learn how you can manually add filters to create the best filtering tool for your buyers. For example:

• If you use categories to group your items, you can add a Categories filter.
• If your products have sale prices and stock levels specified, On sale and In stock filters can be enabled.
• In case your products have common options like sizes and colors, eCom can create Size and Color filters for you.
• If you have added brand names, they can become a Brand filter.

The enabled filters appear within each of your online catalog categories - visit a product category and click Refine by to see the filter panel:

Besides, enabled filters are available to your customers in the search page of your online catalog:

Adding new filters

As you enable product filtering, filters that are most useful for searching through your catalog are created automatically. The more products match the filtering criterion, the higher it is placed in the list. Still, you may want to add some extra filtering options.

To add a new filter to your catalog:

1. From Retail POS, go to the Online tab > Webstore (or Website) > Filters and click Add Filter Criteria:
   

2. Here you may find some filters that match fewer products, but can also be useful to your buyers. Click Add, then enable the newly added filter:

   

Pay your attention to the recommendations on improving the filter to match more products.

In case no filters are suggested on this page, it means that eCom could not find more filtering criteria for your items. So, you will need to create them by adding new product attributes or settings.

Let’s say, you sell books in different covers, but haven’t specified their types yet. To create a Cover type filter, you need to:

1. From Retail POS, go to the Online tab > Go to eCom (E-Series).

2. In your eCom Admin Panel, go to Settings > Product Types and create a product attribute that your products will share:

   

3. Navigate to your Catalog > Products and click Edit on the product that should be filtered by this attribute.

4. Open the Attributes tab, change the attribute type (if needed), and fill in values to the attribute field for each product, then save these changes:

   

   Attribute names and values spelled identically will be treated as a single filter. If they differ in case or spacing, they will be treated as different filters.

5. Proceed to Settings > Product Filters and click Add Filter Criteria.

6. Add the created attribute as a new filter:

   

A list of checkboxes with the attribute values is now available to your customers in the filters panel.

As you create new attributes and settings for your products, new filtering options will be available to you at the Product Filters page.

Managing filters

You can remove and sort filters to create a perfect filtering tool for your buyers.

To temporarily turn off an active filter:

1. From Retail POS, go to the Online tab > Webstore (or Website) > Filters.

2. Turn off the toggle next to the filter:

   

To remove the unnecessary filter at all, click Actions > Delete on the filter:

To change the order of filters in the storefront:

1. Сlick Actions > Sort on the filter.
2. Drag and drop filters to sort.
3. Click Sort by next to a filter and choose how you want selections for this filter to be sorted: by ascending value (for example, in alphabetical order) or by descending number of products with this selection.

The order of filtering options will change both in your eCom Admin Panel and in the storefront.

Choosing filter panel orientation

You can choose between two filter panel orientation options in your online catalog:

• Vertical orientation allows you to show a dedicated filter panel column on the right or left side of the page. This way, you can showcase as many filters and their options as you need.

• Horizontal orientation allows you to display key filters in a bar at the top of the page. For example, you can choose this orientation if you have only a few filters in your online catalog and want customers to see them immediately. Shoppers can then click filters to select from their options.

  Horizontal orientation shows up to 4 filters according to the eCom filter sorting. All the other filters appear under the “Other filters” dropdown. You can change filter sorting if needed.

Here is an example of a horizontal filter panel orientation on a store category page:

To choose filter panel orientation:

1. In Retail POS, navigate to Online > Webstore (or Website) and click Edit Site.
2. In the Page dropdown at the top, select Catalog > Categories & Product Grid > Catalog page settings.
3. From the Filter panel orientation‍ dropdown, choose your option.
4. (optional) For vertical filter orientation, choose the side to show filters on the page (left or right) and/or expand the filters for visibility.
5. Publish the changes.

If you're not using the Lightspeed eCom sitebuilder (Instant Site), go to Online > Webstore > Design > Filter panel & sorting options behavior to switch filter panel orientation in eCom.

Expanding vertically-oriented filters

By default, the vertically-oriented filter panel is collapsed, and customers have to click Refine by to see the list of filters. You can unfold filters and display the panel right on the page. This way, customers will see all the filters at once and can find the products they want within seconds.

The expanded view is perfect for apparel shops as it allows customers to search for the exact same clothing that they have in mind. It also helps customers have a more complex image of the products inside the category or your whole catalog and boosts their shopping imagination, giving them an idea of what else they could buy.

Customers can always hide the filter panel by clicking Refine by at the top of the page.

Here is an example of how the expanded vertically-oriented filter panel could look the moment a customer opens your category:

To expand vertically-oriented product filters in your online catalog:

1. In Retail POS, navigate to Online > Webstore (or Website) and click Edit Site.
2. In the Page dropdown at the top, select Catalog > Categories & Product Grid > Catalog page settings.
3. Make sure Vertical is selected in the Filter panel orientation‍ dropdown.
4. Switch the Expand filter panel toggle.
5. (optional) Select your option from the Side to show filters‍ dropdown.
6. Publish the changes.

If you decide to stop showing the expanded filter panel, you can collapse it again in your eCom site editor.

If you're not using the Lightspeed eCom sitebuilder (Instant Site), go to Online > Webstore > Design > Filter panel & sorting options behavior to expand or collapse vertically-oriented product filters in your online catalog.

Choosing product filter placement

Filters always appear on the search page in your online catalog. They can also appear on category pages or both on category pages and on the main catalog page located at www.yourstore.com/products. You can adjust the placement of the filter panel to fit your business needs.

To choose product filter placement:

1. In Retail POS, navigate to Online > Webstore (or Website) and click Edit Site.
2. In the Page dropdown at the top, select Catalog > Categories & Product Grid > Catalog page settings.
3. Select your option from the Filter placement dropdown.
4. Publish the changes.

If you're not using the Lightspeed eCom sitebuilder (Instant Site), go to Online > Webstore > Design > Filter panel & sorting options behavior to choose product filter placement in your online catalog.

Using filters to increase sales

With product filters enabled, you get a flexible tool for improving your customers’ shopping experience and boosting your sales just out of the box.

Filters in your online catalog use a smart algorithm that:

• indicates how many products fall under it and updates the count each time a new filter is applied,
• automatically hides the unavailable options as your products get sold to avoid searches with zero results,
• allows customers to choose multiple options at once for better product comparison.

With all these features, your customers will appreciate your big catalog, because they can easily navigate it and quickly discover products they want.

When necessary, you can address a customer's needs by sending them a link to a page that contains already filtered results, for example, a link to all Dresses of L size that are available in your store. To get such a link, open the search page in your online catalog, make a search for a product, apply the necessary filters, and copy the link to the results from your browser address bar.