Filters
Filters are how a buyer narrows a listing from hundreds to the handful they might buy.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Commercial:
- Carts — the cart itself and its options
Architect Panel → Data:
- Datastores — then View Data on the cart table, and look for the row actions
A filter is scoped to a branch
Each filter names the highest category it applies to, so it appears within that branch and nowhere else. "Shoe size" belongs on footwear, not on the whole shop.
This is what stops the filter panel becoming a list of thirty options, twenty-eight of which are irrelevant to what the buyer is looking at.
The settings
- Type — how the filter is presented.
- Show — whether it appears to buyers at all.
- Required — whether a value must be set on every product in scope.
- Sorting — whether it offers a sort as well as a filter.
- Position and order — where it appears.
- Description — help for the buyer.
- Grouping — which information group it belongs to.
Options for each filter are managed as a row action on the filter itself.
Hidden filters are still useful
A filter that is not shown still holds structured data against products, which can drive sorting or grouping without cluttering the panel. Not everything a filter records has to be something a buyer clicks.
Some filters shape the product
A filter can force a product grouping, and can affect automatic SKU generation. Those are structural rather than cosmetic — they change how variants are formed, so they are worth setting up before loading products rather than after.
Required means every product
Marking a filter required is a commitment: every product in that branch needs a value, and one without will filter out of results the buyer expected it in. That is the mechanism behind "we have that product but nobody can find it".
Fewer, better filters
Buyers use two or three. A panel of twelve is a panel nobody reads. Pick the attributes people actually shop by — size, price, colour, availability — and leave the rest as product detail.
Check what buyers actually select
Shop Insights reports the most-selected filters. A filter nobody touches is clutter; one used constantly might deserve a better position.
Worked example
A footwear shop has three filters on that branch — size, colour and width — with size required and offering sorting. Insights showed width was selected by under two per cent of buyers, so it was hidden while still holding the data for internal reporting.
Recommendations
- Scope each filter to the right branch.
- Two or three shown filters per branch.
- Set structural filters before loading products.
- Use Insights to retire filters nobody selects.