How To Master Product Filtering To Boost eCommerce Sales 

A complete guide on how to master eCommerce product filtering in order to improve product discoverability and increase sales.

Follow the top 10 tips & hacks for eCommerce product search filters to increase sales and conversions.  

eCommerce product filters are one of the most essential features that impact the overall customer experience yet are often overlooked! As an eCommerce store owner, are you making the best use of it? If not, this guide is just for you. Learn how you can master eCommerce product search filters to increase sales.

Product Filtering: Fundamental In Improving Discoverability & Conversions 

 

An effective search function is critical within an eCommerce website to help customers narrow their search and find the products they are looking for. With thousands of products listed on an eStore, product selection without effective product filters can be overwhelming & turn off the customers. Since your eCommerce business has a massive amount of SKUs and inventory, a comprehensive and well-organized product filter system is an invaluable tool to ensure seamless product discoverability, boost customer engagement, and augment eCommerce sales substantially. 

 

Simply put- Shoppers who use filters are more likely to find products that they are specifically looking for, and consequently have a higher chance of converting. 

 

Why Does Effective eCommerce Product Filtering Matter? 

 

• An overwhelming number of product choices can confuse shoppers. Using filters can narrow down the search and enable customers to find relevant products, leading to better conversion. 

 

• It improves customer experience and makes your website navigation user-friendly and seamless. 

 

• When shoppers quickly find what they’re looking for (using filters), it helps them in making quick purchasing decisions, thereby improving your sales and bringing quick profits. 

 

 

Despite the clear signs that filtering is crucial for business, unfortunately, only 16 percent of eCommerce brands offer a smooth filtering experience to shoppers.

 

While there are businesses that are effectively making use of product filtering to reap its exclusive benefits, there are still many who haven’t optimized their product filtering processes. However, given that product filtering can make a significant impact on revenue & sales, having an effective product filtering system is critical for your business to succeed and enable customers to find the required products quickly and easily.

 

But what makes great product filters and how can you best optimize product filters? Let’s find out. 

10 Ways To Master eCommerce Product Filtering 

1. Offer Category-Specific Product Filters

 

Most of your potential customers expect the filtering model to be as per product categories and attributes. Other than generic site-wide attributes, such as ratings, price, best selling, etc., make sure to provide your customers with distinct filtering options based on product characteristics. 

 

For example, for a category like “socks”, there should be an option to filter it by material, length, color, etc. Similarly, for a product like “television”, there should be filter options like “Television resolution”, “display size”, “device model year”, etc. 

 

Using these filters can help users who are unclear about their preferences to browse a number of options within a particular product category and find products of their interest. 

2. Provide Customers With Multiple Filter Selections 

 

Many customers visit your eCommerce site without having made up their minds on what they want to buy. For instance, a customer might want a shirt but may not be sure of its color. In this case, he might want to look for a black shirt but also check options in blue or white.

 

Hence, allowing customers to select multiple filters of the same type can enable them to make comparisons on the same screen, without having filters separately and check the results one by one. This can further help them see the possible options & make a positive buying decision. 

 

3. Display The Product Count In Front Of Each Filter 

 

If you are wondering if displaying numbers makes an impact, the answer is YES. This is because of the simple reason that displaying the number of products under each filter will help shoppers make an informed decision about which filter they would like to choose. 

For example, there is a customer looking for a blue shirt who is open to checking out different shades of blue. Suppose, you have listed 50 items under the “blue” color filter while only 4 items are under your “navy blue” color filter. They might go with the blue filter to check for diverse shirt choices, thereby making an informed choice. 

 

This will reduce the hassles of applying filters, again and again, to check how many products fall under each filter and will simply indicate how many options are available in it.  

 

Pro Tip: Never show zero products after your customer selects filters. This can frustrate customers & hamper their experience. Make sure that you exclude options that lead to zero results. You can also consider having a unique landing page for “nothing found” where you can recommend similar products or relevant items, to what shoppers are looking for. 

 

4. Use AI To Personalize Filtering Experience 

 

If you have seen how Amazon optimizes its product filtering, you probably know what this point talks about. The platform uses AI technology to precisely integrate product recommendations into its product filtering. It shows the recommended products after the filtered results to prevent shoppers from being distracted. 

 

Interacting Fact: “Product recommendations on Amazon help the platform generate around 35 percent of its revenue”

 

If you have not been using AI in your product filtering model, it is a great opportunity to tap into. By using the technology, you can use the browsing history of shoppers & suggest products in your filter results, similar to what they are looking for. This helps shoppers in getting personalized recommendations and further enhances your chance of getting more conversions. 

5. Showcase All The Applied Filters Clearly 

 

To find the most relevant product & satisfy their search hunt consumers select multiple tags within and across filter types. Hence, make sure to clearly display all the applied filters. This keeps shoppers well aware of the specific class of products they’re currently viewing. Furthermore, make sure that your customers are seamlessly (in a single click) able to remove a selected attribute, change filters or clear all the filters seamlessly if it is not useful. 

 

6. Don’t Use Complicated Language In Your Filters 

 

What is the main purpose of providing product filters? The ultimate goal is to design the eCommerce site in a way to make your inventory easy to navigate and help customers easily find products that they’re looking for. Hence, when optimizing your product filtering model,  think from the perspective of your customers, and use the exact words your shoppers use to find and describe products. 

To find the most relevant search terms, you can review search queries, refer to your GA reports and evaluate your site search data to identify the terms to use. Make sure to avoid using very complicated industry jargon or terms your customers may not be familiar with.

7. Keep Your Filters Mobile-Friendly 

 

Out of all the online purchases, 72.9% are made through mobile devices. This implies that no matter how well you’ve optimized your product filters for big screens, it is necessary that you offer mobile-friendly filtering options. 

 

Make sure that your product filters are easy to read, select, and deselect on the shoppers’ mobile devices. If you are working with an eCommerce web development company, ask them to make your filters appear in a collapsible menu that can be hidden when a user starts browsing the products. The product filtering section must also be displayed again with the touch of a finger if a customer wants to make edits to the filtering options.

8.Refresh Pages Quickly After Applying Filters 

 

As per a report by Econsultancy, a one-second delay in loading a web page can lead to a loss in conversions by 7%.

 

As soon as customers apply filters, they expect to see results immediately without any delay. If your site loading speed is slow after applying filters, it is most likely that the customers will exit your website or web page. Hence, no matter how many filters your customers apply, you need to ensure that your site search is well-optimized & your potential customers don’t have to wait for results to load when they add or remove a filter. 

9. Use Thematic Filters 

 

When customers visit a physical store, store assistants help customers to find what they’re looking for, while also helping them see other products that might interest them. Thematic filters act as a virtual assistant and enable shoppers to get more tailored results. 

 

There are many site visitors who don’t have a specific product in mind, rather they only have a general idea of what to buy, like “dress for a party” or  “dress for wedding”, “gift for girlfriend”. This is where thematic filters help. 

 

These filters enable customers to find products that are related to specific themes for example, “occasion”(wedding, sangeet, date, etc.), “style” (casual, modern, romantic, etc.), “season” (winter, spring, summer), among others.  These filters help potential customers in finding matching products of their interest, browsing through a number of options, and finding items that match their expectations and requirements. 

10. Prioritize Useful Filters 

 

Remember, the idea of having product filters is not to stuff your website with so many filters but to provide customers with useful filters that support their buying journey & help you make quick sales. Having unnecessary and multiple filters that are not useful will only hamper user experience and make your site slow. Hence, think from the customers’ perspective and make sure to prioritize and consciously select the most useful filters. 

 

Ready To Ace The Product Filtering Journey? 

 

Are you implementing these practices on your current eCommerce site?

If not, it’s high time to leverage these tips and ace the product filtering tool. However, keep in mind that the technology behind building smooth and user-friendly filters is not easy as it may seem. Deploying all of these tips can be daunting, yet the result is highly promising, leading to improved sales & conversions.

Many eCommerce platforms make it easy to implement product filtering. Platforms like Bigcommerce offer product filtering when using their hosting plans of PLUS and above. Their are also more robust 3rd party apps that allow filtering for electronics or automotive parts, commonly search by year, make and model. Some of these more robust implementations may require a little help.

Outsourcing eCommerce services to optimize your product filtering feature can be useful in terms of getting eCommerce professionals that can best serve your customized needs. Furthermore, if you hire eCommerce developers in India from regions like India, the Philippines, Malaysia, etc., that can help you save a great deal of money as it’s easy to find low-cost services in these countries without compromising on the service quality.  So, find your perfect product filtering solution partner and get started today.