1. What Product Filtering does and who can use it
According to the BigCommerce Help Center, Product Filtering (also known as faceted search) lets shoppers refine product pages by several attributes such as price, colour, size and reviews. Filters appear on category, brand and search pages.
To use product filters, your store must be on a Scale plan or higher, and your user account needs the Manage Settings permission. A filter only shows on a page if products with that attribute are listed there, so a Size filter stays hidden when no product has a Size option.
2. Filter types
BigCommerce offers Category (used only on brand and search pages), Brand, Price, Rating from the built-in review system, Other (free shipping, featured products, products in stock), Product Options and Custom Fields. The Price filter uses the base price, so variant prices are excluded, and it is hidden for customers assigned to a customer group.
Filters for product options and custom fields are created automatically, but new ones must be marked visible before they appear. A custom field with the same name as a product option does not show as a filter, and filters cannot be saved while options or custom fields are named Category, Brand, Price, Rating or Other.
As with any faceted search, the filters are only as good as the data. BigCommerce recommends consistent spelling and case for option and custom field names and values across the catalogue, otherwise “Blue” and “blue” end up as separate values.
- Write down the five properties customers narrow down by most often.
- Store each one in a single place: a product option or a custom field.
- Make names and values consistent before you switch the filter on.
3. Switch it on and set up filters
Once enabled, BigCommerce lists all available filters under Products › Filtering and adds new ones when you add product options or custom fields. For each filter you set the display name, the sort order of its values (alphabetically, by option value order or by item count), how many values show (5, 10 or 15), whether the product count is displayed and whether it starts collapsed. Filters appear on the storefront in the order of the list.
Contextual filters let a category use its own filter set: choose the category at the top of the page and uncheck Use Storefront Default. That helps when categories need different filters, for example size for clothing and wattage for lamps.
- In the control panel, go to Products › Filtering.
- Open the Action menu (⋯) at the top and choose Enable Product Filters.
- Choose All product filters, tick Visible for the filters you want and edit each one via its Action menu.
- Save the filter and the filter list, then check a category and a search results page.
4. Limits to know
The Help Center lists these limits: up to 12 filters on any page, up to 500 of the most used values per filter in the storefront (a Show More link appears above 15 values), and with filtering enabled, category, brand and search results pages show only the first 10,000 products returned.
Two details cause confusion in practice. Product counts can be higher than the products shown, because products in categories hidden by customer groups still count. And to hide out-of-stock options from filter results, go to Settings › Inventory and choose “Mark the option as out of stock”, which unlocks the setting to hide them.
Example
A shop with options named “Colour” on some products and “Color” on others gets two separate filters. Rename one so both use the same option name, and a single colour filter covers the whole range.
5. When a separate search is worth a test
If your plan includes Product Filtering and your search finds what customers type, the built-in filters are enough. A separate search is worth a test if you are below the Scale plan, if shoppers often get no results for typos, or if you want filters right in the search window while they type.
Grumeria connects to BigCommerce through a product feed and a script added with Script Manager. Every feed field you mark as filterable, such as brand, category, price, colour or availability, becomes a filter in the search window. Compare it with a fixed test set before you switch.
Frequently asked questions
Which BigCommerce plan includes product filtering?
The BigCommerce Help Center says your store must be on a Scale plan or higher to use product filters.
Do BigCommerce filters work on search results?
Yes. Product filters appear on category, brand and search pages. The Category filter is only used on brand and search pages.
How many filters can a BigCommerce page show?
Up to 12 filters per page. Each filter shows up to 500 of its most used values, with a Show More link above 15 values.
Why is the Price filter missing for some customers?
BigCommerce hides the Price filter for customers assigned to a customer group, because customer group pricing overrides the catalogue price the filter uses.