Re: Store 2.0 filter by product tag - Why has this gone and how can we replicate it?

Store 2.0 filter by product tag - Why has this gone and how can we replicate it?

SpareAndSquare
Excursionist
41 0 42

Hi, we are looking at upgrading to the new warehouse theme to upgrade our store. We seem to have ran into issues with product filters though now we are using Store 2.0. 

We have a large inventory of 4-5k products. We use tags at the moment on our old theme to filter our collection pages. This is no longer an option with Store 2.0 and the default selection of filters from the new navigation menu is not suitable for our needs. Iv copied links below to our store to show the type of level of filtering we require. It appears this is now not an option so would leave us stuck and unable to upgrade to a new theme which I find crazy. 

https://spareandsquare.co.uk/collections/vacuum-cleaner-tools

https://spareandsquare.co.uk/collections/pressure-washers

Has anyone else found this and have you found a way around it? Am I just missing something? Links below to info I have found out, but SHopify support cnt answer my question and just bounce me back to these same articles each and every time! 

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/themes/os20/customize/filters?shpxid=8ff76345-DACB-4...

https://support.maestrooo.com/article/174-how-to-setup-group-filtering

 

Looks like Shopify only support small inventories or people selling clothing! Really poor from such a promising upgrade that must leave many store owners with no option to use the new Store 2.0 themes.

Replies 31 (31)

SpareAndSquare
Excursionist
41 0 42

Can anyone from Shopify support shed any light on this? 

jmp
Excursionist
23 2 51

I am currently in the same boat as you. We have 4-5k items in our inventory as well (original sculptures) and filtering by tags is very important to our clients because it allows them to search by subject (animal types, people and what actions they are doing, etc). Without the ability to filter by tags, my clients may as well be lost in a sea of 200+ pages of products.

After toying around with Dawn 2.0, I am very surprised that this option is not available and also prevents me from upgrading. Otherwise the new OS2.0 is solid.

SpareAndSquare
Excursionist
41 0 42

its a real shame and I am glad im not the only

one caught out by this, hopefully Shopify are aware and will get this issue resolved sooner rather than later but I can not seem to get an answer from anyone in the support team even after multiple live chats. I just keep being told to buy yet even more apps 😩 

Why do you keep taking away basic and necessary functionality that we then have to buy apps to overcome? 

Lassou_Admin
Tourist
8 0 18

We also have this same issue, and it is literally a show stopper for our home products marketplace. 

We went through the full upgrade process to Expanse 2.0, which is a really great theme, and then get to one of the final steps in the process, to configure the filter only to discover that it doesn't function at all as needed for the large product catalogue. 

Very disappointing indeed. 

And it seems that @Shopify support are ignoring all threads about this problem. 

Please can anyone share more information or solutions as they find them. I will certainly do the same. 

 

SpareAndSquare
Excursionist
41 0 42

It seems lots of people are having issues with this and the go to answer seems to be pay for an app. For something that used to be a standard free feature that I expect most stores will need the use of at some point, to buy an app and pay extra seems a shocking way to go, not to mention lots of extra apps cause the sites to load slower. 

 

Seems Shopifys standard answer for many standard options other ecommerce platforms offer is to pay for a 3rd party app! 

I was pleased when store 2.0 was released as it was a much needed upgrade to the themes, but loosing functionality that has been included for years seems a step backwards rather than progression. 

 

And still nobody from @Shopify can provide an answer?? I feel for all your support team at the moment! 

Lassou_Admin
Tourist
8 0 18
Yes, this is a fundamental undermining of the functionality of Shopify as a
platform.

I'm don't have a problem with paying extra for good quality apps that add
functionality, however in this case the Boost filter and search app (which
is good), is not compatible with the new Expanse theme that we use.

So we:
- have lost the filter functionality we need for a large catalogue
- and are not able to use the recommended 3rd party app (Boost) because it
isn't compatible with our theme

And we don't yet have income so we can't afford to pay the fees for
developers to help fix this problem.

@Shopify - please can you provide some answers, as the frustrations are
growing louder by the day.

Thanks.
LetsGetDigital
Shopify Partner
48 0 52

Don't hold your breath. It seems Shopify has now become too big to even acknowledge, let alone answer user's issues these days.

I fear we reached peak Shopify last year and now it has become like the other behemoths (Amazon, Facebook, Google etc) where they are completely disconnected from their users.

It's like shouting at a wall.

 

Let's Get Digital (dot net)
antonkogan
Excursionist
30 1 8

Hello. Is there a way to tag items same way warehouse theme tags items for “on sale” for instance another tag on products in collection for “next day shipping” ? 

for reference

https://emmaspremiumservices.com/collections/chips

 

Sipsip
Visitor
1 0 1

We just hit the exact same roadblock evaluating Expanse 2.0 (which also has a weird 1,000+ item filter limit issue)

Are there any apps available, or is it possible to pay devs post-upgrade? Honestly just so surprising to see a loose end like this @Shopify ... and we can't just create our own custom collections to remedy.

There is another thread on this topic with @Laurie_ONeill @hardik355 @bredowmax https://community.shopify.com/c/online-store-2-0/filter-by-tag-in-dawn-theme/td-p/1264678

We're wondering if there's any information available on when filter by metatags will be possible, or if there's another 2.0 theme that can accommodate filtering by tags.

PaulNewton
Shopify Partner
7121 631 1484

This is no longer an option with Store 2.0 and the default selection of filters from the new navigation menu is not suitable for our needs.

@SpareAndSquare , @Lassou_Admin , @Sipsip 

To break up this echo chamber: building a tag based collection filtering is still an option nothing has happened to the tag system it still exists.

https://shopify.dev/themes/navigation-search/filtering/tag-filtering 

It is a waste of time to point at OS2.0 themes which are specifically meant to NOT be a kitchen sinks fulfilling all the wishes of all the varying needs of over 1 million stores.

A core issue is Shopify has not indicated if other product attributes will be made part of filtering as a baseline, such as tags or even metafields. 

So if merchants have a pain point of tags vs the new filter system then the feature request they should be focusing on is getting shopify to add support for product tags as a facet in the new filter system. But the problem there is that does not allow tags to become purely an admin convenience used for organizing inventory on the backend or tag specific logic instead of any tag will do logic.

Also just join the main thread https://community.shopify.com/c/online-store-2-0/filter-by-tag-in-dawn-theme/td-p/1264678 

 

Until such time as tags become part of the filter system,

You can either pine for a tag-filter feature to make it into dawn or other OS2.0 themes, which currently seems unlikely, or:

  • use an app for filtering or search
    • If search is a key user action on a site with a massive inventory you should already just be using a search service to increase revenue
  • or customize the OS.20 theme of choice to have a tag filter UI
  • or use a vintage theme
  • or use a vintage theme and migrate that to have sections everywhere.

 

As a process regardless of new features or changes to old ones;  get a control of expectations, especially with free themes or new paradigms:

  1. If a feature "seems" to change or a new one comes out and you do not understand it consult an expert who does.
  2. If a merchant chooses a theme that does not offer a specific feature that is their choice; Always specify, evaluate, test.
  3. It is not shopify's responsibility or theme developers responsibility to build kitchen sinks or be fettered by legacy architecture.
  4. So it is that merchants responsibility to extend any theme they chose with the full feature-set their business needs.
  5. Information architecture UX and UI , especially with expansive inventories,  will always be the merchants responsibility in presenting their offerings to customers.

 

Contact [email protected] for the solutions you need


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Laurie_ONeill
Shopify Partner
89 2 66

I am sorry Paul, but not all of us have the financial resources to "consult an expert" or pay for an app to do something that our stores have always done in the past. I have been with Shopify since their very early days and the whole tag system and filtering ability that came with that was a big part of the reason that I chose Shopify to begin with. It seems an absolute basic fundamental part of the Shopify ecosystem, and I do not consider wanting a basic functionality that has always previously existed to be "wanting my theme to have everything but the kitchen sink".  I am not a professional coder but I have been working with Shopify themes for my own store and for several dozen friends/clients who I have built Shopify stores and done extensive customizations on, but this change has thrown me for a loop. The one thing I do agree with that you said is that if they are not going to include tag filtering in the free theme any more, then we need to encourage them to include filter by metatags or something similar to tag filtering in their new filtering system, and to lift the 1000 product limit which is very strange as large stores need filtering the most. What is the best way to go about requesting that feature and getting someone to listen? 

PaulNewton
Shopify Partner
7121 631 1484

 


@Laurie_ONeill wrote:

nd am not going to pay monthly fees for apps for both of them for a feature that has always previously been included in every free Shopify theme!


If you have copies of vintage themes with a needed feature then UI extract & transplant is a common path for issues like this.

I am sorry Paul, but not all of us have the financial resources to "consult an expert" or pay for an app to do something that our stores have always done in the past

An important business problem here: there's a point where thrift loses money and creates a masochistic trap from thinking the generic features you've been given in the past for "free" were ever good enough in the first place just because that's all you've ever known.

Seriously reevaluate how you think about apps, for large inventories with good traffic product-navigation-apps MAKE money $$$.

There's even one one search app in the store that has a "ROI guarantee" at 3x ROI.

Shift your baseline.


@Laurie_ONeill wrote:

What is the best way to go about requesting that feature  


To submit feature requests https://help.shopify.com/en/questions/#/questions and in the other thread I link to the github repo for the UI supporting tags to be added to dawn.

As for listening that's a dice roll for something like this that already has solutions palatable or not.

Contact [email protected] for the solutions you need


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SpareAndSquare
Excursionist
41 0 42

Hi @PaulNewton some good feedback here, but I do not agree with all thats been mentioned. We pay a Shopify partner already for customisations on our store, and when we looked into the warehouse theme (not a free theme as you have suggested) it had the ability to filter all of our products by tags, just like we have previosuly using the showcase theme (again not a free theme). We have never had an issue in paying for good quality themes, or paying partners or experts to customise it beyond what we can do ourselves. We spent ages wit hthe theme preview, setting it up and as we were doing so 2.0 was released and looked to have some great features that could have helped us out. We installed the updated version and to our suprise we could no longer filter products by tags. Fair enough, there must be another way  right? Wrong. Oh, unless we want to pay for yet more apps. Okay, not so much of an issue, we already use an app for our search page that offers this. But then when doing basic speed tests on our site, the more apps we add, the slower the website becomes! When using product tags built into the theme, we did not have this issue. We tried at least 5 different apps but all had the same issue. Reduced loading times for the site, and we all know how this negatively impacts conversions etc. 

From what you have said, it seems like although Shopify have added a new way to filter products, if the theme developers wanted to, they could still include filtering by product tag, unless iv mistaken what you have said? Although when I have spoken to the theme developers of 2 new 2.0 themes, they have siad it is impossible and would not work on the new set up.

 

So again it would be down to an expert or partner to code this in for us? Iv spoken to 3 different partners who have all said no, its not possible. At present, there is no way to filter down large inventories in collections without using 3rd party apps, that not only cost more each month on top of the cost of a premium theme and Shopify package but also slow down the store.

 

If im wrong I apologise and would be happy to stand corrected, but I have done my research and have spoken to multiple experts and developers before posting here. Shopify cant even help and a few of the support team I have spoken to have all agreed its something that needs resolving but are not sure if it will ever happen, or if we will be bale to filter products in other ways in the future.

PaulNewton
Shopify Partner
7121 631 1484

@SpareAndSquare wrote:

We installed the updated version and to our suprise we could no longer filter products by tags. Fair enough, there must be another way  right? Wrong. Oh, unless we want to pay for yet more apps.

If you have the vintage version of a theme then you should have the code base for tag-filters


We tried at least 5 different apps but all had the same issue. Reduced loading times for the site, and we all know how this negatively impacts conversions etc. 

Yes but did they increase conversions more than the loss, a/b test or keep shortlisting candidate apps and services, or make the baseline performance able to take a hit. There are also services that can have their search integrated and made to only load when a user uses it.


From what you have said, it seems like although Shopify have added a new way to filter products, if the theme developers wanted to, they could still include filtering by product tag, unless iv mistaken what you have said? Although when I have spoken to the theme developers of 2 new 2.0 themes, they have siad it is impossible and would not work on the new set up


Because this is a misunderstanding or misuse of terms and concepts creating ambiguity and misinterpretation.

Storefront filtering(facet filtering) does not let you use products-tags meanwhile  tag based collection filtering does.

So yes a theme can still include tag-based collection filtering but product-tags will not work with the separate facet-filtering.

Also note storefront filtering applies to search results where as tag-based filtering basically doesn't

They are different tools with different behavior characteristics, implementation details, and currently complete non-interoperability.

All currently plagued by lack of clear documentation poor explanations and poorer communication among almost everyone I see talking about this.

It's like people talking about why they cannot take a car on small roads but no one stops to clarify they are talking about sidewalks.

While roads and sidewalks occupy nearby space they are used for very different things and lead to places in different ways and not something you want to combine.

 

The two systems don't mesh together as others have commented and as those you've talked to probably interpreting your intent that way.

So if a theme is filtering a collection by price there is not a built in way to then filter those results using product-tags, and vice versa , that's the current "impossible" devs are probably talking about [1]. Developers of themes on the theme store especially don't want to support that type of headache so they commit to the future making the past impossible so they don't have to support it.

The technicality here is there is nothing stopping merchants from putting the UIs for both systems on a collection page but if you don't work out the UX you'll just confuse customers [2].

I'll think about making an example but time and energy /shrug.

 

At present, there is no way to filter down large inventories in collections without using 3rd party apps, that not only cost more each month on top of the cost of a premium theme and Shopify package but also slow down the store.

Complex inventory needs complex information architecture solutions, expecting generic features to fix that is wishful thinking.

In a way Shopifys core product is checkout making alot of everything else just cake to help the customers of merchants get to checkout.

 

Developer notes:

[1] There could be a clean workaround but it's yet to surface, a nasty workaround could be by fetching the tag-filtered collection over ajax and then doing a compare against the already facet-filtered results but pagination will be the bugbear.

[2] I suppose at minimum a reductive approach is have a tag-based UI as "simple" , then show facet-filtering behind an "advanced" button , or vice versa but you better organize those tags in a sane way.

Contact [email protected] for the solutions you need


Save time & money ,Ask Questions The Smart Way


Problem Solved? ✔Accept and Like solutions to help future merchants

Answers powered by coffee Thank Paul with a Coffee for more answers or donate to eff.org


LetsGetDigital
Shopify Partner
48 0 52

ACTUAL HELP for anyone reading this - the 'Empire' & 'Pipeline' OS2.0 themes both support tag filtering on the collections pages. I have upgraded a number of client's stores to these and they work wonderfully.


Pipeline: https://uniquebabygiftbaskets.co.uk/collections/baby-girl-gift-baskets-hampers-keepsake-boxes-uk

Empire: https://sallyallenfashion.co.uk/collections/anytime-anywear

 

Let's Get Digital (dot net)
Pburt16
Excursionist
19 0 17

What BS response. Filtering by tag was a basic feature of Shopify and I'd guess that every single Shopify store up until the 2.0 conversion utilized tags to organize content AND display content. This feature isn't a "kitchen sink" request, it's a basic feature that still has relevance. Shopify pisses me off most of the time—they literally provide zero support for any customer on their standard tiers (basic through enterprise). The only clients they support are their Plus clients, who enjoy every single feature that has ever been asked for by their tiered customers since the inception of the platform. These forums are ignored to the point that the only communication you will ever receive is canned response. 

I'm a little late to the party here having waited a long time to finally "improve" my theme, only to discover that basic functionality no longer exist. Filtering by tag ONLY works with collections—the new ability to customize a template with "sections" is a joke when the ONLY way to add a featured collection with a specific filter is to ADD a SPECIFIC collection with appropriate tags. Which means that you have to create dozens of specific collections just to filter the output of a 'featured collection' section on your custom template ... What an absolute joke. 

The new filtering system doesn't add functionality, it confines functionality to what Shopify deems as the most universal strategy, ignoring how users actually search for products. Metafields are equally restrictive. 

 

And no, "there's an app for that" or "find a developer" is NOT a viable or reasonable response or solution for features that have been removed that stores rely upon.

Laurie_ONeill
Shopify Partner
89 2 66

Yes, I've been struggling with this too...the built in filters in 2.0 don't work for my personalized gift/party supply store which I absolutely have to have tag filtering for.  I need to filter by my own categories such as occasion, party theme, etc, not the categories they have in their built in filter...out of those, product type is really the only one that is at all useful. The Shopify solution is "build nav menus"...that does not work the same as filtering by tag! I've decided to hold off on "upgrading" my own store for the moment as this is a downgrade, not an upgrade. But I'm currently in the process of upgrading one of my client's stores to 2.0 and I ended up having her purchase Modular, which is a 2.0 theme that does still include tag filtering. I believe Empire is another 2.0 theme that also has tag filtering.  I don't know if these still have the 1000 product limit as hers is a smaller store than mine, so I haven't encountered that yet.  But it is missing some other features, it doesn't seem to have the ability to use the metafields in the product descriptions, so now I'm struggling with trying to figure that out. There are apps for filtering, but I have multiple stores, and am not going to pay monthly fees for apps for both of them for a feature that has always previously been included in every free Shopify theme! There are a lot of us in this situation, and I really hope Shopify will listen and fix this big huge missing feature from 2.0! 

rohit_goel
Shopify Partner
11 1 5

In all store 2.0 . whatever meta fields you created for products and assign to the values in product admin section, you can use all of those in the filters, you need to  go to navigation and assign them in filters.

Hope it will help

 

Thanks

rohit_goel_0-1640589930850.png

 

LetsGetDigital
Shopify Partner
48 0 52
Complete lack of comprehension of the issue. Lol
Let's Get Digital (dot net)
AmazelDesigns
Excursionist
14 0 16

I am sorry but you are missing the whole point.

User_999
Shopify Partner
18 0 4

I would also add that you can use an app https://apps.shopify.com/stock-sync to upload a spreadsheet to the new meta fields for the products - really helped us speed up an update and bulk edit. A little bit of wizardry in Excel mapping the existing tags to the meta fields.

Venkat_N
Tourist
5 0 12

Yes, we finally had to go down the “meta” rabbit hole to bring back some collection fiters and the resultant filter feature on collection pages. 
sadly this meta feature was not something i could figure out on my own, and we had to call in an “expert” to help. Have to say once one gets the hang of it, it’s not a bad substitute at all as a filtering mechanism, BUT requires all the filter tags one set up across the products to be added to the meta (that also needed set up on product pages via an “expert”).

 Best,

 Venkat 

Venkat_N
Tourist
5 0 12

Yes, sorely missing the filter by tags!

1. We are unclear on how to update our existing tag filters to the new filter system - shopify doesnt have clear documentation on this.

2. Its a massive job if we  do have to reassign all our carefully built tag filters to whatever this new filtering system is. 

I cant even find a clear answer on how its changed, and what we need to do to migrate, aside from being told to continue using an older theme version.

Not very helpful.

Hoping Shopify brings the tag filters back!

jasondangsb
Shopify Partner
117 0 5

This app https://apps.shopify.com/ultimate-search-and-filter-1 does exactly what you need. It helps create simple to complex filters as well as instant search popup.

AmazelDesigns
Excursionist
14 0 16

This thread is not about apps but about the basic functionality which has been taken away.

LetsGetDigital
Shopify Partner
48 0 52
Nope, Shopify are too big to be able to communicate directly with these
days - so don't expect any change as they don't listen to their customers
or Partners anymore. 😞
Let's Get Digital (dot net)
AmazelDesigns
Excursionist
14 0 16

Totally agree. Time and opportunity for other platforms to step up.

AmazelDesigns
Excursionist
14 0 16

We raised this issue with Shopify about six months ago. Shopify support seems to lack the knowledge and experience it used to have. We have over 2500 products and spent about 100 hours to create tags for each and every product. Then found out Shopify INTENTIONALLY took away this functionality.

 

I am amazed since this thread started in Oct 2021, Shopify hasn't cared to reply to this thread.

 

Canada's largest company has a lot of soul searching to do #@$%^&:(

 

The arrogance really sucks. 

dribeirofernand
Shopify Partner
2 0 0

The amount of people suggesting shopify users to pay someone or pay for an app for such a basic feature is mind boggling.

 

I recently updated my store to the "Sense" theme and missed the filter by tag feature. As a developer (not a web dev, I don't know any liquid or JS for that matter), I managed to add the feature to filter by tag to the SENSE theme (not sure if the dawn theme works similarly).

 

I'll leave the code snippets here (warning, I'm certain the code itself is disgusting, but it works and that's all that matters to me since I'm not a web dev). Hopefully someone with more experience in web development will chime in eventually.

 

From line 207 on facets.liquid (after the following lines of code)

 

{% if results.current_vendor or results.current_type %}
<input type="hidden" name="q" value="{{ results.current_vendor }}{{ results.current_type }}">
{% endif %}

 

Insert this (change everything between %if enable_sorting% and %end if%

 

{%- if enable_sorting -%}
<div style="display: flex; margin-left: auto; margin-right: 0">
   <div class="facet-filters sorting caption">
      <div class="facet-filters__field">
         <h2 class="facet-filters__label caption-large text-body">
            <label>Filter by: </label>
         </h2>
         <div class="select">
            <select  name="Filter_by" class="facet-filters__sort select__select caption-large"  onchange="this.options[this.selectedIndex].value && (window.location = this.options[this.selectedIndex].value);">
            {% for tag in collection.all_tags %}
            <option value="/collections/{% if collection.handle != blank %}{{ collection.handle }}{% else %}all{% endif %}/{{ tag | handleize }}"{% if current_tags contains tag %} selected="selected"{% endif %}>{{ tag }}</option>
            {% endfor %}
            </select>
            {% render 'icon-caret' %}
         </div>
      </div>
   </div>
   <div class="facet-filters sorting caption">
      <div class="facet-filters__field">
         <h2 class="facet-filters__label caption-large text-body">
            <label for="SortBy">{{ 'products.facets.sort_by_label' | t }}</label>
         </h2>
         <div class="select">
            {%- assign sort_by = results.sort_by | default: results.default_sort_by -%}
            <select name="sort_by" class="facet-filters__sort select__select caption-large" id="SortBy" aria-describedby="a11y-refresh-page-message">
            {%- for option in results.sort_options -%}
            <option value="{{ option.value | escape }}"{% if option.value == sort_by %} selected="selected"{% endif %}>{{ option.name | escape }}</option>
            {%- endfor -%}
            </select>
            {% render 'icon-caret' %}
         </div>
      </div>
      <noscript>
         <button type="submit" class="facets__button-no-js button button--tertiary">{{ 'products.facets.sort_button' | t }}</button>
      </noscript>
   </div>
</div>
{%- endif -%}

 

Please be aware that I am not responsible if something happens to your store, make sure you backup everything (such as the code you're about to replace). Try it on your development branch before pushing to production.

valinho
Excursionist
10 0 2

I need it resolved as soon as possible. The metafields should filter at least 3000+ products! I cannot switch to 2.0 because I would loose all my sales.

CarA2021
Excursionist
12 0 6

Maybe I am not understanding you correctly but I am able to use product tags to filter using the Avenue theme and I am 2.0.  I have over 5,000 products and rely on these product tags.