Product and Sub-Category Sorting

If you dynamically populate catalog categories with products using predefined product filters (see Predefined Product Filters), you typically use these filters for sorting purposes, too. Predefined product filters apply either directly to a catalog/category (see Assigning Products Using Filters) or by assigning specific, product filter-aware pages, see Managing Category Content Views.

The default filter, which is applied to all categories via the default Category Page unless you define otherwise, defines Sort by price (ascending) as sorting criterion. In case your product filters do not define criteria for product sorting or category sorting, you can control the sorting order at multiple levels using attributes as described in Sorting With Attributes.

You can manually add products to catalog categories (see Assigning Products), which does not require predefined product filters. In this case, you can control the display order for products and sub-categories using product/category attributes declared as sorting attributes.

The standard sorting attributes include Product Name, Product ID, List Price and Manufacturer Name. In addition, any custom attribute can be selected.

If a sorting attribute has been defined, products and sub-categories are sorted in ascending or descending order, depending on their attribute value. In case not all products or categories have the attribute defined which determines the sorting, list elements without a value for the sorting attribute follow on list elements that can be sorted.

Sorting preferences can be defined at three levels:

• General Sorting Preference

  For both product and category sorting, it is possible to declare a sorting attribute as a channel preference that serves as fallback or default across all catalogs, see Managing Sorting Preferences. This channel default can be overwritten at catalog level or category level by declaring a sorting attribute for the entire catalog or a specific catalog category as shown below.

• Catalog-Specific Sorting

  For each catalog, sorting attributes for products and categories can be declared. This sorting definition is then applied to all categories and products of the catalog. The catalog-specific sorting attribute overwrites the general channel sorting preference. For details, see Managing Sorting Attributes of Standard Catalogs.

• Category-Specific Sorting

  For each category, a sorting attribute can be declared in order to control sorting at category level. The category-specific sorting attribute overwrites both the definition at catalog level and the general preference. For details, see Managing Sorting Attributes of Standard Catalogs.

  Note: Sorting attributes declared at category-level apply only to products at this particular level. They are not inherited by sub-categories.

Using sorting attributes does not depend on a search index controlled by a third-party search engine, see Search Index Services. If you do use a search index for product searches in the storefront, you must update the search index after you have modified a sorting setting in order to have the changes displayed. Note that the search index must include the selected sorting attribute. For example, if you intend to sort products by Color (= custom attribute) within a category, the attribute Color must be "indexed" and set "sortable", see Managing Search Indexes.

In addition to automatic sorting using sorting attributes, catalog categories and products can also be sorted manually. For details, see Manual Sorting.

Manual sorting does not depend on a search index controlled by a third-party search engine, see Search Index Services. If you do use a search index for product searches in the storefront, you must update the search index after you have modified a sorting setting in order to have the changes displayed. Note that the search index must be assigned the attribute Category Position. This attribute adds the position of the product in a category (manual sorting of products in the category) to the search index.