Showcase Your Latest Arrivals: Adding New Products to Your Shopify Homepage & Filter
Are you looking to make your newest products shine on your Shopify store? A well-curated homepage showcasing your latest arrivals can significantly boost sales and entice customers to explore your offerings. In this article, we'll guide you through the process of adding these new products to your homepage and, for an extra touch of user-friendliness, implement product filtering to help customers find exactly what they need.
The Challenge:
Many Shopify store owners face the challenge of making their latest products easily discoverable. While new products are automatically added to the "New Arrivals" collection, this doesn't always guarantee visibility on the homepage. Furthermore, providing a user-friendly filtering system can improve the shopping experience, leading to increased conversion rates.
Scenario and Existing Code:
Let's imagine you have a Shopify store selling apparel. You want to display the 6 most recent products on your homepage and give customers the ability to filter by category, such as "Men's Clothing," "Women's Clothing," and "Accessories."
Here's how your current homepage code might look:
<section class="featured-products">
<h2>Our Latest Arrivals</h2>
<div class="product-grid">
<!-- Placeholder for product listings -->
</div>
</section>
The Solution:
We'll use Shopify's Liquid templating language and a few key components to achieve our goal:
-
Collections: Shopify allows you to group products into collections based on various criteria. We'll create a "New Arrivals" collection to easily identify and pull in our latest products.
-
Liquid Code: We'll use Liquid syntax within the
product-gridsection of our homepage code to dynamically fetch and display our products. -
Filtering: We'll leverage Shopify's built-in filtering functionality to allow customers to sort and narrow down product results based on category.
Step-by-Step Guide:
1. Create the "New Arrivals" Collection:
- Go to your Shopify admin panel and navigate to Products > Collections.
- Click "Create collection."
- Choose "Manually select products" and name the collection "New Arrivals."
- Add the products you want to feature as "new arrivals" to this collection.
2. Modify Your Homepage Code:
- Navigate to Online Store > Themes > Edit Code.
- Open your theme.liquid or the specific template where you want to display the new products (e.g., index.liquid).
- Find the
featured-productssection in your code. - Replace the placeholder content within the
product-gridwith the following code:
<section class="featured-products">
<h2>Our Latest Arrivals</h2>
<div class="product-grid">
{% for product in collections.new_arrivals.products limit:6 %}
<div class="product-item">
<a href="{{ product.url }}">
<img src="{{ product.featured_image | img_url: 'small' }}" alt="{{ product.title }}">
<h3>{{ product.title }}</h3>
<p>{{ product.price | money }}</p>
</a>
</div>
{% endfor %}
</div>
</section>
This code snippet will fetch the first 6 products from the "New Arrivals" collection and display them on your homepage.
3. Add Product Filtering:
- Go to Online Store > Themes > Edit Code.
- Open the product-grid.liquid file (or similar file based on your theme).
- Add the following code within your existing
product-gridsection:
<div class="filter-options">
<label for="category-filter">Filter by Category:</label>
<select id="category-filter">
<option value="">All Categories</option>
{% for category in collections.all.categories %}
<option value="{{ category }}">{{ category }}</option>
{% endfor %}
</select>
</div>
- Modify the
product-gridcode to include the filter:
<div class="product-grid" data-category="{{ category-filter }}">
{% for product in collections.new_arrivals.products %}
<!-- ... (Rest of your product display code) ... -->
{% endfor %}
</div>
4. Add Javascript to Filter:
- You'll need to add a bit of JavaScript to handle the filtering process:
<script>
document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
const categoryFilter = document.getElementById('category-filter');
const productGrid = document.querySelector('.product-grid');
categoryFilter.addEventListener('change', function() {
const selectedCategory = categoryFilter.value;
productGrid.dataset.category = selectedCategory;
// Refresh or re-render the product grid using AJAX or similar techniques to filter products based on the selected category.
});
});
</script>
This JavaScript code will listen for changes in the filter dropdown and update the data-category attribute on the product grid. You can then use this attribute in your filtering logic to display only products matching the selected category.
5. Advanced Filtering and Search:
For more complex filtering and search functionalities, consider using:
- Shopify Apps: Explore apps like "Filter & Search" or "Boost Product Filter" for advanced filtering options.
- Custom Code: Implement more complex JavaScript and AJAX to achieve advanced filtering and search behaviors tailored to your store's needs.
Important Considerations:
- Theme Compatibility: Ensure the provided code is compatible with your current Shopify theme.
- Design and Aesthetics: Adjust the code and styling to match your store's design and layout.
- SEO: Use relevant keywords and meta descriptions for each product page to optimize for search engines.
Additional Value and Resources:
- Shopify Documentation: Refer to Shopify's official documentation for more comprehensive information on Liquid, collections, and filtering: https://shopify.com/
- Shopify Community Forums: Connect with other Shopify store owners and developers on the Shopify community forums for support and advice: https://community.shopify.com/
By showcasing your latest arrivals prominently and equipping your customers with a powerful filtering tool, you can significantly enhance the user experience and drive sales on your Shopify store. Remember to experiment with different approaches, test the results, and continuously optimize your homepage to create a compelling and engaging shopping experience.
