As we always say, WordPress is suited for running different kinds of business. No matter you sell the dress, downloadable photos, or just create a membership site with dripping content – WordPress is exactly what you need. So today we will tell you how to create filters for the best user’s navigation if you sell books. Are you ready? Keep on reading!
How to select the Product type
First of all, there are two ways to sell books on WordPress:
- Sell the downloadable ebooks
- Sell physical books.
Why does it matter? It is important to define whether you sell physical or downloadable books before you will create the Products because it predetermines the product data you need to select.
| Product type | Additional tools | |
| Downloadable ebooks | Simple product -> Downloadable | Provide with the Downloadable files, and set the Download limits and expiry |
| Physical books | Simple product | Provide with the Shipping conditions like weight, dimensions, and the shipping class |
Learn how to create downloadable and physical goods
So, now, we suppose that you can create a product catalog and list all the books with WooBeWoo Product Table plugin. Let’s stop on the filtering and navigation options.
Why do you need to create a positive filtering experience
If you ever buy something on the Internet, then it’s a rhetorical question. Filtering provides users with a number of benefits:
- Divide the long products lists into manageable results
- Increase a conversion rate
- Improve navigation experience
- Make more sales, etc.
However, in order to achieve that, you have to develop a working system of filters with the right tags. How to do this?
Think about how people search for books, then analyze the sites of the top booksellers, and go back to the first step. For example, AbeBooks.com makes filters by the recommendations and genre. Also, this site provides users with extended search opportunities like a search by:
- Keyword
- Title
- Author
- ISBN
- Publisher
- Collection.
AbeBooks.com
Another example is Amazon. They filter the books by:
- Category
- Popularity
- Format
- Author
- Language
- Award Winners
- Customer review, etc.
Amazon
What is the difference between sorting, searching, and filtering
Sorting: organizing all the data in a particular order (!) without removing entries from the data set. You can choose the parameter by which you want to filter, for example, by price, by date, etc.
Filtering: according to a chosen filter, it removes all the data that does not match. Usually, you can filter by the several parameters at once.
Searching: it suggests that you want to find a particular product which consists of the defined word, sentence or paragraph.
What can you do with the WooBeWoo Product Table plugin? – All these things, and we will show you how.
How to add filtering, sorting, search options
WooBeWoo Product Table plugin allows you to create categories and attributes.
- Go to WooCommerce -> Products -> Categories to create a new Category like Business, Fantasy
- Go to WooCommerce -> Products -> Attributes to create a new Attribute like book language
- Go to WooCommerce -> Products -> Attributes -> Configure terms to add new terms for the Attribute like English, Russian
Learn how to create new Categories and Attributes
After that, go to WooCommerce -> Products -> Add New.So now you add your books according to the categories and attributes.
Product categories
Product attributes
So, now you can create a table with WooBeWoo Product Table plugin.
- Go to the plugin menu
- Click Add New Table plugin
- Enter product table name
- Add products
- Go to Settings -> Features and enable Sorting, Searching, Attribute and Category filters.
Sorting, Searching, Attribute and Category filters
Here is the result.
Thumbnail Name Categories Price 
The Lean Startup Business $14.00 
Start with why Business $17.00 
Creation Machine Sci-fi & Fantasy $13.00 
Solaris Sci-fi & Fantasy $15.00
Besides,, you can add extended filters with WooBeWoo Product Filter plugin.