Custom Product Sorting Options

Take control of your WooCommerce product catalog with flexible product sorting, product reordering, merchandising, and catalog management tools. This guide explains how to install the plugin, access its settings, configure global sorting rules, manage taxonomy-specific sorting, create merchandising campaigns, analyze product performance, and transfer sorting snapshots.

1. Plugin Installation

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Requirements

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Before installing Custom Product Sorting Options for WooCommerce, make sure your store has:

WordPress installed and configured.
WooCommerce installed and activated.
Administrator or WooCommerce management permissions.
A supported, up-to-date version of WordPress and WooCommerce.

For the best experience, keep WordPress, WooCommerce, your active theme, and the plugin updated.

Install from the WordPress Dashboard

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Step 1 — Download the plugin

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Download the Custom Product Sorting Options for WooCommerce plugin ZIP file from your purchase/download area.

You should have a file similar to:

custom-product-sorting-options.zip

Step 2 — Open WordPress Plugins

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From your WordPress dashboard, go to:

Plugins → Add New Plugin

Step 3 — Upload the plugin

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Click:

Upload Plugin

Choose the downloaded ZIP file and click:

Install Now

Step 4 — Activate

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After installation is complete, click:

Activate Plugin

The plugin will now be available in your WooCommerce administration area.

2. Where to find Custom Product Sorting Options

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After activation, open your WordPress dashboard and navigate to:

All Products → Custom Sorting

The plugin provides a dedicated administration interface where you can configure your WooCommerce product sorting and merchandising strategy.

Depending on the plugin version and enabled functionality, the available tabs include:

General
Manual Sorting
Automatic Sorting
Merchandising
Stock Sorting
Scheduling
Analytics
Snapshot Transfer

Each tab is designed for a specific aspect of WooCommerce catalog ordering and product merchandising.

3. General Settings

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The General tab provides the foundation for your store’s product sorting configuration.

Use this area to configure the overall sorting behavior that applies to your WooCommerce catalog.

What you can configure

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Depending on your configuration, general sorting can be used to establish default catalog behavior such as:

Default product sorting.
Product ordering strategy.
Sorting direction.
Product-per-page behavior.
Catalog-wide sorting preferences.
General sorting rules.

The General settings act as the starting point for your catalog sorting strategy.

4. Manual Sorting

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The Manual Sorting tab provides a visual way to control your WooCommerce product order.

Instead of relying exclusively on automatic sorting rules, you can manually arrange products exactly where you want them.

Drag-and-Drop Product Reordering

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Products can be reordered using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

This is useful when you want to create a merchandising arrangement based on business priorities rather than a numerical sorting value.

For example:

Place a newly launched product near the beginning of the catalog.
Move a high-margin product above other products.
Position promotional products prominently.
Arrange products according to a specific merchandising strategy.
Create a custom product sequence for a particular catalog.

Grid View and Table View

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The manual sorting interface supports multiple ways to manage products:

Grid View

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A visual product layout that makes it easier to understand the current catalog arrangement.

Table view

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A more compact interface for stores with larger catalogs where product information and ordering need to be managed efficiently.

You can switch between the available views according to your workflow.

Bulk Actions

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Manual sorting also provides bulk operations to speed up catalog management.

Available operations include:

Move to Top
Move to Bottom
Randomize

These operations are useful when managing many products without manually moving every individual item.

Undo and Redo

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The manual sorting interface includes:

Undo
Redo

This allows you to experiment with product arrangements without worrying about permanently losing your previous ordering changes.

Reset Order

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Use Reset Order when you want to restore the sorting arrangement and start again with a fresh product ordering workflow.

Sorting History

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The manual sorting interface also provides Sorting History, allowing administrators to review previous sorting activity.

This is particularly useful when product ordering is frequently changed as part of ongoing catalog merchandising.

5. Taxonomy-Level Product Sorting

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One of the key features of the plugin is the ability to configure sorting independently for WooCommerce taxonomies.

The plugin supports:

Product Categories
Product Tags
Product Brands

This allows a store to use different sorting strategies for different sections of its catalog.

For example:

Your global catalog could prioritize best-selling products, while a specific category uses manual drag-and-drop ordering and a particular brand uses price-based sorting.

6. Category, Tag, and Brand Sorting

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To configure taxonomy-specific sorting, edit the relevant taxonomy term from the WordPress dashboard.

For example: Products → Categories → Edit Category

The plugin adds Custom Product Sorting Options Settings to the taxonomy editing screen.

The same concept can be used for supported product tags and product brands.

Override General Sorting

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Enable Override sortings when you want the selected category, tag, or brand to use its own sorting configuration instead of inheriting the general product sorting behavior.

This gives you granular control over individual catalog sections.

Products Per Page

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You can configure a Products Per Page override for the selected taxonomy.

This allows different catalog sections to display different numbers of products per page.

Maximum Pagination Pages

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The Max Pages setting lets you define the maximum number of pagination pages for the selected taxonomy.

This can be useful when you want more controlled catalog presentation for specific categories, tags, or brands.

Default Sorting Rule

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You can select a default sorting rule for the selected taxonomy.

Available sorting concepts include:

ID
SKU
Name
Price
Rating
On Sale
Featured
On Sale First
Featured First
Total Ratings
Mostly Viewed
Sales / Popularity
Date
Manual / Drag and Drop

You can also choose Inherit when the taxonomy should use the general sorting configuration.

Sort Direction

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For supported automatic sorting rules, you can configure:

Ascending
Descending

This gives you additional control over how products are ordered.

7. Pinned Products

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The taxonomy sorting settings also allow you to specify Pinned Products.

Enter product IDs separated by commas, for example:

12,45,78

Pinned products can remain at the top of the relevant catalog section while the remaining products follow the configured sorting strategy.

This is useful for:

Featured products.
Promotional products.
New arrivals.
High-margin products.
Important products that should receive additional visibility.

8. Apply Settings to Child Terms

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For hierarchical taxonomies such as product categories, you can enable:

Apply to Children

This allows the configured taxonomy settings to be copied to child terms.

For example:

Clothing

→ Men’s Clothing
→ Women’s Clothing
→ Accessories

A parent category’s sorting configuration can be propagated to its child terms when required.

This can significantly reduce repetitive configuration for stores with large category structures.

9. Automatic Product Sorting

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The plugin can automatically organize products according to configurable product attributes and performance metrics.

Automatic sorting is useful when you want your catalog order to adapt to changing product data instead of manually rearranging products.

Depending on your configured rules, products can be sorted using criteria such as:

Product ID
SKU
Product name
Price
Rating
Total ratings/reviews
Views
Sales
Popularity
Date
Stock-related information
Featured status
Sale status

This makes it possible to build different WooCommerce product sorting strategies for different catalog requirements.

10. Product Merchandising

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The Merchandising functionality is designed for stores that want to go beyond basic product ordering.

Instead of simply asking:

“How should my products be sorted?”

you can use merchandising to determine:

“Which products should receive more visibility right now?”

Merchandising can be used to promote selected products, create product-boosting campaigns, and influence catalog visibility during important selling periods.

Typical use cases include:

Seasonal campaigns.
New product launches.
Holiday promotions.
Clearance campaigns.
Featured product campaigns.
Best-seller promotion.
Promotional product placement.

11. Product Boosting Campaigns

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Product boosting allows administrators to give selected products additional merchandising priority.

For example, a store launching a new collection could create a campaign that gives selected products greater visibility during the launch period.

This can be particularly useful for:

New arrivals.
Promotional products.
Seasonal products.
High-margin products.
Campaign-specific products.

Where scheduling is available, merchandising activities can also be planned around campaign dates.

12. Stock Sorting and Out-of-Stock Management

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The plugin provides tools for controlling how stock availability affects product ordering.

This is particularly useful for WooCommerce stores where unavailable products should not occupy prominent catalog positions.

Depending on your configuration, you can manage out-of-stock products by:

Hiding out-of-stock products.
Moving out-of-stock products.
Placing them toward the bottom.
Giving stock availability a higher sorting priority.
Applying stock thresholds.
Controlling relevant add-to-cart behavior.

This helps keep the storefront focused on products that customers can actually purchase.

13. Scheduling

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The Scheduling functionality allows sorting and merchandising operations to be planned instead of performed manually every time.

Scheduled sorting is useful for recurring catalog operations such as:

Daily product sorting.
Weekly catalog reordering.
Promotional campaigns.
Seasonal product arrangements.
Scheduled product boosting.
Recurring merchandising operations.

For example, you could configure a sorting strategy that periodically prioritizes products according to their latest sales performance.

This helps reduce repetitive catalog management work.

14. Analytics

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The Analytics tab provides a merchandising-focused overview of your WooCommerce catalog.

Navigate to WooCommerce → Custom Product Sorting Options → Analytics

The analytics dashboard is designed to help you understand product performance and make better sorting and merchandising decisions.

Store Overview

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The analytics dashboard provides key performance indicators including:

Products
Variations
In Stock
Out of Stock
Zero Sales

These metrics provide a quick overview of the current state of your product catalog.

Performance Analytics

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The dashboard provides visual analytics including:

Sales Trend

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Understand sales performance over time.

Stock Distribution

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Review the distribution between available and unavailable products.

Category Performance

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Compare product performance across your product categories.

These charts provide a visual overview of important catalog metrics.

15. Best Sellers

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The Best Sellers section identifies products with strong sales performance.

This can help you identify products that may deserve greater visibility through your product sorting or merchandising strategy.

For example: Best Sellers → Product Sorting → Move/boost high-performing products

This creates a practical workflow between analytics and catalog merchandising.

16. Low Performers / Dead Stock

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The Low Performers / Dead Stock section highlights products with low sales activity that may require attention.

These products can potentially be:

Repositioned.
Promoted.
Included in a campaign.
Moved lower in the catalog.
Reviewed for pricing.
Reviewed for stock strategy.

The purpose is not simply to identify poor-performing products, but to help administrators make better catalog merchandising decisions.

17. Smart Insights

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The Smart Insights section provides automatically generated merchandising insights based on store data.

These insights can help identify:

Products requiring attention.
Catalog performance patterns.
Potential merchandising opportunities.
Products that may benefit from repositioning.
Areas of the catalog that require review.

This provides an additional decision-making layer on top of the raw analytics.

18. Snapshot Transfer

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The Snapshot Transfer tab is designed for backup, migration, staging, and catalog-management workflows.

Navigate to WooCommerce → Custom Product Sorting Options → Snapshot Transfer

It allows you to export and import product sorting snapshots.

19. Export Sorting Snapshots

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You can export sorting history according to different scopes.

Available export scopes include:

Global
Product Category
Product Tag

For category and tag exports, you can search and select the specific taxonomy term.

Export Formats

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Snapshots can be exported as:

JSON

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Recommended when you want to preserve snapshot data in a structured format.

CSV

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Useful for spreadsheet-based workflows, editing, inspection, and data management.

Click:

Download Export

to generate the selected snapshot file.

20. Import Sorting Snapshots

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Previously exported snapshot files can be imported into another store.

Supported formats:

JSON
CSV

Select your snapshot file and click:

Import Snapshots

Imported snapshots are added to the snapshot history and their restore operations are queued for background processing.

21. CSV Sample Template

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If you want to prepare your own CSV file, use:

Download Sample CSV

The sample file helps you understand the expected CSV structure before importing data.

This is especially useful when moving sorting data between environments or preparing sorting information using spreadsheet software.

22. Example Workflow: Manual Product Merchandising

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A typical merchandising workflow could look like this:

Go to Products → Categories
Edit the category you want to customize.
Enable Override sortings
Select Manual (Drag and Drop)
Save the category.
Use the Manual Product Sorting interface to arrange products.
Drag products into your preferred order.
Use Pinned Products when certain products should remain prominent.
Use Undo/Redo if you want to experiment with the arrangement.
Review Sorting History when needed.

Your selected category can now have its own product ordering strategy rather than simply following the global catalog order.

23. Example Workflow: Automated Best-Seller Sorting

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For a store that wants to prioritize popular products:

Open the sorting settings.
Select a sales/popularity-based sorting rule.
Choose the required sorting direction.
Apply the configuration globally or to a specific category, tag, or brand.
Configure scheduling if automatic recurring updates are required.
Review performance through Analytics.
Use the Best Sellers and Smart Insights sections to refine your merchandising strategy.

This creates a more dynamic WooCommerce catalog sorting workflow.

24. Example workflow: seasonal merchandising

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For a seasonal promotion:

Identify the products you want to promote.
Create your merchandising/product boosting configuration.
Give selected products higher catalog visibility.
Configure the campaign schedule where applicable.
Review product performance through Analytics.
Adjust your product ordering based on sales performance.
Remove or change the campaign after the promotional period.

This allows product merchandising to become part of your regular store-management workflow.

25. Example workflow: managing Out-of-Stock products

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For stores with frequent inventory changes:

Open the stock-related sorting configuration.
Configure how out-of-stock products should be handled.
Choose whether unavailable products should be hidden or repositioned.
Configure relevant stock thresholds where required.
Save the configuration.
Allow the catalog sorting strategy to keep product visibility aligned with inventory conditions.

26. Recommended setup for new stores

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If you are configuring the plugin for the first time, we recommend starting with a simple structure:

Step 1 — configure general Sorting

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Choose your default catalog sorting strategy.

Step 2 — configure important taxonomies

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Customize important categories, tags, and brands where different ordering is required.

Step 3 — add manual merchandising

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Use drag-and-drop sorting for products that require precise placement.

Step 4 — configure automatic Sorting

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Use sales, ratings, views, price, date, stock, or other supported criteria where automation makes sense.

Step 5 — configure stock behavior

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Decide how out-of-stock and low-stock products should appear.

Step 6 — add scheduling

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Automate recurring sorting or merchandising operations.

Step 7 — review analytics

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Use Best Sellers, Low Performers, category performance, and Smart Insights to improve your catalog strategy.

Step 8 — create snapshots

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Export important sorting configurations for backup or migration.

27. Global vs Taxonomy-Level Sorting

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One of the most important concepts in the plugin is the distinction between global sorting and taxonomy-level sorting.

Global Sorting

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Controls the general product ordering strategy across the store.

Category Sorting

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Allows an individual product category to have its own sorting strategy.

Tag Sorting

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Allows products associated with a particular product tag to follow customized sorting behavior.

Brand Sorting

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Allows brand-specific catalog ordering.

Manual Sorting

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Provides precise visual control using drag-and-drop product reordering.

This hierarchy gives WooCommerce store owners considerably more flexibility than relying on a single product sorting method.

28. Backup and Migration Workflow

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For staging, development, or store migration:

Store A

→ Configure product sorting
→ Export Snapshot
→ Transfer JSON/CSV
→ Import into Store B
→ Restore queued snapshots

This makes sorting configuration backup and migration easier without having to manually recreate every product ordering configuration.

29. Best Practices

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For the best results:

Use automatic sorting where product data changes frequently.
Use manual sorting when merchandising decisions require precise control.
Use taxonomy-level sorting for categories or brands with different merchandising goals.
Pin products that must receive consistent visibility.
Review Best Sellers regularly.
Monitor low-performing and zero-sales products.
Use stock sorting to avoid giving unavailable products unnecessary prominence.
Use scheduling for repetitive catalog operations.
Export important sorting snapshots before major catalog changes.
Test significant sorting changes on staging when possible.

30. Quick Reference

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Feature	Purpose
General Sorting	Configure overall catalog sorting
Manual Sorting	Visually reorder products
Drag & Drop	Precisely arrange products
Grid View	Visual catalog management
Table View	Efficient product management
Bulk Actions	Quickly reposition multiple products
Undo / Redo	Safely experiment with ordering
Sorting History	Review sorting activity
Category Sorting	Customize category product order
Tag Sorting	Customize tag product order
Brand Sorting	Customize brand product order
Pinned Products	Keep selected products prominent
Automatic Sorting	Sort products using product data
Merchandising	Manage product visibility and placement
Product Boosting	Give selected products greater priority
Stock Sorting	Manage product placement based on inventory
Scheduling	Automate recurring sorting operations
Analytics	Understand catalog performance
Best Sellers	Identify strong-performing products
Low Performers	Identify products needing attention
Smart Insights	Surface merchandising opportunities
Snapshot Export	Back up or migrate sorting data
Snapshot Import	Restore sorting snapshots
JSON / CSV	Support structured and spreadsheet workflows

31. Getting Started

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The simplest way to start is:

Install → Configure General Sorting → Customize Categories/Tags/Brands → Reorder Products → Configure Automation → Review Analytics → Schedule → Backup Snapshots

With these tools, you can build a product catalog strategy that combines WooCommerce product sorting, drag-and-drop product reordering, automated catalog sorting, taxonomy-level sorting, product merchandising, product boosting, stock-aware ordering, scheduling, and performance analytics from one plugin.