How to sort WooCommerce product by featured or tag without additional plugins?

Question

I'm using shortcode to list a product category like this

[product_category category="products" orderby="title" order="asc"]

And wonder how can I make featured products be on the top on the list? It has something to do with orderby parameter , but I have no idea.

Please do not propose 3rd party plugins.
More info in WooCommerce official docs .

Answer 1

Product has a custom field as _featured which is set as yes for featured product and no for non-featured product. So you can use woocommerce_shortcode_products_query filter to overwrite WooCOmmerce shortcode.

add_filter('woocommerce_shortcode_products_query', 'wh_woocommerce_shortcode_products_orderby');

function wh_woocommerce_shortcode_products_orderby($args)
{

    $standard_array = ['menu_order', 'title', 'date', 'rand', 'id'];
//  print_r($args['orderby']);
    if (isset($args['orderby']) && !in_array($args['orderby'], $standard_array))
    {
        $args['meta_key'] = '_featured';
        $args['orderby'] = 'meta_value_num';
    }
//  print_r($args);
    return $args;
}

Code goes in function.php file of your active child theme (or theme). Or also in any plugin php files.

USAGE
To list product form featured to non-featured (ie, form yes to no )

[product_category category="products" orderby="_featured" order="DESC"]

Please Note:: above code seems to be working, but if you print $args['orderby'] it is not showing _featured key, so I hardcoded, it in the $args . It is not an standard way .

Hope this helps!