Woocommerce how to exclude products with no price set in low to high price sort

Question

I'm trying to make a custom product sort option which excludes products which are POA, the client has done so by not setting a price for them.

add_filter( 'woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args', 'custom_woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args' );
function custom_woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args( $args ) {
  $orderby_value = isset( $_GET['orderby'] ) ? wc_clean( $_GET['orderby'] ) : apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby' ) );

  if ('price_nopoa_asc' == $orderby_value) {

    $args = array(
        'meta_key'   => '_price',
        'orderby'    => 'meta_value_num',
        'order'      => 'ASC',
        'meta_compare' => '!=',
        'meta_value'   => '',
        'meta_type'   => 'numerical',
    );

}

    return $args;
}
add_filter( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby_options', 'custom_woocommerce_catalog_orderby' );
add_filter( 'woocommerce_catalog_orderby', 'custom_woocommerce_catalog_orderby' );
function custom_woocommerce_catalog_orderby( $sortby ) {
  $sortby['price_nopoa_asc'] = 'Sort by Price: products Low to High';
    return $sortby;
}

Everything other than ignoring the products without prices set works.

Am I checking for an empty field in the wrong way?

Answer 1

Try the following code instead:

add_filter( 'woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args', 'custom_woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args' );
function custom_woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args( $args ) {
  $orderby_value = isset( $_GET['orderby'] ) ? wc_clean( $_GET['orderby'] ) : apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby' ) );

  if ('price_nopoa_asc' == $orderby_value) {

    $args = array(
        'meta_key'   => '_price',
        'orderby'    => 'meta_value_num',
        'order'      => 'ASC',
        'meta_query' => array(
            array(
             'key' => '_price', # add your key here for comparison
             'compare' => '!=',
             'value'   => '' # if the empty string didn't work, try changing it to zero
            )
        )
    );

}

    return $args;
}
add_filter( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby_options', 'custom_woocommerce_catalog_orderby' );
add_filter( 'woocommerce_catalog_orderby', 'custom_woocommerce_catalog_orderby' );
function custom_woocommerce_catalog_orderby( $sortby ) {
  $sortby['price_nopoa_asc'] = 'Sort by Price: products Low to High';
    return $sortby;
}

Update 2023

I initially wrote this answer more than two years ago. A lot has happened since then! If you can't get this code to work it could be due to many reasons that I don't know about if you don't elaborate (It could be the version of wordpress/woocommerce that you're running on your server, or maybe you're problem is something else. There could be many reasons as why you can't get it to work). Simply saying "This or that doesn't work", and not explaining clearly and not providing error(s)/warning(s) you got, is not a good strategy to get your problem solved. You have to elaborate so that other people could help you. Thanks!

You might want to check this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/52275842/15040627, since other people have found it helpful.