Cant change default sorting order of specific wooc

Hello I am trying to change the default sorting order for one specific woocommerce category.

This category has a slug of cbd-best-sellers

I am trying to change the default sort order to "by popularity" for this category.

I found this below code which changes the default sorting to "by date" for a specific category

add_filter( 'woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args', 'custom_catalog_ordering_args', 20, 1 );
function custom_catalog_ordering_args( $args ) {
    $product_category = 't-shirts'; // <== HERE define your product category

    // Only for defined product category archive page
    if( ! is_product_category($product_category) ) return $args;

    // Set default ordering to 'date ID', so "Newness"
    $args['orderby'] = 'date ID';

    if( $args['orderby'] == 'date ID' )
        $args['order'] = 'DESC'; // Set order by DESC

    return $args;
}

I than replaced t-shirts with my category slug cbd-best-sellers and changed date ID to popularity like so:

add_filter( 'woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args', 'custom_catalog_ordering_args', 20, 1 );
function custom_catalog_ordering_args( $args ) {
    $product_category = 'cbd-best-sellers'; // <== HERE define your product category

    if( ! is_product_category($product_category) ) return $args;

    $args['orderby'] = 'popularity';

    if( $args['orderby'] == 'popularity' )
        $args['order'] = 'ASC'; // Set order by DESC

    return $args;
}

But the category is still not sorting by popularity on load.

Am i doing it wrong?

the hook you are using is for adding or changing the order by values not to set the default one.

If you want to set default sorting option you need to use woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby

so your code should be like the following:

add_filter( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', 'custom_default_catalog_orderby' );

function custom_default_catalog_orderby() {

    $product_category = 'cbd-best-sellers'; // <== HERE define your product category

    if ( is_product_category( $product_category ) ) {
        return 'popularity'; // Can also use title and price
    }

}