laravel 8 asort() expects parameter 2 to be int, string given

Question

i want to sort and show products based on the value selected in a dropdown i.e lowest price,highest price and latest products.i have a tired the code above in the controller and in my jquery script but i get the following error asort() expects parameter 2 to be int, string given.i havent understood where i hve gone wrong with my codebase.

the function in the controller

public function merchadise (){
    $products=Merchadise::where('merch_isactive',1)->paginate(2);
    if(isset($_GET['nice-select'])&&!empty($_GET['nice-select'])){
        if(isset($_GET['nice-select'])=="latest_products"){
            $products->sortBy('id','Desc');
        }elseif(isset($_GET['nice-select'])=="lowest_price"){
            $products->sortBy('merch_price','Asc');
        }elseif(isset($_GET['nice-select'])=="highest_price"){
            $products->sortBy('merch_price','Desc');
        }elseif(isset($_GET['nice-select'])=="product_name_a-z"){
            $products->sortBy('merch_name','Asc');
        }elseif(isset($_GET['nice-select'])=="product_name_z-a"){
            $products->sortBy('merch_name','Desc');
        }
    }else{
        $products->sortBy('id','Desc');
    }
    
    return view('frontend.product.product',compact('products'));
}

at the blade file

 <div class="showing-product-number text-right">
     <form name="sortproducts">
        <select class="nice-select" id="nice-select">
            <option value="">Default sorting</option>
            <option value="latest_products">Sort by new arrivals</option>
            <option value="lowest_price">Sort by price: low to high</option>
            <option value="highest_price">Sort by price: high to low</option>
            <option value="product_name_a-z">Product Name A-Z></option>
            <option value="product_name_z-a">Product Name Z-A</option>
        </select>
     </form>
   </div> 

the script code

 $(document).ready(function(){
$("#nice-select").on('change',function(){
    this.form.submit();
});

});