To provide customers with a smoother shopping experience and offer a more comprehensive product management interface, SHOPLINE is consistently committed to improving the speed and accuracy of product search results. The "Search Products" feature on the storefront allows customers to swiftly find the products using keywords.
This article will cover the following:
1. Search products on the storefront
Searching on the storefront enables your customers to quickly find products, which is good for increasing sales. Therefore, SHOPLINE adopts advanced search algorithms and continuously optimizes the search functionality to provide more accurate, diverse, and useful search results. This enhancement aims to elevate customer experience and facilitate the growth of your business.
Go to the storefront menu and find the "Search Products" field or the "magnifier" icon. Enter your keyword to search for products.
*Note: Different store layouts may have different display styles and positions.
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Philia
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Dusk
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Bianco
i. Search Products
When using the "Search Products" feature, the system will compare the input keywords with the content in the fields of Product Name, Stock Keeping Unit (SKU), Category Name, and Product Summary using either "phrase matching" or "prefix matching."
Let's use a product to illustrate the mechanism behind the search method:
Product Name: HOT2025 Latest Trendy Heartshaped Earrings
SKU: Shopline-12345
A. Search by English/ numeric characters
- Example 1:
If you enter the English keyword "HOT," the system will treat it as a phrase. If the phrase contains other characters in between or if there are additional alphanumerical characters added before the phrase (hence forming a new phrase), it will NOT be searchable.
Therefore, you will be able to search for items like "HOT2025 Heart-bordered Beautiful Earrings," and "So-HOT Cool and Refreshing Summer Clothes." However, you will not be able to search for items like "Super HOT2025 Fabulous Hair Accessories), "SHOT Lightning Earrings" or "HOST Alphabet Necklace."
*Notes: If there are spaces or symbols separating the English/numeric characters, they will be considered separate phrases. For example:- "So-HOT Cool and Refreshing Summer Clothes" will be treated as "So / HOT / Cool / and / Refreshing / Summer / Clothes"
- "Super HOT2025 Fabulous Hair Accessories" will be treated as "Super / HOT2025 / Fabulous / Hair / Accessories".
- Example 2:
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Phrase matching
Enter either "Shopline" or "12345" and you can search for the SKU "Shopline-12345." This is because the SKU "Shopline-12345" has the English/numeric characters separated by the "-" symbol, and "Shopline" and "12345" are treated as separate independent phrases.
But if you break down the phrase and enter the keywords like "line" or "345" instead, you won't be able to get the desired search result "Shopline-12345."
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Prefix matching
If you enter the English keyword prefix "Sh" or "Shop," you will get the desired search result "Shopline-12345."
*Note: When performing prefix matching, the system requires the English characters to have consistent use of lower and upper case letters.
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Phrase matching
B. Search by keywords that include special symbols
When entering keywords, the matching mechanism of "Search Products" varies based on different special symbols. Please refer to the following table for frequently used ones:
| Special Symbol | Description | Example |
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- (Hyphen) |
When a hyphen ("-") appears between English/ numeric characters, the system treats it as a space rather than as part of a phrase. Ex: the input "12-18" will be tokenized into two separate terms: "12" and "18". |
Product Name: 12-18 Sales Treated as: 12 /18 / Sales
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|
. (Dot) |
When a dot (".") appears between English/ numeric characters, the system treats it as part of a phrase. Ex: the input "12.18" will be treated as a phrase: "12.18". |
Product Name: 12.18 Sales Treated as: 12 /18 / Sales
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|
, (Comma) |
When a comma (",") appears between English/ numeric characters, the system treats it as part of a phrase. Ex: the input "12,18" will be treated as a phrase: "12,18". |
Product Name: 12,18 Sales Treated as: 12 /18 / Sales
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|
/ (Slash) |
The slash ("/") will be ignored. Ex: the input "12/18" will be treated as a phrase: "1218". |
Product Name: 12/18 Sales Treated as: 12 /18 / Sales
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Other symbols such as []#!$^"*?+ |
The symbol will be ignored. Ex: the input "12%18" will be treated as a phrase: "1218". |
Product Name: 12%18 Sales Treated as: 12 /18 / Sales
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⚠️Note: If you would like to include a date in the product name, it is suggested to use hyphens (for example, 03-27) instead of a slash. If you use a slash, your customers will not be able to find the product when they enter 03/27, which leads to potential order loss.
ii. Storefront search sorting rules
The system will first assess the matching fields and matching items between the product and search keywords and then perform a comprehensive calculation based on the relevance and importance of the product.
| Matching fields |
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| Matching items |
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*Notes:
- Assessment of special symbols such as #&^!*& is not supported.
- Chinese keywords are matched based on each "character," while English keywords are segmented at each space and thus matched based on each "word."
Products with higher relevance to the keywords will be ranked higher, and products with greater importance will also be ranked higher. However, note that relevance takes precedence over importance in this ranking.
A. Relevance
| Matching standards |
Matching will be performed using product names and search keywords; the system will break down the keywords, annotating each segmented result with different parts of speech, which can generally be divided into the following two categories:
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| Sorting rules | A comprehensive calculation and rating are based on core words and attribute words, where the former carries more weight than the latter. The system will weigh them based on individual search click-through rates (CTRs), sales data, and other factors. Products with stable long-term sales or recent high sales will be ranked higher. |
*Note: Matching and sorting data are all derived from the online store data of the past 3 months.
B. Importance
| Matching standards | Estimated ranking will be performed using product click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate. |
| Sorting rules |
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*Note: Matching and sorting data are all derived from the online store data of the past 3 months.
The search algorithm established according to the above rules will ensure:
- The search results are highly relevant to the customer's query and match the customer's needs and intentions.
- The search results will be sorted based on relevance, ensuring that the most relevant products appear at the top.
- The search results will encompass various categories, variants, price ranges, etc., to fulfill the diverse search needs of different customers.
- The search process provides a good user experience, including fast loading of search results and a clear user interface, allowing customers to grasp the information at a glance.
SHOPLINE will continue to optimize the product search feature on the storefront to assist customers in quickly finding the products that meet their needs. This will enhance customer satisfaction and build trust in the brand.
2. Notes
- For optimal system performance, the search results on the storefront will display a maximum of 1,000 products that match the keyword(s).
- To prevent excessive searches of the same keyword within a short period of time, which could impact system performance, a 1-minute system cache protection mechanism is in place to ensure the stability and efficiency of the system.
- Shopper App currently does not support the above-mentioned search mechanism.
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