Search Products on Storefront｜Products

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 products using keywords.

In this article, you'll find:

• Search search methods and rules
  • Search products
  • Storefront search sorting rules
• Notes

1. Storefront search methods and rules

Searching on the storefront enables your customers to quickly find products, which can help increase 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.

• Philia
  
   
• Dusk
  
   
• Bianco
  

i. Search products

When using the "Search Products" feature, the system will use phrase or prefix matching to compare your input keywords against the product name, SKU, directly assigned category name, and product summary fields.

Let's use a product to illustrate the mechanism behind the search method:

Product Name: HOT2025 Latest Trendy Heartshaped Earrings (HOT2025最新潮流的愛心耳環)
SKU: Shopline-12345

A. Search with Chinese Keywords

If you enter the Chinese keyword "愛心耳環", the system treats it as a single phrase. If other text is inserted between these words, the product will not be searchable.

Can find: "HOT2025最新潮流的愛心耳環"

Cannot find: "愛心邊框的精緻耳環"

B. Search with 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 alphanumeric 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 spaces or symbols are 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:
  • Phrase matching
    If you enter the English or numeric keywords "Shopline", "12345", "line", or "345", you will successfully find the SKU "Shopline-12345".
     
  • Prefix matching
    If you enter the English keyword prefix "Sh" or "Shop," you will successfully find the SKU "Shopline-12345".
    *Note: When performing prefix matching, the system requires the English characters to have consistent use of lower and upper case letters.
     

C. Search with Mixed Chinese / English Keywords

If you enter a mixed keyword like "SHOPLINE電商", you will find products containing that exact complete phrase.

Can find: "SHOPLINE電商開店平台"

Cannot find: "SHOP電商"

D. Search with 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:

⚠️ 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.

E. Search with the product’s directly assigned category name(s)

Category name matching is limited to the product's directly assigned category name(s). If a product is added to a subcategory, the system will not automatically match the name of that subcategory's main category.

• Example:

For the product "Rose Essential Oil", the main category is "Fragrance" and the subcategory is "Essential Oils".

Searching by main category "Fragrance": The product will not be found.

Searching by the directly assigned subcategory "Essential Oils": The product will be found.

ii. Storefront search sorting rules

The system first identifies which fields and items match between the product and the search keywords, then calculates an overall ranking based on relevance and importance of the product.

*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."
• The "Category" matching field refers to the product's directly assigned category. If a product belongs to a subcategory but was not directly added to the main category, storefront keyword searches will not match the main category name.

Products with higher relevance to the keywords will rank higher, as will products with greater importance.

A. Relevance 

*Note: Matching and sorting data are all derived from the online store data of the past 3 months.

B. Importance

*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 for the same keyword within a short period, which could impact system performance, a 1-minute cache protection mechanism is in place to ensure system stability and efficiency.
• Shopper App does not currently support the search mechanism described above.
• When matching category names in storefront search, the system only matches the category directly assigned to the product. It does not automatically match that category’s main category name. If you want customers to find products using specific keywords, we recommend adding that keyword to the product name or product summary, or assigning the product directly to a category whose name contains that keyword.
• For optimal system performance, the "Search Products" feature captures up to the first 50 characters of a keyword. If your input exceeds 50 characters, only the first 50 will be used as the valid search keyword; if the cutoff falls in the middle of English words, numbers, or SKUs, the search results may be inaccurate or include unrelated products. To get more accurate results, please shorten your keywords or search for different SKUs separately. 

Read more

• Product Tags
• SKUs (stock keeping units)