Best E‑Commerce Site Search Solutions to Boost Your Search Experience

Improve your potential customers’ online shopping experience while increasing your conversion rate and revenue with these top 5 e‑commerce site search solutions.

The world of e‑commerce is a competitive industry with a wide variety of solutions, so we understand that choosing the right search for e‑commerce can be a bit tricky. Therefore we prepared this article full of helpful information about what is a search engine in e‑commerce, its key features, and benefits of search engines for e‑commerce, and we will also introduce you to 5 selected ones.

Who uses search software in e‑commerce?

An e‑commerce search tool is mainly used by online stores and merchandisers. It provides data and analysis that helps marketing and sales teams to improve their strategies and earn more profit.

​Although this kind of software focuses exclusively on e‑commerce search queries, some tools also include certain features of online merchandising software and e‑commerce personalization software. Many e‑commerce search software tools often integrate with e‑commerce platforms and product information management (PIM) software.

How the e‑commerce search algorithm works

So, how does search in e‑commerce work? If you want to have your search successful, you should solve these four points:

E‑commerce store content indexing

First of all, you have to store and organize the content information – index it. Without a proper search index, your search engine cannot work correctly. The search index is a database that contains all data about your products, such as names, prices, descriptions, when the product was added to your store, etc.

Retrieval stage

This stage finds results relevant to the specific query. If a customer types the query in the search box, the search engine starts searching the database for products that could match those words and displays relevant product results.

While searching for the right products in the database, the search engine works with lemmatization, stemming, synonyms, stopword removal, etc. But that’s not all; your search engine should be able to deal with product codes, word sequences, or units and measurements.

Ranking stage

After the retrieval stage, you can start thinking about how to rank the products – sort the results in a specific order according to some criteria.

Good search engine ranks results based on several e‑commerce-specific metrics like full-text match quality, availability, context, business rules, customer behavior, etc.

Now, the search engine is ready to present the search results to the customer. This stage is crucial because the optimal ranking of products increases the likelihood of a purchase.

Feedback collection

To take the effectiveness of your search engine to the next level, you should collect feedback on your results. Modern e‑commerce search engines gather data from search results and use them to modify product ranking for the future. They also use machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve the results over time.

For example, if customers search for a red t-shirt and the system evaluates that the Adidas t-shirt should be first, but customers keep clicking on Nike, Nike will eventually move to the first place.

Why you should care about proper e‑commerce search engine

Improved customer experience

Great e‑commerce search can improve customer experience on your website and bring you more return customers.

Increased sales

An intelligent e‑commerce search solution helps increase sales and revenue since it delivers only relevant search results to customers.

Reduced exit rates

With e‑commerce site search, customers always find what they want, which removes unwanted frustration and reduces the chance of them leaving your website.

Our data surveys consistently show that 30% of no-results searches end up with customers leaving the e‑commerce site

A better understanding of demand

A good search comes with proprietary analytics that tracks user behavior to collect customer data such as their interaction with your website, buying intent, and purchase behavior, which can help you understand what your customers want and constantly improve your offer.

Best practices for effective use of search engines in e‑commerce

There are some excellent practices to achieve the best customer experience and get incredible sales. We chose the nine best practices for e‑commerce site search engine:

1. Visibility

The search bar should be the first thing customers see after entering your website. Therefore, it must be guaranteed that it is always sufficiently visible.

2. Autocomplete

Autocomplete delivers double the conversion rate as it speeds up the way for customers to their desired products and, simultaneously, suggests others that might interest them.

3. Suggestions

Among on-site search best practices are also relevant product suggestions tailored to each customer, along with their thumbnail photos, product categories, and brands you offer.

4. Typos

To err is human. Therefore your e‑commerce search engine should be able to work with typos and deliver customers accurate search results even if they type a shitr instead of a shirt or giutar instead of a guitar.

5. Slangs and Synonyms

Right after the typos come slang terms and synonyms. If you don’t want to lose customers who didn’t find the products you have, your search should be able to find the desired products even if the customer writes “telephone” instead of “mobile.”

6. Query Understanding

Understanding customers’ queries is crucial. Suppose your customer enters a query for lactose-free chocolate yogurt. In that case, they are interested in lactose-free chocolate yogurts, not all chocolate yogurts in your offer, and certainly not all yogurts in your offer.

7. Pagination

Pagination ensures more straightforward navigation between pages with search results or content. Depending on the type of page you have, choosing the appropriate type of pagination is essential. For complete information about pagination, read our blog about how you should paginate search results on your website, where you will also learn, for example, that according to several UX studies, the best type of pagination is the so-called “Load more” type.

8. Product ranking and relevance

Your best sellers of each category should always be in the first top rank among the search results. You don’t have to follow a ton of reports; there are smart features that will help you sort products.

9. Speed

And last but not least, among the best practices in e‑commerce is, of course also, the speed of your search. The load time to get search suggestions is within 0.3 seconds, and completing search results should be no more than 2 seconds.

Key features an e‑commerce site search software should have

An e‑commerce site search solution should provide several features covering different areas. Here are our pick on what an e‑commerce search solution should offer:

Multiple search options

Multiple search options, such as autocomplete, to suggest words in a search bar based on various keywords that save customers’ time and encourage them to buy more by discovering new products. And relevant filter options display only the most pertinent filters to every page visitor based on the product category they search in.

Easy integrations

Easy integration with e‑commerce platforms via API or, even better, without any coding through No-code self-service integration. Ideal if you don’t have an IT team of specialists behind you.

Merchandising

Merchandising features to boost your sales and AOV by promoting relevant products directly in search, your chosen products by assigning them to the desired position in search results, or features that allow you to place certain products, product categories, and brands higher in the product catalog.

Constant search results improvement

Features to analyze and optimize search results that help you find out more about how to rank your products for maximum profit and continuously learn from gathered data from customer searches how to rank products in the best possible way for each customer.

No-results prevention

Features that guarantee that customers always get their results regardless of the entered phrase, thanks to its ability to recognize synonyms, manage typos, and recognize and correct grammatical errors, and spelling mistakes. However, phrases and mistakes are not the only things a quality search should recognize. For segments that use product codes for products, it can be beneficial features that can assign the code to the product regardless of the form in which it was written.

Voice search

Features that improve the search and discovery experience allow customers to search with voice commands and provide accurate and fast search.

Analytics

Analytics features to learn more bout the performance of your search and products via a clear dashboard that shows you your lost opportunities and cart values and helps you learn more about what your customers mostly want and what to improve to achieve desired revenue.

5 best e‑commerce search engines

Based on G2 rankings, here are a few of the best e‑commerce site search solutions that can help you improve your search suggestions, your website’s user experience, and your average conversion rate.

1. Luigi’s Box

One of the best e‑commerce search providers is Luigi’s Box. Luigi’s Box offers a set of tools for e‑commerce businesses to improve their site’s search functionality. It leverages user intent, predictive analytics, and past customer searches to provide your users with the best possible shopping experience.

From faceted search to product discovery, Luigi’s Box covers all the interactions while giving you complete control and data for your business decisions. Its Search Analytics provides detailed dashboards, giving you all the relevant information about the performance of search and navigation elements on your website. For example, you can identify your hot searches, what sections of your website need help to deliver accurate search results, and where you are losing people’s attention.

Luigi’s Box allows visitors to discover your products as efficiently as possible. You can integrate it easily by pasting the tracking script into your website’s header. In addition, Luigi’s Box doesn’t negatively affect the functionality of your website, including rendering.

2. Algolia

Algolia is an API platform that helps e‑commerce search engines deliver relevant search results quickly. It provides the search service via various APIs. What makes Algolia one of the best product search engines is when a user types a search term in its search box, Algolia performs a more site-specific search than a generalized web text search to deliver more relevant products. It also enables faceted search and discovery through filtering functionality and pre-built faceting widgets.

With Algolia, developers can get insights into how users interact with the website. For example, its Recommend feature allows you to offer AI-based product recommendations. In addition, you can launch A/B tests and search analytics via APIs or a user-friendly dashboard.

Algolia Autocomplete provides accurate search suggestions with an autocomplete feature by leveraging your users’ text input in the search box and their data.

3. Yext

Founded in 2006, Yext is an e‑commerce search solution that helps companies answer different questions about their business. Yext’s Answers Platform collects and organizes content into a Knowledge Graph, then uses other products like Listings, Pages, Reviews, and Search to deliver relevant results.

Yext leverages natural language processing (NLP) to understand the meaning and context behind search queries. It provides AI‑powered e‑commerce solutions that help websites deliver direct answers to their customers. You can also use real-time clickstream data to yield the best rankings for your products and information across browse, recommendations, and search features.

Yext gives you actionable insights on consumer behavior, buyer intent, and search patterns to help inform the way you customize and design your online store.

4. Searchspring

Searchspring helps e‑commerce businesses improve the shopping experience of their customers. Its search functionality enables brands to get the right product, to the right person, at the right time. This helps you increase cart size, conversions, and repeat customers with search, merchandising, and personalized experience.

Customers receive relevant results when they look for content or items on your website. The platform considers spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, typos, or missing details. You can deliver a practical search experience without creating plugins or writing custom code.

Searchspring’s Semantic Product Search ensures customers are taken to the correct set of products, not a collection of products loosely related to their query. Its Semantic Search feature breaks apart words in searches and identifies which are product categories and which are attributes. This leads to a better search experience and higher conversion rates.

5. Bloomreach

Bloomreach’s Site Search automatically suggests common searches based on your shoppers’ behavior. Its semantic engine supplements suggestions to reduce cold start issues, and Bloomreach eliminates any suggestions that would lead to null results.

Another reason Bloomreach is a convenient e‑commerce site search is that it automatically reorders your facets based on interaction data to match how customers search. For new products that don’t have interaction data yet, Bloomreach ranks facets according to category. In addition, it leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to optimize relevance and ranking over time.

You can also tailor SKU images to match customer preferences. The tool automatically picks which product image customers see by matching the attribute they searched for. For example, it shows plus-sized models to customers who search for XXL clothing.

Why choose Luigi’s Box Search?

• Search bar – Display an autocomplete when users click into the search bar, showing them the top products and categories right away.
• Mobile autocomplete – Improve the search experience for your mobile users by providing autocomplete suggestions on their smartphones.
• Voice search – Allow your customers to use their voice to search for products, especially when using mobile devices.
• Search results – Improve customers’ shopping experience by tracking their intent and offering them relevant search results based on previous interactions.

Frequently asked questions