Search as Your Lead Salesperson

Imagine a scenario: a customer walks into your physical store and tells a sales assistant:

"I need blue running shoes, size 9, preferably inexpensive."

An experienced consultant will instantly understand the request, filter out irrelevant options, and guide the customer to the shelf with the right products. Now, ask yourself: can your online consultant—your on-site search—do the same?

For most online stores, the answer is, unfortunately, "no." A standard search that only reacts to exact word matches leads to lost customers and decreased profits. In modern e-commerce, you need a smart search—a system that understands the customer instantly, corrects their mistakes, and offers the best purchasing option.

In this article, we will break down a complete 59-point checklist that will help you turn your search into your primary sales tool.

1. Technical Excellence & Performance

The foundation of any search is its technical backbone—invisible to the user but critically important. If it fails, even the best design won't help.

• ✅ Autocomplete Speed (<100 ms). Suggestions must appear instantly. Even fractions of a second impact conversion.

• ✅ Results Page Load Speed (1–2 s). The page must open quickly even with a huge catalog, otherwise, the user will go to a competitor.

• ✅ Real-time Data Actuality. Price, availability, or new products must be updated in the search immediately, especially during promotions.

• ✅ Scalability. The system must perform stably even if the product range grows tenfold or a hundredfold, ensuring readiness for business scaling.

• ✅ High-Load Resilience. During peak periods (like Black Friday), the search must handle thousands of queries simultaneously.

• ✅ Auto-recovery After Failures. If the system goes down, it must quickly restore its operation without losing data or users.

2. Usability and UX of Search

The user's first interaction with the search should be intuitive and comfortable, leaving no room for questions.

• ✅ Field in a Conventional Location. Customers expect to see the search in the top right corner or center of the header—it's an intuitive zone.

• ✅ Placeholder Text in the Field. A placeholder like "What are you looking for?" motivates the user to start typing.

• ✅ Placeholder Disappears on Input. This prevents confusion and provides a clean space for the query.

• ✅ Search Available on Every Page. The user should be able to find it from any point on the site without extra clicks.

• ✅ Activation via Enter and Button. The search must respond to both scenarios, as users have different habits.

• ✅ Card-based Results Display. A photo, name, price, availability status, and "Buy" button create a mini-showcase.

• ✅ Mobile Adaptability. On smartphones, it's convenient to implement search via a magnifying glass icon that expands into a field.

• ✅ Highlighting of Matches. Highlighting keywords in the results helps users navigate faster.

• ✅ Useful "Nothing Found" Page. It should display similar products, popular categories, and an offer to contact a consultant.

3. Error Handling

People aren't robots—they make typos. A smart search must anticipate and correct them, not punish with an empty page.

• ✅ Missed Letters. The system should find "shos" as "shoes."

• ✅ Transposed Characters. A query for "shoees" should lead to "shoes."

• ✅ Lack of Space. "runningshoes" must yield a correct result.

• ✅ Extra or Doubled Letters. "Runnning" is corrected to "running."

• ✅ Multiple Errors. "runing shoos" should be corrected properly.

• ✅ Contextual Corrections. In a toy store, "lego starship" should not be corrected to "lego star ship" if the brand is "Starship."

4. Symbols, Languages & Layouts

The search must understand the user, regardless of the language, keyboard layout, or random symbols in the query.

• ✅ Symbols Between Words. "Tractor.mower" should work as two separate queries.

• ✅ Symbols at the End. Queries with "*" or "+" should be processed correctly.

• ✅ Cyrillic in Latin Layout. The search should understand "кросівки" typed as "krosivky."

• ✅ Multilingualism. The system must understand queries in Ukrainian, English, and other languages simultaneously.

• ✅ Transliteration. "samsung" and "самсунг" should produce the same result.

• ✅ Keyboard Layout. "ghbdtn" should be automatically converted to "привіт" (hello).

5. Morphology & Synonyms

This is the search's ability to understand not just words, but their meanings and connections, just like a human.

• ✅ Simple Descriptions. A query for "flying ball" should find the product "hoverball."

• ✅ Synonyms. The search should know that "cell phone" is the same as "mobile phone."

• ✅ Word Forms. The system must understand "constructor," "constructors," and "for a constructor."

• ✅ Any Case or Gender. The search must adapt to any linguistic variations.

6. Modern Technology & AI

Artificial intelligence transforms search from a simple function into a personal shopping assistant.

• ✅ Search by Image. The customer uploads a photo, and the system finds visually similar products.

• ✅ Voice Search. Provides convenience for mobile users and speeds up interaction.

• ✅ Natural Language Understanding (NLU). Parses complex queries: "Show me red women's running shoes under $100."

• ✅ Personalized Results. The system considers browsing and purchase history to create an individual results page.

• ✅ Recommendations in Search. The results can include "You might also like" selections based on behavior analysis.

7. Additional Features

These are small but important details that make interacting with the search even more convenient and effective.

• ✅ Dynamic Filters. By brand, color, purpose—filters on the results page should be relevant to the found items.

• ✅ Autocomplete After 2–4 Letters. Helps the user formulate their query faster by offering options.

• ✅ Similar Products on "0 Results." It's always better to show alternatives than an empty page.

• ✅ Search by Characteristics. "Water 1L" → products from 0.8 to 1.2 L.

• ✅ Region Consideration. Availability and price depend on the warehouse closest to the customer.

• ✅ Direct Redirects. If the query exactly matches a category, its page opens immediately.

• ✅ Query History. The user can see what they searched for before and can quickly repeat the search.

• ✅ Search Across Different Content. Products, articles, reviews, FAQ—all in one place.

8. Search Analytics

The search bar is the most valuable source of information about your audience's needs. It's important to know how to collect and analyze it.

• ✅ KPI Measurement. Tracking the percentage of search usage, its conversion rate, and other key metrics.

• ✅ Revenue from Search. A direct indicator of search effectiveness in monetary terms.

• ✅ Zero-Results Analysis. Helps identify missing products in the catalog or what synonyms to add.

• ✅ Bounce Rate Tracking. If a user searches and then leaves the site, it's a signal of a relevance problem.

• ✅ Popular Queries. Provide ideas for marketing, content, and assortment expansion.

• ✅ A/B Testing. Researching different search scenarios to increase conversions.

9. E-commerce Logic

A smart search shouldn't just find—it should sell, taking into account the store's business goals.

• ✅ Results Optimization. The top results should feature the most profitable or business-priority items.

• ✅ Priority of Popular Products. The most frequently purchased items are automatically shown higher.

• ✅ Ranking by Promotions. Sale items are moved up in the search results.

• ✅ Scarcity Effect. A "Only 2 left" tag encourages a quicker purchase.

• ✅ Cart Display in Results. Allows adding a product to the cart faster, without visiting the product page.

• ✅ SKU Linking. Queries by article number should open the specific product.

10. Accessibility & Inclusivity

A modern service must be convenient for all users without exception.

• ✅ Keyboard Navigation for Search. All actions should be accessible without a mouse.

• ✅ Screen Reader Support. For visually impaired users, the results must be voiced correctly.

• ✅ Contrast and Readability. Important for the accessibility and convenience of all users.

Search as a Strategic Investment

On-site search is not a technical detail; it is your lead salesperson. It influences conversions, average order value, and repeat purchases. Companies that implement smart search not only see sales growth but also gain invaluable customer data.

Yes, it's incredibly complex, and that's exactly why we created Svit.One — so you don't have to worry about all 59 of these points. We've already done the heavy lifting for you.

On the Svit.One platform, most of these features are available out-of-the-box: fast indexing, autocomplete, AI personalization, and deep analytics. This means your online store can operate more effectively without complex additional integrations.