Product search – how customers and staff find items

Cmerce has one shared product search used in the webshop, at the till and in the admin. The search copes with spellings with and without æ, ø and å, upper and lower case, and finds items by more than just the name. You don't need to set anything up – the search keeps itself up to date when you change items.

Where the search is used

• The webshop: the search field at the top and the search in the product catalogue.
• The till: the search field above the items in the web till and in the POS app.
• The admin: the search in the product list under «Katalog» (Catalogue) → «Produkter» (Products), the search at the top of the panel, and when you choose products in «Prisendringer» (Price changes).

What the search finds

The search looks in:

• the item name
• brand, categories, tags and variant values (for example "red" or "XL")
• the description
• SKU and barcode

Spellings: «brød», «brod» and «BRØD» give the same results, and «Håkon» also finds «Haakon». Accents don't matter, so "creme" finds "crème".

Typos: If the search finds few results, it also tries names that look similar. If the webshop finds nothing, it suggests a similar word with «Mente du …?» (Did you mean …?).

How results are ordered

The best matches come first:

1. The exact SKU or barcode.
2. The name is exactly what you searched for.
3. Words in the name that start with what you typed.
4. What you typed appears somewhere in the name.
5. Matches in brand, category, tags, variant values or description.
6. Part of an SKU or barcode.
7. Names that look similar (typos).

When matches are equally good, the webshop shows items in stock first, then the best sellers of the last 90 days. The till shows items in stock first.

In the webshop

• Suggestions while the customer types: After two characters the search field shows up to five items and three categories. «Se alle treff for «…»» (See all results for …) opens the full results list.
• No results: The customer sees «Ingen treff for «…»» (No results for …), possibly a suggestion with «Mente du», and a list of «Populære produkter» (Popular products).
• Only visible items: Customers only find items that are published, active in the «Nettbutikk» (Webshop) channel and visible to the customer's customer group.

At the till

• The search at the till covers the whole range. If you have chosen a category button, it is reset when you search.
• If you type an SKU or barcode by hand, the item is shown in the list – you tap it to add it to the sale. If you scan the code with a barcode scanner, the item goes straight into the sale. See Barcodes (EAN/GTIN).
• Internal items for open price, gift cards and bookings are not shown in the search. They have their own buttons at the till.

See what customers search for

Under «Rapporter» (Reports) → «Nettbutikk» (Webshop) you find two reports:

• «Søkeord» (Search terms) – what customers search for, how often, how many searches gave zero results, and how often they clicked a suggestion.
• «Søk uten treff» (Searches without results) – search terms that gave no results. Use the list to add tags, fix names or stock items customers are looking for.

The reports only count searches in the webshop, not at the till. No visitor is identified – Cmerce only stores counts per day and search term. Search terms that look like personal data (email, phone number, long numbers) are shown as «[skjult]» (hidden). The statistics are kept for 13 months.

Good to know

• Changes to items, categories and brands become searchable automatically, normally straight away and at the latest within a quarter of an hour.
• The search does not inflect every word. «sko» finds «Skoene», but «skoene» does not necessarily find «Vintersko». Search for the basic form of the word.
• Without a network connection, the POS app searches the items it has stored on the device. Results may then differ slightly from the online search.