Search & Discovery is an app released by Shopify themselves to enhance your stores Filters, Search, and product Recommendation features.
If you’ve been using Shopify 2.0 Collection Filters before, this app will now be automatically installed on your store, because Filters have moved in the admin, from the Navigation screen, to the Search & Discovery app.
This is pretty unusual because there is now an app that is providing core Shopify functionality.
But the filters are just a minor point.
The reason I’m excited about this app is the ability to control recommended products, and add complementary products in a block on the product page.
This makes it so much easier to direct your customers to an alternative to a product, or to recommend a complementary product that is meant to be used together with the main product - for example batteries, or an accessory to the main product.
There is also a significant improvement to the search functionality.
Quick summary of features:
Filters
- Filters have moved to the app. But they work almost the same as before (in Shopify 2.0).
- Tag filtering is back! So if you used a tag filtering system in your old Shopify theme, you now have that in Shopify 2.0 also.
Search
- Search changes - Set up synonyms to make it easier for customers to search e.g. “t-shirt, tshirt, tee” or “leggings”, “tights”, “yoga pants”.
- Boost specific products to come up higher in store search.
Product Recommendations
- Control recommended products section at the bottom of product pages - previously this was automatic but not very smart.
- Add a ‘complementary products’ block in the main product information section (the right-side column with description, add to cart buttons, etc…). This feature is also known as “pairs well with” or “frequently bought together”.
Let’s get into these in a bit more detail in the video.