Please see this file - [URL=“http://www.textbooksdirect.co.uk/problems-with-cs-cart-search.pdf”]http://www.textbooksdirect.co.uk/problems-with-cs-cart-search.pdf[/URL]
As you can see, products aren’t showing in order of relevance when customers use the CS-Cart’s search function. This must be losing many sales for businesses using CS-Cart!
Does anyone know how to get the results to show in order of relevance?
The ‘all of these words’ search feature is no good either as it’ll mean customers might not find the product they’re after. For example, if the customer searched for ‘management accounting seal 3rd edition’ with the ‘all of these words’ feature, no products would show up. However, the correct product would should up if first if a ‘most relevant’ search function existed.
This further illustrates the problem: [URL=“http://www.textbooksdirect.co.uk/website-search-statistics.pdf”]http://www.textbooksdirect.co.uk/website-search-statistics.pdf[/URL]
I agree that the search is lacking in how it finds and returns results. It simply returns them in the default search order for categories I believe.
I’ve been told by a CS Cart technical support engineer that issues such as this aren’t “covered by [CS Cart’s] technical support service” and they have suggested using their “custom development service”.
I’m very disappointed with CS Cart’s response! I’ve just checked 10+ other online retailers and also e-commerce software provided by Cube Cart and Interspire and they all show results by relevance.
Who else thinks results should be shown in order of relevance?
If someone can come up with a mod for this, please let me know how much it’ll cost.
Unfortunately in it’s current state, search is not one of CS-Cart’s strong points. Perhaps the developers will consider improving it in a future version or perhaps someone is willing to code an addon that has a sophisticated search algorithm.
Here’s my proposition:
The bulk of the current search system can stay as it is. It’s just the order in which the results are shown that needs to be tweaked.
Please see this document: [url]http://textbooksdirect.co.uk/search-by-relevance.pdf[/url]
What does everyone think?
You make great suggestions. Perhaps submit this to cs-cart via the helpdesk. Make sure they understand that it’s an FYI otherwise they might just give you the standard blurb of using their custom development service. I got around this a bit by sorting by bestselling by default.
:idea: :idea:
[COLOR=“Red”]I’ve submitted a “Search results shown in order of relevance” idea to the CS Cart Ideas site - Click here to see the idea and vote[/COLOR]
:idea: :idea:
The way we’re getting around this is by using an auto suggest mod in the search. Cs has made this standard I believe in 2.1.2. If you’re on an earlier version, then you perhaps might want to look here [URL=“http://www.shippingkit.com/auto-suggest-cscart.html”]http://www.shippingkit.com/auto-suggest-cscart.html[/URL]
Good thing about this…it’s free! The other good point…it accomplishes what you’re after. Down side is if your customer types in a search result really quickly and hits search, then you’re back at square one. More than likely they will notice it’s an auto suggest style search and find what they’re looking for. People are routinely familiar with the auto suggest style searches now as most everybody utilizes them.
Wouldn’t hold your breath on Cs to fix this issue. It’s one of those things that has existed since the beginning. Plus, I don’t expect people to vote for it because of the whole auto suggest mod. Bigger priorities to vote on I believe, but I’m with ya on this one.
Stu
[quote name=‘derbytown502’]The way we’re getting around this is by using an auto suggest mod in the search. Cs has made this standard I believe in 2.1.2. If you’re on an earlier version, then you perhaps might want to look here [URL=“http://www.shippingkit.com/auto-suggest-cscart.html”]http://www.shippingkit.com/auto-suggest-cscart.html[/URL]
Good thing about this…it’s free! The other good point…it accomplishes what you’re after. Down side is if your customer types in a search result really quickly and hits search, then you’re back at square one. More than likely they will notice it’s an auto suggest style search and find what they’re looking for. People are routinely familiar with the auto suggest style searches now as most everybody utilizes them.
Wouldn’t hold your breath on Cs to fix this issue. It’s one of those things that has existed since the beginning. Plus, I don’t expect people to vote for it because of the whole auto suggest mod. Bigger priorities to vote on I believe, but I’m with ya on this one.
Stu[/QUOTE]
I’ve upgraded to the latest version of CS Cart. The problem with auto suggest is that it only searches the product name and ignores the product description. What more, I can’t put all the information in the product name as it would become too long. Even with the auto suggest enabled I’ve had complaints from customers unable to find the product they want (probably because their pressing enter instead of looking at the auto suggest results).