Custom Faceted Search for Manufacturing Catalogs in Adobe Commerce

If you run a manufacturing business with a big product catalog, you know how important it is for customers to find what they need quickly. Custom faceted search is a powerful tool that helps customers discover products more easily. Let's explore how to build this feature for your Adobe Commerce store, focusing on the specific needs of manufacturers.

Key Takeaways:

What is Faceted Search?

Faceted search is a way to filter products using multiple criteria at once. It's like having a smart helper guiding customers through your products, helping them narrow down choices based on specific features. For manufacturers, this can include filters for things like material type, size specifications, intended use, industry, certifications, and performance measures.

Research shows that 84% of major online retail websites don't provide a good filtering experience for users. This means there's a big opportunity for manufacturing businesses to stand out by offering a great faceted search experience. By investing in this technology, you're not just improving your website; you're solving a common problem in the industry and showing that you care about making things easier for customers.

Why Custom Faceted Search Matters for Manufacturers

Manufacturing catalogs are often huge, complex, and full of technical products. Without good search tools, customers can get overwhelmed or frustrated trying to find what they need. This is why custom faceted search in B2B eCommerce is so important. Here's why it's helpful:

• Better Product Discovery: Customers can filter products based on multiple, industry-specific criteria at once, making it much faster to find exactly what they need. This is really important in manufacturing, where precision matters a lot.
• Faster Buying Process: When customers can quickly narrow down their options, they can make purchases more efficiently. This is especially valuable in B2B transactions where time is often critical.
• Shows Off All Your Products: Faceted search helps display your full range of products, including variations and special items that might otherwise be missed. This can lead to more sales of different products.
• Improved Shopping Experience: By providing an easy-to-use, powerful search tool, you're showing that you understand and care about your B2B clients' needs. This can make customers more loyal and likely to recommend you to others.
• Useful Data Insights: By looking at how customers use the faceted search, you can learn about their preferences and needs. This information can help you make better decisions about inventory, product development, and marketing.

Building Your Custom Faceted Search

Creating a custom faceted search for your Adobe Commerce store takes careful planning. Here are the main steps:

1. Identify Your Key Product Attributes

Start by figuring out all the important ways customers might want to filter your products. This should involve input from different departments like sales, customer service, and product management. Consider including attributes such as:

• Material type and grade (e.g., types of steel, types of plastic)
• Exact sizes and tolerances
• Specific industry uses (e.g., for cars, airplanes, medical devices)
• Compatibility with other products
• Detailed technical specs (e.g., how much weight it can hold, what temperatures it can handle)
• Safety certifications and standards met
• Environmental factors (e.g., rust resistance, waterproofing)
• Performance measures (e.g., efficiency ratings, how long it lasts)

2. Design an Easy-to-Use Interface

How well your faceted search works depends a lot on how easy it is to use. A well-designed interface can make customers happier and more likely to buy. Here are some good design practices:

• Put filters where they're easy to see and use, usually on the left side of the page on computers.
• Use checkboxes for selecting multiple options in a category. For things like sizes or prices, use sliders or boxes where users can type in numbers.
• Show how many results each filter option will give, so users know what to expect.
• Make sure the search works well on phones and tablets too. Mobile optimization is important because many B2B buyers use their phones for research.
• Use small pictures or icons for filter options when it makes sense, to make them easier to understand.
• Use clear labels and explain any technical terms to help users who might not know all the industry jargon.

The goal is to make searching feel natural and easy, even when dealing with complex products. It's a good idea to regularly test the search with real users and ask for their feedback to keep improving it.

3. Connect with Your Product Information Management (PIM) System

For your faceted search to work well, you need good, consistent product information. This is where a Product Information Management (PIM) system comes in handy. A good PIM system can really improve your faceted search by:

A good PIM system offers these benefits:

• Keeps product information the same across your whole catalog, avoiding confusion.
• Automatically updates filter options when new products are added.
• Helps manage complex relationships between products, like which parts work together.
• Supports growing your product catalog by providing an efficient way to manage lots of product data.
• Ensures product information is the same across all your sales channels, improving the overall customer experience.

4. Add Advanced Search Features

To make your faceted search even better, consider adding these advanced features:

• Use Elasticsearch to make searches faster and more accurate, especially for large catalogs.
• Use AI to suggest relevant filters based on what users typically look for.
• Update search results in real-time to always show the most current inventory and product information.
• Use natural language processing to understand what users mean when they type in searches.
• Personalize search results based on each user's past purchases or account-specific product catalogs.

Keeping Performance Strong as You Grow

As your product catalog gets bigger and you get more customers, it's important to keep your faceted search working quickly and smoothly. Here are some ways to do that:

• Use smart caching to store common search results, making them load faster.
• Spread search queries across multiple servers to handle lots of traffic.
• Optimize your database to make searches faster.
• Load search results in chunks as users scroll, so the first results appear quickly.
• Regularly check how well your search is performing and fix any problems early.

Having good hosting for your Adobe Commerce store is really important for keeping searches fast, especially as you add more products and more complex searches.

Making It Work for B2B Customers

If you're selling to other businesses, your faceted search needs some special features. Consider adding:

• Customer-specific catalogs and prices, so each business sees only what's relevant to them.
• Filters that only show up for certain user roles or permissions.
• The ability to add multiple items to a cart at once from the search results.
• Quick access to items the customer has ordered before.
• The ability to search for technical documents and certifications along with products.

These features can make ordering much easier for B2B customers, especially when they need to make big, complex orders. Adobe Commerce's quick order feature can work well with your faceted search to make B2B ordering even smoother.

Testing to Make Sure Everything Works

Before launching your new faceted search, it's important to test it thoroughly. Here's what you should check:

• Try all possible filter combinations to make sure they give accurate results.
• Test how well it works with lots of people searching at once.
• Get real customers to try it out and give feedback.
• Make sure it works well on different devices and web browsers.
• Double-check that all the product information shown is correct and up-to-date.
• Keep an eye on how fast searches are and try to make them faster if needed.

Good testing helps catch and fix problems early, so everything works smoothly when you launch.

Measuring Success and Always Improving

Once your faceted search is live, keep track of how well it's working. Look at things like:

• How long it takes users to find what they want
• How many people buy something after using the search
• Which filters are used most often
• Searches that don't find any results
• How long people stay on your site and how many pages they look at
• What customers say about their experience

Use this information to keep making your search better. Try out new features or changes to see if they help customers and lead to more sales.

Conclusion: Boosting Your Manufacturing Catalog

Adding custom faceted search to your manufacturing catalog in Adobe Commerce is a big step, but it can really pay off. By giving customers a powerful, easy-to-use tool to find products, you're making every part of their buying experience better.

The key is to really understand what your customers need and design a search that not only meets those needs but anticipates them. A well-done faceted search becomes more than just a feature—it gives you an edge over competitors in the complex world of B2B eCommerce.

As you work on this project, it might help to work with experts who understand both the technical side of Adobe Commerce and the unique challenges manufacturing businesses face online. Their know-how can be really valuable in creating a solution that works well now and can adapt to future needs.

By investing in a good custom faceted search, you're not just improving your website—you're getting your manufacturing business ready for the future of online sales. This puts you at the forefront of eCommerce innovation, ready to meet what B2B buyers expect and take advantage of new opportunities in the global market. As things keep changing online, your advanced search will be a key part of your online presence, helping your business grow, making customers happier, and cementing your position as a leader in your industry.