A better search experience for a specialised online store

Cyber Farm specialises in professional audio equipment, software and studio technology. Its catalogue includes a large number of brands, product ranges, variations and technical terms, which demands more from search than simply matching a product name.

The existing search solution didn’t always provide the experience that was needed. Relevance could be inconsistent, related searches weren’t always understood, and the overall experience wasn’t as precise or intuitive as it needed to be.

So the problem wasn’t simply speed or design. It was about making search understand the store better.

Rather than trying to fit another off-the-shelf solution into the store, the search was built specifically around Cyber Farm’s catalogue and the way its customers search.

Development started with actual searches and the points where the experience broke down. From there, the solution was continuously refined by testing relevance, speed, the mobile experience and the way different types of content were presented.

This made it possible to prioritise what actually mattered to the user rather than building around a generic feature list.

The finished solution doesn’t just search products. It can also surface relevant brands, categories, tags and pages, making search more of a way into the store than simply a traditional search field.

Particular attention was given to relevance, alternative spellings, related terms and the small variations that appear when customers search for technical products.

The search experience is built for both desktop and mobile, with results appearing directly below the search field so customers can move on quickly without first having to navigate a separate results page.

A large part of the work went into the things you barely notice when they work properly.

How should different types of results appear in the same dropdown? How should a search term be handled with or without a hyphen? What happens when someone enters the words in a different order? When is a brand more relevant than a product? And how do you make sure the experience still feels fast on a phone?

These are exactly the kinds of small decisions that ultimately determine whether a custom feature feels natural to use.

The solution was developed as a standalone feature for WordPress and WooCommerce, working directly with the store’s existing product structure.

This means Cyber Farm doesn’t have to adapt its entire business to an external search system. Instead, the search solution is adapted to the store it needs to work in.

And because it’s built specifically for the store, the functionality can continue to evolve as new needs emerge.

The result is a more coherent search experience built specifically around Cyber Farm’s products, customers and workflows.

Perhaps more importantly, the project demonstrated the value of treating an online store as a system that can be adapted when standard functionality is no longer good enough.

Rather than accepting the limitation, the problem became a development project.

The same approach can be applied to many other parts of an online store: filtering, product selection, internal workflows, integrations or functionality that has simply become too specific for an off-the-shelf plugin.

Klangland mainly works with WordPress and WooCommerce, but the starting point isn’t a particular industry. It’s a specific problem worth solving properly.