Searching on product reference

[ArtyMiss]

Does anyone know if there is a way to facilitate searching on the product reference? I often give people product codes to identify items, but when I search on the code in my site, it comes back with no results?

Surely this is a basic search function?

[kmsretail]

Hi,

It may be worth trying this:

Go to advanced:custom properties and add property PRODUCT REF.
Go to view - search settings - searchable properties and choose the above from drop down.
Go to one of your products - properties and choose PRODUCT REF as a property - enter the product ref number and then make it searchable.

This should then give the option of searching by product ref under your search. There may well be a quicker method of doing this but hopefully the above will work...

Myles

[jont]

also worth checking your search settings for any excluded values (eg numerals)

[ArtyMiss]

Thnaks for that Myles,

Having followed those steps, I now have a drop down on the serach with that product reference.

This seems a good step forward. However, with 3500 product (and with 1392 to be added next week), it would take forever to do this individually per product.

I would be eternally grateful if anyone has any thoughts on taking this a step further?

[Mark H]

Not directly relevant, but we always make a point of changing manufacturers' product codes slightly (so for instance where you have a number product code, we would add ARTY to it to make something like ARTY44837). One of the fun aspects of this is that for all of our products that we have checked so far, searching in Google for that reference produces only one result which goes straight to the product in our site, so people don't even have to go to our site first. This wouldn't work so well if you wanted people to find you by searching for the original manufacturers' reference code, but that isn't an issue for us.

[ArtyMiss]

Hi Mark H

Whilst you have a valid point, we DO want people to find us by the original manufacturers code, and in some cases we actually pay per click on these codes.

In the case of the books we are adding, we use the ISBN as the code. This means we are search engine friendly for anyone searching the ISBN.

I am still looking for advice re being able to search by product code, if anyone is knocking about?

[Mark H]

Having had another look at your site, if you enter the product code into the search words box, it seems to work well - have you considered removing the product code dropdown and changing the wording on the main search to something like "enter search terms or product code"? Apart from anything else, it would be simpler for customers.

[ArtyMiss]

The Product code drop down was only implemented today after earlier advice and doesn't work properly as it will not populae or allow you to type in.

The search box will pickupon codes containing letters, but not on numerical codes i.e. 80-945-000

I have the numerics as valid characters in the search settings

[Mark H]

I think I see the problem - just numbers works fine in the main search box, ie 668555, but dashes and slashes don't work (ie 80000/0101). In the search settings there is a list of "Valid Characters" - almost certainly "-" and "/" are not included - if you enter these (without the inverted commas!) and update the site you should be OK.

[ArtyMiss]

Thank you Mark, you have solved my problem! It was the characters - and / that were causing the problems.

It just goes toshow what a valuable resource this forum is!

I found a way today to import 1200 items in a format that I thought would require a new template. With just a little html and some jiggling in Excel, I have a fantastic result and all it cost me was a few hours at the PC!

Happy Day

[Mark H]

Happy to help!

[jont]

It just goes toshow what a valuable resource this forum is!

.. especially when the 3rd post provided the solution

[ArtyMiss]

Sorry Jont, I did not understand exactly what you meant. It was only as I looked deeper I could see there were valid & invaild characters. I did not realise punctuation charaters would make a difference, which was exactly what the probem was