Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

We're looking at Altered Cart's Smart Search module at the moment.

Is anyone out there using it and willing to share their experiences with me? I'm particularly keen to hear from bookshops (since that's what we are!) as to how author/title searches work.

Feedback would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks,

Rachael

Re: Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

It is one of the best investments you can make for a store with a large inventory. Works great on every store we have installed it on.

Re: Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

Most people go straight for the search box these days when browsing sites and shops - and as x-cart's default search isn't the best - as Balinor says - this is a great investment.

Re: Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

it is really a very good add on and installed for many of my customers and work well

Re: Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

It paid for itself the first weekend we had it installed in terms of increased orders. Using Marketing Manager we can watch what folks do while in our store and they regularly use the search box and it helps them find what they are looking for very well.

As others have said, if you have a large inventory you absolutely need something like Smart Search. The default search method and even some other mods we tried just didn't do what was needed.

Re: Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

It is a very good module for large stores, makes the shopping experience alot better in your store.

Re: Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

It is a good module and support is great too. However I must point put that it does not work that well for languages other than english (specially languages requiring unicode). What I have found strangely (and alteredcart support could not fix it yet) is the search does not work for my languages. What is strange is this search works otherwise for plain x-cart. So using this module kind of removed a feature available earlier. My users seach in both english and "Non english". THis what I have observed
English: Smartsearch enhanced the search capability significantly
Non-English" Smartsearch decreased the search capability significantly. What was possible to search with plain x-cart install is now missed by this search.

Re: Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

Other than Ajay's experience, I would say that this product is absolutely the best search engine out there and you would be hard pressed to find anyone who has not had a great experience using it.

Re: Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

This module is a god-send!!! One of my favorites. You can pretty much guarantee if the mod is from Altered Cart it is 1. Useful 2. Well-designed 3. Well done.

Re: Smart Search from Altered Cart: anyone out there using it and willing to let me know?
 

Yip I agree with all of the above. Does a brilliant job and Bill at Altered Cart is amazing for support and little code tweaks. Recommended!:)