X-Cart forums

[PhilJ]

X-Cart AJAX Dynamic Search MK2 still selling but their demo does not work.

Check our latest template.

[ADDISON]

1) PhilJ said he will provide a free trial for his AJAX search, but I did not see it yet.

2) There was an announcement from Yan (isaystore.com) about IsaySearch. Nothing built yet.

3) Predictive Search from TXS has a main issue with words. It takes letter by letter (e.g. if you search for Binary Mom once you enter the letter you will see the result, but if you search just for Mom you won't see any result). I reported all issues to Will. Hope this module will be updated once and for all. I really like this module, very much, that's why I am waiting its normal shape.

Conclusion, for today you have two options:

- PhilJ's X-Cart AJAX Dynamic Search MK2
- Qualiteam CloudSearch (monthly subscription)

It could be Predictive Search or IsaySearch, but there is no information about availability for these two.

[shwekhaw]

Originally Posted by PhilJ

Our current demo for this can be found here. It is also used in our latest template.

Somehow the demo on link/455 is not working. The one on template works. However if I search more than one word that is not next to each other on product name, it will not generate result. For example, the site has wireless mighty mouse. If I search for wireless mouse, it will not show any result.

[PhilJ]

With our mod, if looking for the product - 'wireless mighty mouse', and you type 'wireless m' it'll find the product, if you type 'wireless mouse' it won't.

Cloudsearch will find the product, but it's SaaS cloud/subscription based. You pays your money, you takes your choice...

[shwekhaw]

Hi Phil. 'wireless m' will bring up the result because the product title is Wireless Mighty Mouse . If the name is Wireless Scroll Mouse, wireless m won't bring up. X-cart built in search would show the result.

I am not a programmer but I don't think you need external search server like cloud search to get basic results like that. While I don't want to spend than what necessary, my first priority is to get the one that works.

[PhilJ]

Re. Cloudsearch, there doesn't seem to be a decent price structure for small-medium/mid-range stores.

Most stores have over 100 products, but the leap to (up to) 5000 products for the silver plan is a significant one.

An additional plan between bronze and silver would attract more subscribers IMO. I've already asked them about this before.

[xim]

The main point of search - how it converts your visits to sales and how often your customers use it. $200-$300 per year is expensive for you? But what you say, if the better experience of CloudSearch increases your conversion rate and your sales grows for 5%-15%?

According to our statistic, customers use one search request per 11 pageviews. Every second customer use search during his session on the web-site.

As X-Cart CEO I should say that it is big failure that we still do not have search feature on our main website (www.x-cart.com). It is one of the main tasks for our web-site team to solve all the technical difficulties and implement search engine to our web-site. As far as you may know, the CloudSearch will be also integrated into X-Cart admin area to provide with instant results for help articles depended on opened section. I believe, that very important to give your customers the needed thing as quickly as you can. As soon as they think about something, you need to show them it on your website.

[PhilJ]

I quite agree Maxim, CloudSearch performs very well. I was just thinking a mid-range plan for small-medium stores, who have over 100 products, but a lot less than 5000 products, would gain you extra business for this module.

[shwekhaw]

For our purpose, X-cart build-in search is pretty good already. It brings up correct results etc. We want cloud search because it will give our site more advanced and cool look. I will probably wait to spend on cloud search until we have good traffic.

We started our first store back in 2004 with less than 1k in site set up cost on Gold x-cart. It is still doing well with no monthly cost except for hosting. This second site we are building now with gold plus cart costs much more. Some of the costs are driven up by ecommerce industry such as requirement for PCI-compliance and new features x-cart has. So I am not blaming high costs on x-cart. I am spending $400 on payment module (braintree integration) alone. I probably will spend monthly fee on social login, cloud search and another things. Since we don't have these features with old x-cart, we do not consider these as increased costs.

X-cart can count on loyal customers like us who has success with x-cart in the past. However, if we are a startup company like we were back in 2004, we might not be able to afford x-cart. I would flinch if I have to spend same amount or more for a payment module than shopping cart software itself. I guess it is why you guys are developing x-cart next which is affordable price for a start up. But again people are like me who like open source and like to modify to details, still might not be interested. Again I have no idea how many of your potential customers are like me. I am sure you guys know your market more than me. I am just reflecting my views.

[ADDISON]

I was punished with one post moderation about a few words I was commenting to quick/instant search feature, especially CloudSearch price model (as you may see this thread initiated by me ...).

1) I agree CloudSearch is the best for the moment. Fuzzy search is nice. Unfortunately you have to pay a monthly service to get it. I am wondering why Qualiteam doesn't ask a price for 1 product? No more packages. If you have 10 products you pay per month 10 x fee for one product/month. If you have 5000 products but you want increase to 6000 you know from the very beginning the price.

2) Another great solution I did not mention it in detail is alteredcart.com Smart Search + AJAX add-on. I do recommend this one too as a professional solution for instant search. If it could have a spelling correction in a separately window (it already has but is all together in one page, imagine entering correction for 1000 words how big becomes the window content), it will be more friendly.

Predictive Search and Smart Search could be customize which is great as controlling the behavior. Predictive Search needs steroids, hope Will from TXS to make this one better to my recommendations. But both are promising solutions, and a competition for CloudSearch if the developers see each other.

Every store should have: Quick Search, Filtering and Comparison. In our days the customers spend less and less time in doing shopping. The store which will have these 3 important features working great will collect the money, and boost the selling.