Your shop search finds what your customers mean
Typos, part numbers, vague terms: Virtual Marketer Search still returns the right product. Within fixed limits, what is in stock and worth selling comes first. For Shopware, Shopify and via API.
Measurements from a comparison test, source further down this page.
Measured against the previous shop search
Comparison using 262 test queries derived from a dental retailer’s catalog (58,000 items), against the search solution that retailer ran before.
Every missed search is a customer who does not buy
People who search your shop want to buy. You lose exactly those visitors when search only counts words instead of understanding what was meant.
Zero results
The customer types, search says nothing found. You do sell the product, just under a different name.
Typos
“winkelstuck” instead of “Winkelstück”: many searches fail on a single letter.
Part numbers
In B2B buying, customers know the number. With a hyphen, without, in lower case or only the beginning: all of them must lead to the same item.
Wrong order
Searching for cement shows the cement spatula first. Or an unavailable item sits at position 1 while an available one is right next to it.
How the search works in your shop
Illustrative preview with example data. No request is sent to our servers.
Basic search
Virtual Marketer Search
Basic search
Virtual Marketer Search
Same number, different spelling: without hyphen, lower case, with a space, or only the beginning. The item comes first.
Set the weights. Relevance is multiplied by the business factor, never added.
nitrile gloves
Below the relevance floor: is never lifted above more relevant results.
Contra-angle handpiece red 1:5
Similar items, purchases that belong together, and matching accessories. Unavailable items are filtered out by default.
What is Virtual Marketer Search?
Virtual Marketer Search is a product search for online shops. It combines keyword search with search by meaning, tolerates typos, finds part numbers in any spelling and ranks results by relevance. Within fixed limits it also takes margin, availability, popularity and purchase rate into account.
It searches products, categories, brands and content in one request, delivers recommendations (similar, bought together, matching accessories) and improves from your customers’ behavior. It is available as an app for Shopware 6 and Shopify and as an API.
It suits retailers with a large or complex range, B2B shops, and specialist retailers where customers type part numbers and technical terms.
How the search decides what comes first
Understand
The query is cleaned up: umlauts, upper and lower case, units (“300 g” equals “300g”), your synonyms and learned rewrites. Typos are tolerated.
Find
Keyword search and search by meaning work together across products, categories, brands and content in one request. Your rules (pin, bury, redirect) apply first.
Rank
On the best hits, the search applies your business goals: margin, availability, popularity, purchase rate, freshness. Relevance is multiplied, never added, so an unfitting product does not rise because of a high margin.
Guardrails that always hold
- Nothing is hidden because of a low margin. Hiding is only possible for unavailable items, and only if you choose it.
- Relevance floor: a hit below 75% of the best is never lifted above one that is above the line.
- At most 8 positions of lift compared to the pure relevance order.
- Pinned items stay exactly where you put them.
- If an item has no known margin, your range’s median applies, not zero.
- Margin and purchase price data never leave the backend. They appear in no response to your customers’ browsers.
Take what your shop needs, alone or together
Virtual Marketer Search is built from modules. Use only the search, only recommendations, or only the sorting of your listings. Each module runs on its own and can be added later.
Search only
Typos, part numbers, meaning instead of word matching. Your product pages and cart stay untouched.
Recommendations only
Sliders for similar items, bought together, matching accessories and visually similar products. Your current search stays as it is.
Listing sorting only
Category, brand and collection pages are sorted by relevance and your business goals. Sorting happens server-side: your shop renders the page natively, SEO-safe and with no extra load time.
Margin optimization with guardrails
Margin, availability and purchase rate feed into the order without overriding relevance. Changes run as A/B tests, and the customer backend shows a clear verdict: adopt, discard or keep watching.
Customer backend
Searches and zero-result queries, conversion rate, upselling revenue, plus your rules: pin, bury, redirect, synonyms.
Image search, switchable
Customers search with a photo or find visually similar products. An option you switch on and off.
Which modules are enabled for your shop system today, we clarify in the demo call.
Measured, not claimed
In a comparison using 262 test queries from a dental retailer’s catalog (58,000 items), against the search solution used there before:
| Measure | Virtual Marketer Search | Previous solution |
|---|---|---|
| Part number at position 1 | 100.0% | 91.9% |
| Suggestions while typing: matching | 96.1% | 68.9% |
| Result quality on typos (NDCG@10) | 0.805 | 0.552 |
| Result quality overall (NDCG@10) | 0.828 | 0.764 |
| Relevant items found in the first 10 (Recall@10) | 0.902 | 0.813 |
| Queries with an unavailable item in the top three | 23.0% | 52.8% |
| Response time, median | 23 ms | 44 ms |
| Response time, 95th percentile | 59 ms | 67 ms |
Where we are not ahead yet
We do not win everywhere. For some generic terms that sit inside a compound word in the product name, and for queries with several exact attributes, the previous solution was ahead. Both solutions also returned results for nonsense queries. These are the points we work on next.
How it was measured
The test queries were derived from the catalog (part numbers in several spellings, name fragments, synonyms, brand plus product type, generic terms, multiple attributes, English terms, typos, nonsense). Which items belong to a query was determined from the catalog, not from the output of either search. Both solutions were queried from the same server over the public internet. These are not queries from real visitors. Measured on: 2026-10-19.
The search gets better with your customers
Every night the search reviews what was searched and clicked in your shop. Nothing goes live unchecked.
Synonyms from search paths
When someone searches with no results and then differently with a click, a candidate appears. It is applied automatically only when enough different customers did it; weaker cases reach you as a suggestion.
Boosts from clicks
How often an item is clicked for a query counts, corrected for position: a click at position 8 weighs more than one at position 1. Thin data produces no boost.
Weights through A/B tests
New weights are first replayed on real search logs. If result quality drops by more than 1%, they are discarded. The rest runs as an A/B test and is adopted only on a clear win, otherwise rolled back.
Every change is a version
Each adjustment gets a version number and a one line changelog. Going back is one click. A kill switch stops all changes immediately.
To be honest: where little is searched, there is little to learn. For small shops the search waits and says in its report why nothing was changed.
Integrate without rebuilding your shop
Shopware 6
App for Shopware 6.6 and 6.7. Install, enter keys, sync the catalog, activate. Search, results page and recommendations on product and cart pages.
Shopify
App with a theme embed for search and blocks for recommendations on product and cart pages. Changes to products, prices and stock are picked up automatically.
API
For custom shops and headless setups. Documented as OpenAPI 3.1.
What you want to know before deciding
How much work is the switch?
For Shopware and Shopify it is a few steps in the admin: install the app, enter keys, sync the catalog, switch it on. Your shop and product data stay where they are. The app only reads; it changes nothing in products or orders.
What if something goes wrong?
Your previous search stays in place: if the service does not answer, the shop automatically shows its normal results. “Replace search” can be switched off at any time, and uninstalling restores the original search. Ranking changes can be rolled back with one click.
Who controls my data?
You. Transferred are product data and, unless you switch it off, anonymized order lines for “bought together”, without customer data, addresses or prices. Purchase prices only if you want it, and they never appear in your customers’ browsers. The widget loads nothing from third parties. The storage location can be chosen by contract.
Will my shop get slower?
In the comparison test, response time was 23 ms median and 59 ms at the 95th percentile, measured from a server over the public internet. The widget needs no framework.
What does it cost?
Prices are net, plus VAT. Start costs €29 per month (€295 with annual payment) for up to 5,000 products and 15,000 search requests per month. Business costs €89 (€899 per year), Pro €199 (€1,999 per year) and Premium €299 (€2,999 per year). Search volume is fair use, there is no extra cost per search request. For larger catalogs or permanently high search load, Enterprise is available on request.
Fixed prices by catalog size and search volume
You pay a fixed monthly price. Search volume is fair use, with no extra cost per search request. All prices are net, plus VAT.
Start
up to 5,000 products
15,000 search requests per month
€29 per month
€295 per year (with annual payment)
- Hybrid product search with autocomplete, typo tolerance and synonyms
- Categories, brands and content pages in the search results
- “Similar products” recommendation slider on the product page
- Self-learning optimization: synonyms and rephrasings from real searches
- Apps for Shopware 6 and Shopify, plus API
- Reports for the last 30 days, help by e-mail
- Storage location can be chosen by contract
Business
up to 25,000 products
75,000 search requests per month
€89 per month
€899 per year (with annual payment)
- Everything in Start, plus:
- All recommendation sliders: frequently bought together, matching accessories, others also viewed, category bestsellers, in the cart
- Sorting of category and brand pages
- Business weighting by margin and availability
- Merchandising rules: pin products, push them back, redirects
- Reports for the last 90 days, guided setup
Pro
up to 100,000 products
250,000 search requests per month
€199 per month
€1,999 per year (with annual payment)
- Everything in Business, plus:
- A/B tests that automatically adopt the better variant
- Image search and visual similarity
- Reports for the last 365 days, priority support
Premium
up to 300,000 products
1,000,000 search requests per month
€299 per month
€2,999 per year (with annual payment)
- Everything in Pro, plus:
- Personal setup with fine-tuned weighting
- Monthly optimization call
- Priority when the index is rebuilt
Enterprise
Your own server, contractual availability, custom data integration, catalogs above 300,000 products or permanently high search load. Price on request.
Frequently asked questions
What is Virtual Marketer Search?
A product search for online shops. It tolerates typos, finds part numbers in any spelling, ranks by relevance and, within fixed limits, by margin and availability, and delivers recommendations. It is available as an app for Shopware 6 and Shopify and as an API.
Which shop systems does it support?
Shopware 6.6 and 6.7 and Shopify, each as an app. For other systems an OpenAPI 3.1 API is available.
Does it find part numbers in any spelling?
Yes. In our comparison test the item searched for was at position 1 for 100% of part number queries, against 92% for the previous solution. Spellings without hyphen, in lower case and with spaces were included.
What happens with typos?
The search still finds the intended product. For queries with one or two wrong letters, missing umlauts and swapped letters, result quality in the comparison test was 0.805 against 0.552 (NDCG@10, 1.0 is perfect).
How does it rank without hurting relevance?
Relevance is multiplied by the business factor, never added. Guardrails apply: a relevance floor of 75%, at most 8 positions of lift, pinned items stay, and nothing is hidden because of a low margin.
How does the search learn?
Overnight, synonyms are derived from search paths and boosts from clicks. New ranking weights are first checked on real search logs, then A/B tested and adopted only on a clear win. Each change is a version and can be rolled back.
Which data is transferred?
Product data, categories and brands. For “bought together”, optionally anonymized order lines without customer data, addresses and prices. Purchase prices only if you want it, never in the browser. The storage location can be chosen by contract.
Can I go back to my old search?
Yes. A switch in the app restores your previous shop search, and if the service does not answer once, it stays in place automatically. After uninstalling, the original search is active again.
Can I use only part of the search?
Yes. Search, recommendations and listing sorting are separate modules. Start with one and add others later.
How does it sort category and brand pages?
Server-side. Your shop receives the order and renders the page itself as usual. To search engines the page looks as before, and no extra load time arises in the browser.
Which recommendations are there?
Similar items, bought together, matching accessories and visually similar products, each as a slider on product and cart pages.
What does the customer backend show?
Searches and zero-result queries, conversion rate, revenue from upselling and recommendations, plus your rules. Margin experiments appear there as an A/B test with a clear verdict.
Is there an image search?
As a switchable option: customers search with a photo or find visually similar products.
Let us look at your search
We show you the search and discuss what it can do for your shop.
Request a demo