Admin Power Tools - Search Merchandising
Description
Highlights
- 100% Shopware-native — no SaaS, no per-search billing, EU data-sovereign
- Real-time KPI dashboard with search-to-revenue funnel
- Pin, boost, redirect, hide — rules engine with one-click templates
- Auto-fix zero-result searches with synonyms and rescue rules
- Glass Box: see the exact score breakdown for every ranked product
Features
- Real-time search analytics dashboard with KPIs and search-to-revenue funnel
- Merchandising rules engine: pin, boost, redirect, and hide products by query
- Drag-and-drop visual merchandiser for editing pin slots
- Five one-click rule templates: best-seller, category, brand, discontinued, sale weekend
- Bidirectional synonyms with sales-channel scoping and auto-suggestions from successful queries
- Zero-result rescue rules with similar-product, category, and redirect display modes
- A/B testing with ROI attribution and adjustable canary traffic split
- Glass Box per-product ranking waterfall — every signal that moved a product up or down
- Daily anomaly alerts for zero-result spikes, conversion drops, and trending queries
- Weekly search-health digest email with quality score and top problems
- Approval workflow with draft, needs-approval, and published states plus full audit log
- Storefront recommendations widget on product detail pages, powered by co-purchase data
- "Editor's pick" and "Featured" badges on pinned and boosted products in result grids
- Field-weight tuning UI for Shopware's product search configuration
- Works with MySQL search out of the box; full Elasticsearch and OpenSearch support
About the Extension
Turn search into a revenue engine
Search Merchandising gives Shopware merchants a complete control center for on-site search: rules, synonyms, A/B tests, anomaly alerts, ranking diagnostics, and a real-time analytics dashboard — all native to Shopware, no external service required.
Why Search Merchandising
- 100% Shopware-native. No SaaS subscription, no external API, no per-search billing. Search data stays in your database.
- Works on day one. Activates with the standard MySQL search out of the box. If Elasticsearch is configured, advanced features automatically light up — but ES is never required.
- Explainable ranking. Every search result carries a per-product score breakdown so merchandisers understand exactly why a product ranked where it did.
- Replaces five separate tools. Analytics, rules engine, synonym manager, A/B testing platform, and ranking diagnostics in one admin.
Search analytics dashboard
Real-time KPIs on every admin login: total searches, zero-result rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, and search-attributed revenue, each with a period-over-period delta. Drill into:
- Search-to-revenue funnel — search → click → cart → order with drop-off rates between stages
- Top converting search terms
- Zero-result, rising, and "needs action" queries
- Quality score with actionable recommendations
- Click-position heatmap (are users scrolling to find products?)
- Search health overview with top problems and top opportunities
Merchandising rules engine
Move products to where they sell. A drag-and-drop visual merchandiser plus a rules engine that supports four actions:
- Pin — force a product to a specific position for a query
- Boost — give a product extra ranking weight
- Hide — exclude products from a query result
- Redirect — send queries to a category, CMS page, or external URL
Rules support sales-channel scoping, time windows (campaign rules with countdown), priority ordering, and one-click templates for the most common patterns: pin best-seller, boost category, redirect brand, hide discontinued, sale-weekend banner.
Synonyms and zero-result rescue
Two complementary systems. Synonyms expand a query before search runs; rescue rules show alternative results when a query returns nothing.
- Bidirectional synonyms with sales-channel scoping
- Auto-suggested synonyms learned from successful similar queries
- Rescue rules with multiple display modes (similar products, category links, redirect)
- Storefront hint informing shoppers when synonyms expanded their query
- Elasticsearch synonym-set export for ES-backed shops
A/B testing with ROI attribution
Test ranking changes safely with canary deployment. Run two variants of the same rule against a percentage of traffic, attribute revenue to each variant, and promote the winner with one click.
- Per-variant CTR, conversion rate, and attributed revenue
- ROI computed by joining click and order events to the originating search session
- Statistical confidence indicator before promoting a winner
- Manual or automatic traffic split (50/50, 90/10, custom)
Glass Box — ranking explainer
Click any product in any search and see the exact score decomposition as a waterfall chart: BM25 keyword score, category boost, pin rule, learning-to-rank contribution, A/B variant adjustment, margin boost — every signal that moved the product into its position. Compliance gets a permanent audit trail; merchandisers stop guessing why a product ranked where it did.
Anomaly alerts
A daily background task compares today's metrics against a 14-day baseline and surfaces statistically significant deviations:
- Zero-result spike on a sales channel (more than 2σ above baseline)
- Conversion drop on a specific term
- Query suddenly trending
Alerts also fire as Flow Builder events so merchants can wire automated responses (Slack notifications, ticket creation, email digests).
Storefront extras
- Recommendations widget — server-side rendered "you might also like" block on product detail pages, powered by co-purchase data
- "Editor's pick" badges on pinned products in result grids
- "Featured" badges on boosted products
- Synonym hint ("Also showing results for: X") when synonyms expanded the query
- Variant collapse — show one row per parent product instead of every color/size combination
Workflow and governance
- Approval workflow — draft, needs-approval, published states with role-gated transitions
- Audit log — every rule, synonym, and config change recorded with user, timestamp, and before/after diff
- Auto-revert — campaign rules disable automatically when their valid-to date passes
- Export and import — back up or migrate rules and synonyms via CSV/JSON
Onboarding
First-time admin login triggers a wizard that walks the merchant through:
- Reviewing the engine status (MySQL or Elasticsearch)
- Creating the first rescue rule for the highest-volume zero-result query
- Configuring the weekly digest email
The wizard is replayable any time from the dashboard header.
Compatibility
- Shopware 6.7.x (requires PHP 8.2 or newer)
- MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+
- Optional: Elasticsearch 7.10+ or OpenSearch 2.x for advanced features such as learning-to-rank training, rank-feature time decay, and percolator tagging
- No external service or API key required
Privacy and data sovereignty
Search events are stored in your own Shopware database. No data is sent to external services. EU data-sovereign by design. Shopper search history is anonymous (session-bucketed, not customer-linked) unless the customer is logged in and has accepted personalization.
Turn search into a revenue engine
Search Merchandising gives Shopware merchants a complete control center for on-site search: rules, synonyms, A/B tests, anomaly alerts, ranking diagnostics, and a real-time analytics dashboard — all native to Shopware, no external service required.
Why Search Merchandising
- 100% Shopware-native. No SaaS subscription, no external API, no per-search billing. Search data stays in your database.
- Works on day one. Activates with the standard MySQL search out of the box. If Elasticsearch is configured, advanced features automatically light up — but ES is never required.
- Explainable ranking. Every search result carries a per-product score breakdown so merchandisers understand exactly why a product ranked where it did.
- Replaces five separate tools. Analytics, rules engine, synonym manager, A/B testing platform, and ranking diagnostics in one admin.
Search analytics dashboard
Real-time KPIs on every admin login: total searches, zero-result rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, and search-attributed revenue, each with a period-over-period delta. Drill into:
- Search-to-revenue funnel — search → click → cart → order with drop-off rates between stages
- Top converting search terms
- Zero-result, rising, and "needs action" queries
- Quality score with actionable recommendations
- Click-position heatmap (are users scrolling to find products?)
- Search health overview with top problems and top opportunities
Merchandising rules engine
Move products to where they sell. A drag-and-drop visual merchandiser plus a rules engine that supports four actions:
- Pin — force a product to a specific position for a query
- Boost — give a product extra ranking weight
- Hide — exclude products from a query result
- Redirect — send queries to a category, CMS page, or external URL
Rules support sales-channel scoping, time windows (campaign rules with countdown), priority ordering, and one-click templates for the most common patterns: pin best-seller, boost category, redirect brand, hide discontinued, sale-weekend banner.
Synonyms and zero-result rescue
Two complementary systems. Synonyms expand a query before search runs; rescue rules show alternative results when a query returns nothing.
- Bidirectional synonyms with sales-channel scoping
- Auto-suggested synonyms learned from successful similar queries
- Rescue rules with multiple display modes (similar products, category links, redirect)
- Storefront hint informing shoppers when synonyms expanded their query
- Elasticsearch synonym-set export for ES-backed shops
A/B testing with ROI attribution
Test ranking changes safely with canary deployment. Run two variants of the same rule against a percentage of traffic, attribute revenue to each variant, and promote the winner with one click.
- Per-variant CTR, conversion rate, and attributed revenue
- ROI computed by joining click and order events to the originating search session
- Statistical confidence indicator before promoting a winner
- Manual or automatic traffic split (50/50, 90/10, custom)
Glass Box — ranking explainer
Click any product in any search and see the exact score decomposition as a waterfall chart: BM25 keyword score, category boost, pin rule, learning-to-rank contribution, A/B variant adjustment, margin boost — every signal that moved the product into its position. Compliance gets a permanent audit trail; merchandisers stop guessing why a product ranked where it did.
Anomaly alerts
A daily background task compares today's metrics against a 14-day baseline and surfaces statistically significant deviations:
- Zero-result spike on a sales channel (more than 2σ above baseline)
- Conversion drop on a specific term
- Query suddenly trending
Alerts also fire as Flow Builder events so merchants can wire automated responses (Slack notifications, ticket creation, email digests).
Storefront extras
- Recommendations widget — server-side rendered "you might also like" block on product detail pages, powered by co-purchase data
- "Editor's pick" badges on pinned products in result grids
- "Featured" badges on boosted products
- Synonym hint ("Also showing results for: X") when synonyms expanded the query
- Variant collapse — show one row per parent product instead of every color/size combination
Workflow and governance
- Approval workflow — draft, needs-approval, published states with role-gated transitions
- Audit log — every rule, synonym, and config change recorded with user, timestamp, and before/after diff
- Auto-revert — campaign rules disable automatically when their valid-to date passes
- Export and import — back up or migrate rules and synonyms via CSV/JSON
Onboarding
First-time admin login triggers a wizard that walks the merchant through:
- Reviewing the engine status (MySQL or Elasticsearch)
- Creating the first rescue rule for the highest-volume zero-result query
- Configuring the weekly digest email
The wizard is replayable any time from the dashboard header.
Compatibility
- Shopware 6.7.x (requires PHP 8.2 or newer)
- MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+
- Optional: Elasticsearch 7.10+ or OpenSearch 2.x for advanced features such as learning-to-rank training, rank-feature time decay, and percolator tagging
- No external service or API key required
Privacy and data sovereignty
Search events are stored in your own Shopware database. No data is sent to external services. EU data-sovereign by design. Shopper search history is anonymous (session-bucketed, not customer-linked) unless the customer is logged in and has accepted personalization.
Details
- Available: English, German
- Latest update: 24 July 2026
- Publication date: 24 July 2026
- Version: 3.0.0
- Category: Search & Filter
Resources
Reviews (0)
About the Extension Partner
SplineCommerce LLC
Partner Status
-
Shopware
Extension Partner
Details
-
Ø-Rating:
4.8
Average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars
- Partner since: 2020
- Extensions: 7
Support
- Based in: Armenia
- Speaks: English
- Response time: Very quickly
1. Getting started
The plugin activates with sensible default settings. No configuration changes are required for it to start working.
On the first admin visit to Catalogues → Search Merchandising, an onboarding wizard guides you through engine detection, your first rescue rule, and the optional weekly digest. The wizard can be opened again at any time from the dashboard header.
2. Admin pages
All plugin pages are located under Catalogues → Search Merchandising.
The sub-navigation at the top of each page contains:
Dashboard — KPIs, search-to-revenue funnel, top terms, and search health
Search Activity — full search term list with click data and per-term drill-down
Merchandising Rules — rule list, editor, drag-and-drop visual merchandiser, and rule templates
Synonyms — synonym sets, auto-suggestions, and Elasticsearch export
No-Result Searches — zero-result rescue rules
Campaigns — time-boxed rule groups with countdown
More — A/B Testing, Glass Box, Engine Status, Scoring, Recommendations, Learning-to-Rank, and Audit Log
3. Plugin configuration
Open Settings → Extensions → My extensions → Search Merchandising → Configure.
Every setting can be configured per sales channel. Leave the sales-channel selector on All sales channels to apply the setting globally.
Tracking
Enable search tracking
Default: on
Records search queries, clicks, and add-to-cart events. This is required for the dashboard. Disable it only if you have a sales-channel-specific reason not to track search activity.
Session attribution window in minutes
Default: 30
Defines how long after a search click an order still counts as search-attributed revenue. Use 30 minutes for typical retail shops. Increase it to 60–120 minutes for longer buying decisions, such as B2B, furniture, or electronics.
Data management
Raw event retention in days
Default: 7
Defines how long raw events remain stored in the database. Aggregated daily data is kept indefinitely. Lower this value on very high-traffic shops to keep database tables smaller.
Enable automatic aggregation
Default: on
Enables a nightly task that rolls raw events into daily summaries. This is required for historical dashboard trends.
Personalization
Enable session-based personalization
Default: off
Boosts products that are likely to be a shopper’s next click based on the current session’s click history. This is recommended only for shops with regular returning traffic and at least approximately 10,000 recorded click events. Smaller shops should leave this option disabled.
Storefront recommendations
Show “Similar products” on product pages
Default: off
Adds a “You might also like” recommendation row below the product description on product detail pages.
Show “Frequently bought together” on the cart page
Default: off
Shows cross-selling suggestions based on the cart’s primary product.
Show “Trending now” on zero-result pages
Default: on
Displays popular products when a search returns no results, helping to keep shoppers engaged.
Weekly digest email
Send weekly digest
Default: off
Sends a one-page summary of the previous week’s search activity every Monday morning.
Recipient email address
Defines where the digest is sent. Leave this field empty to skip sending the digest, even if the toggle is enabled.
Instant Search
Enable instant search
Default: on
Shows search results while the customer is typing in the search bar.
Layout
Choose between a dropdown below the search bar or a full-screen overlay.
Personalization
Available options:
Off
Light, based on the current session
Full, based on customer profile and category affinity
Products, categories, and CMS pages to show
Defines the result limits per section in the dropdown. Defaults: 6 products, 3 categories, and 2 CMS pages.
Minimum characters
Default: 2
Defines how many characters must be typed before instant search is triggered.
Show product ratings
Default: on
Shows star ratings for products in instant search results.
Show variant count
Default: on
Shows the number of available variants per product.
4. Roles and permissions
The plugin defines three privileges:
sc_apt_sm.viewer
Read-only access to dashboards, rules, and reports.
sc_apt_sm.editor
Create, edit, and save rules and synonyms as drafts.
sc_apt_sm.approver
Publish drafts by moving them to the “published” state.
Assign these privileges via Settings → System → Users & permissions → Roles.
Admin users have full access without an explicit assignment.
5. Scheduled tasks
The plugin registers four background tasks. They run automatically through Shopware’s scheduled task runner. No additional plugin setup is required, but the scheduled task runner must be active, for example through cron or a Messenger worker.
SearchAggregation
Runs daily and rolls raw events into daily summaries.
SearchRetention
Runs daily and deletes raw events older than the configured retention window.
RuleAutoRevert
Runs hourly and disables campaign rules whose end date has passed.
AnomalyDetection
Runs daily and compares today’s metrics against the 14-day baseline.
6. Optional: Elasticsearch / OpenSearch
The plugin works fully with Shopware’s standard MySQL search.
If your shop already uses Elasticsearch or OpenSearch, advanced features automatically become available:
Synonym set export to the Elasticsearch analyzer configuration
Rank-feature time decay for fresher products
Learning-to-Rank model training and serving
Percolator-based query tagging
Open Search Merchandising → More → Engine Status to see which engine has been detected and which features are active in your shop.
7. First steps after installation
Open Catalogues → Search Merchandising.
The onboarding wizard starts automatically on the first visit.Let the storefront run for one or two days so the dashboard has search data to display.
From the dashboard, open the highest-volume zero-result search term and create a rescue rule. Possible actions include similar products, a redirect, or hiding the search term.
Optionally enable the weekly digest in the plugin configuration and set a recipient email address.
Optionally enable PDP and cart recommendations in the plugin configuration.
8. Troubleshooting
The dashboard shows no data
Check that Enable search tracking is enabled and that at least one storefront search has been performed. The first historical data point appears after the next nightly aggregation.
Synonyms have no effect in Elasticsearch shops
Open Synonyms → Export to Elasticsearch, copy the YAML configuration into your Elasticsearch analyzer configuration, and reindex the products.
Rules do not apply
Check that the rule status is Published. Rules with the status Draft or Needs approval are not applied. Also check that the rule’s sales-channel scope matches the channel being searched.
Anomaly alerts are not triggered
Anomaly detection requires at least 14 days of search history to calculate a reliable baseline.
Scheduled tasks remain marked as “queued” indefinitely
Check that the Messenger worker or system cron is running. The plugin’s tasks rely on Shopware’s standard scheduling.
3.0.0 6.7.0.0 - 6.7.12.2
Plugin initial release