INC Magazine: E-Commerce Brands Are Ignoring This Critical Feature—and It’s Losing Them Sales

When’s the last time you had an impressive search experience on a website? It’s probably been a while, right? Believe it or not, search bars used to be essential—especially on e-commerce sites, where it was the best way to find the products you need.

Now, they feel almost perfunctory—a little magnifying glass icon that sits at the top of every site simply because that’s what’s expected.

Their bad reputation is mostly earned. Most legacy search bars are “dumb.” They look for exact word matches—if a user searches for “crimson dress” but you labeled your product “red gown,” they get zero results. On mobile, search is often hidden behind hamburger menus or tiny icons. Brands forget that on a six-inch screen, typing is hard. If the search bar doesn’t support autosuggest, typo tolerance, or voice input, the friction is too high. Then there are brands that treat a failed search as a system error, rather than a merchandising opportunity. When this happens, a “No results found” page effectively becomes a “Get out of my store” sign.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, even as AI, social media and search engines reshape the product discovery landscape, onsite search can be a vital tool—showing brands how users interact with their products, what they want, and what trends might be coming down the line. But that means taking the search bar seriously.

Searching for a better way

There’s no overstating the impact that the rise of social media, AI, and Google Search has had on the value of onsite search toward product discovery. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have taken over the top of the funnel—where people discover they “need” a green velvet sofa—turning onsite search into a bottom-of-funnel capture mechanism. When shoppers arrive at a site, they are no longer browsing; they are on a mission to find a specific item.

Meanwhile, Google and AI tools (like ChatGPT) have spoiled users—setting an expectation that they can type natural sentences (“best running shoes for flat feet”) and get perfect answers. When they type that into a retail search bar and get “0 results” (because the engine only matches keywords), they leave. The bar has been raised; users now expect onsite search to have the same semantic intelligence as Google, all presented with the relevance, organization, and speed of AI.

But while “window shoppers” might not need onsite search, there are plenty of other shopper profiles where it’s essential. For example, “spearfishers” are high-intent users that know exactly what they want and will remain brand loyal if good onsite search can help them find it. “Repeat buyers” also need it—they just want to reorder and view navigation as a waste of time.

Of course, not everyone can be Amazon when it comes to search. They are the benchmark because their search is their navigation. Also, their predictive text often knows what you want before you finish typing the third letter (while also using shopper insights gained from search to power their ad business). Still, while Amazon’s approach isn’t for everyone, there are some simple steps that all ecommerce brands can take to turn their onsite search into a businesswide benefit.

Adopt a “never zero results” mindset: Even if you don’t have the exact item, never show a blank search results page. Use AI (or even manual, human merchandizing) to show “visually similar” items, top-selling categories, or even a link to a “Contact Us” form if it’s a high-ticket item. Chewy does all of this well, for example, turning every dead end into a detour. At the same time, the site also includes a full filtering menu on their results page so that users can further refine their search—a nice touch for if/when a user receives too many results on their query.

Invest in “semantic search”: Move away from simple keyword matching. Implement a search tool that understands synonyms (sofa = couch), typos (“ipone” = iphone), and measurements. The search bar should act like a helpful shop assistant who listens, not a robot that scans barcodes. Home Depot and Lowes are great at this, handling complex queries with dimensions, part numbers, and slang terms (e.g., understanding that a “weed whacker” is a “string trimmer”). Similarly, Sephora’s search engine understands attributes, not just brand names. This allows people to search by “problem” (e.g., “dry skin foundation”) rather than product name.

Personalize the autosuggest: If a shopper bought dog food last month and they type “d” into the search bar, “Dog Food” should be the first suggestion—not “Dresses” or “Drills.” Camera retailer Moment does this with a really great, highly-contextualized search that shows you what you’re looking for against other things that you could be looking for. In this way, they leverage each user’s history to shortcut their journey.

Overall, remember that the search bar isn’t a simple signpost. It’s actually the most direct line to your customer’s brain. If brands aren’t being more thoughtful about their onsite search experience and functionality—anticipating needs and mining the search data—they’re ignoring one of the most important and undervalued parts of the e-commerce experience.