Fitment Editor & other improvements
It’s been a while since our last update. But our team never stops improving our search engine and hopefully bringing value to our customers. Let’s dive into all Convermax search updates!
Feature Highlight: Fitment Editor
Now merchants on Shopify can manage fitment data for a particular product. Fitment Editor allows you to:
add new vehicles,
copy fitment data from another product,
add and edit notes,
delete fitment data,
apply universal fitment.
We had two main reasons to develop the Fitment Editor:
1) Reduce the risk of mistakes in data. The current process of editing spreadsheets is more error-prone, where one can accidentally put the odd hyphen, make a typo, etc. The Fitment Editor has defined fitment values you add, and it helps you avoid such mistakes. Also, you don't have to leave the Shopify dashboard to make changes.
2) Make it easier to add new Year values each year. New vehicle models appear every year, but most of the time the parts that were compatible with the 2024 model, will fit the 2025 model as well.
The first version of the Fitment Editor allows you to add new fitments for each product separately. In the next updates, we plan to add a mass editing of fitment data for a group of products.
*Currently available only inside the Shopify app.
To activate the Fitment Editor, the merchant needs to go to the Product Detail page inside the Shopify dashboard, scroll down to the App blocks, and click "Add fitments".
Other New Search Functionality
[1] We can add fitment badges to product cards in the search results. When users have a pre-selected vehicle, the badges will be “Fits your vehicle” and “Universal fit”. If the vehicle is not selected, the badge will be “Check fit. Add a vehicle”, and by clicking “Add a vehicle” users can specify their car inside the search results.
[2] Category selection got an upgrade. Now, a user can see category tiles above the product results, scroll them, and narrow down the search results. In the previous version, there were no arrows. Clients who use this template of collection pages get this upgrade automatically.
[3] The possibility to add “Any” as a vehicle type inside the Year/Make/Model/Vehicle Type dropdown. Some customers don’t want/need to specify vehicle type. In this case value “Any/ All Vehicles“ works just right.
But when a user from search results gets to the product page, the Verify Fitment widget will ask your customer to specify the type.
[4] We automatically pull vehicle notes from ACES files or wheel and tire fitment data. The Notes section can appear inside the Vehicle Info table and under the Verify Fitment widget. This feature allows customers to see additional information that can affect product compatibility. It leaves shoppers more informed and less prone to choose the wrong product.
[5] The team created one more style for the fitment table.
[6] And it got a new optional view with a year selection inside. This way the table takes up less space and allows customers to choose a particular year, and go to the search results with all vehicle-specific products.
[7] Vehicle lading pages are now available for stores selling wheels and tires. It helps merchants when they want to target customers of a particular vehicle group.
[8] The possibility to add color swatches to the product cards in the search results. For this feature to work, the store theme needs to support different product color options.
[9] Convermax search got a new style for vehicle selection inside the Year-Make-Model lookup (and related features).
[10] A new case of using the Verify Fitment feature. Depending on the vehicle, some wheels match only the rear or only the front position. Moreover, the same product variant can be for the rear position on one vehicle, and the front on another. With a new version of the Verify Fitment widget shoppers can check both positions on the product detail page.
[11] The Vehicle Info widget got a new dense look. It takes less space and appears above the filter panel on the desktop, and above product results on mobile. This version of the widget is now a default one and all our clients will get it automatically.
[12] Created a default toggle facet. It works without additional customization and is available for all our customers. It can be used to show, e.g. all products with fast shipping. The other option can be the “On Sale“ toggle, etc.
[13] Convermax engine is great for searching everything - not only auto parts. One of our customers asked us to show blog posts in the format of product cards on the search results page.
[14] By default, we show the YMM selection inside the search results URL. It helps shoppers navigate products and ensures that the products on the result page fit their vehicles.
Search Performance Improvement
[1] Our team redesigned the way Convermax App integrates into Shopify stores.
Previously, when merchants were setting up our app, they first selected the theme. It registered a single ScriptTag for all the themes available in the store. After the update, they will choose a theme while adding the search functionality via App embeds. It allows merchants to integrate the app across multiple themes at the same time. Since we moved the script registration from ScriptTag to an App Section, the search functionality loads to store shoppers much faster.
Additionally, merchants can always access the list of themes and installation instructions. In the previous version of the app, instructions were not visible in case of direct in-theme integration.
Temporarily, the Search Box Integration section was marked as Deprecated. We will remove it once it no longer affects store configurations for any clients.
[2] We have always used product reviews in Shopify and BigCommerce stores to configure the review facet, but merchants had to request this feature separately. Now, the review facet works like this by default and all our clients get it automatically. Sometimes, we may need clients to provide the API token for their review system.
If this facet doesn't work correctly, please contact our support team, and we will help you resolve the issue.
[3] Some stores have landing pages for groups of products. Such pages work as Master products. As they at their core are not product detail pages, there was no fitment data to show shoppers when they got there. A user had to get redirected to one of the Child products to check fitment.
Convermax team found a way to pull fitment data from all Child products to show it in the fitment table on the Master product page.
[4] Building a filter for all Shopify collections usually results in an excessively long list. So we recommend merchants create a Navigation menu to explicitly list all the collections they want to see and organize them into a tree hierarchy.
Before the latest update of Shopify Admin GraphQL API, configuring the Category facet to use a Navigation menu required extra effort from a merchant. We had to ask our clients to manually create and send us an Additional Storefront API Token. Now we can pull the navigation menu automatically and create the category facet based on it.
[5] This summer Shopify launched Markets - the feature allows merchants to sell in any currency and any country. It’s a great improvement for merchants, but it has broken price ranges in the Convermax filtering search panel. When a user got to the store from another country or selected another currency from the Primary one (e.g., USD), the price ranges recounted and broke.
To show the price facet, we usually indexed all prices in all currencies and returned them in the dedicated filter. But with the Markets feature, Shopify GraghQL crashed and didn’t allow us to index all the data we needed.
Still, we found a solution to fix this. Now the price range facet is used only for primary currencies. For other currencies, ranges are replaced by price sliders. It was done to avoid odd numbers in the ranges.
[6] Merchants can add custom wheel and tire fitment data via spreadsheets. If you already have fitment data from any resource (DriveRightData, Fitment Group, etc.), you can enhance it or use a spreadsheet as a primary fitment resource.
Sometimes data fitment providers are too conservative. Some merchants know from their expertise that the offset range can be wider than the fitment provider suggests. This feature can be used to add more aggressive options. And vice versa, in some cases the fitment data from fitment resources is too aggressive, and merchants want to make data more conservative.
This feature also works for clients who manage wheel and tire data themselves, without access to any other fitment resource.
[7] The Convermax team reimplemented the way we handle the bed length. Instead of relying on spreadsheets, we now use the Autocare VCdb database to validate and standardize bed length values.
Why is the change?
Previously, we’ve received bed length data from ACES files. But different manufacturers list slightly different bed length measurements. So, the YMM selector could get several dropdown options, e.g., 61.1, 61.7, 62.7 for the same exact model of Chevrolet Colorado. Product results for each selection were different, even though items for 61.1 and items listed under 62.7 both fit the customer's vehicle.
We used spreadsheets to standardize measurements into inch and foot format (e.g., 61.1, 61.7, 62.7 => 5'). But this process wasn’t ideal because every client had to create their own spreadsheet, manually map bed length, and constantly maintain it. It was too much of a hassle for most of the merchants.
With the new process, the search automatically returns uniform and consistent bed length values.
[8] We've added AutoSync as a product attributes data resource for Wheels and Tires.
Often our clients lack the necessary product data to configure the Wheel and Tire search. While we can extract and configure attributes from product titles, it doesn’t fully resolve the issue, as its data is often incomplete. Using the catalog data resource is much more reliable. In addition to WheelPros, we can pull such values as Size (Diameter x Width), Bolt Pattern, Offset, and Bore from AutoSync. To connect AutoSync, merchants need to have an account with AutoSync or be on our Rim Mastery plan.
[9] Also, we simplified the process of connecting AutoSync Visualizer. Until recently, our engineering team manually integrated and customized this feature for each merchant. We've designed default templates that enable us to connect Visualizer faster. It brings us closer to one day allowing external development teams to configure this feature without our involvement.
[10] One of our customers sells the brand Vöxx. Most shoppers probably won’t use diacritic characters while searching for it. So, we trained our search engine to find products if the customer types “voxx”. It works for any brand, product, etc. with diacritic characters.
[11] Convermax app used to have a Custom build checkbox in the Theme selection section. Initially, it was created for our engineers to inform them that a particular store has custom-designed sections.
We discovered it confused our clients. So we removed it. Now the custom build checkbox appears inside the app only after the custom build was deployed to the store. The change doesn’t influence how the search performs.
Merchandising Tools
[1] Convermax search engine now by default can show the price for products usually bought as a set. For merchants who sell wheels and tires, this feature was deployed automatically. It works not only for the prices but also for the “Add to Cart “ button. For example, shoppers can add a set of four wheels in one go.
[2] Convermax search engine adopted new sorting rules, designed to boost your store’s conversions directly from the search results.
By default, our app considers product order volume when displaying search results. It ensures that the high-demand items appear first, helping your website visitors quickly find what they want. Such an enhanced search experience positively affects both - your sales and customers’ satisfaction.
The product order information is indexed once and used for sorting configuration. After that, we don’t store, use, or share it anywhere.
[3] A new view for autocomplete. When shoppers click on the search box the trending suggestions appear. They don’t need to type anything. This feature helps fight the blank page state and encourages website visitors to start shopping faster.
These suggestions are based on the history of query requests that shoppers usually type in this store.
[4] Convermax offers a new merchandising feature: promotional banners displayed under the filtering panel.
Merchants can easily configure these banners as Metaobjects inside their Shopify admin dashboard. The banners appear on both the Search Results and Collections pages. This feature offers an additional opportunity to draw your shoppers' attention to key promotions or extra information you wish to provide.
Fixes
[1] Keyword search with special characters returns the right search results.
[2] B2B products (Shopify Plus feature) are not shown in the search results if the merchant decides they are not available for a particular country (even if the shopper has a B2B account).
[3] Added option to test B2B catalog pricing on the dev-stores. If the merchants want this feature on the live websites, their store is required to be on a Shopify Plus plan.
[4] Specify (your vehicle) dialog no longer appears if the user gets to a partial YMM landing page with the already preselected vehicle.
[5] Fixed price facet values formatting for BigCommerce store using a native BigCommerce Currency Plugin.
[6] Updated Klaviyo documentation. All our clients who have integration with Klaviyo automatically can track search actions. If it doesn’t work, you can check the documentation to fix it.
[7] Our team fixed the old bug. Previously, when a user tried to change the vehicle in the YMM lookup, it showed the wrong number of dropdowns. For example, a shopper selected a “2020 Tesla 3” and then decided to go back to 1980. After selecting a year, the field “Model” disappeared. Now, it works smoothly, maintaining all necessary dropdowns and preventing improper value selections.
[8] Other custom clients’ bug fixes.
What’s next?
BigCommerce app. We are in the last stages of configuring the app, before publishing it in the BigCommerce App Marketplace.
Fitment editor. New features are coming.