AI Search for BigCommerce

Overview

BigCommerce's own search matches the words a shopper types against the words in your product names. A shopper who types "a glass ball with plants inside for my desk" gets nothing, because no product is called that.

The AI Search Bar answers what they mean. It reads your catalogue and your pages, and it shows matching products with their picture and their price, in the shopper's own language.

What You Install

One app from the BigCommerce App Marketplace. It does two things in one click:

• It puts the bar on your storefront, in place of the search box your theme already shows. No theme file is edited.
• It shares your catalogue with us through the read-only product access you grant when you install it.

There is nothing to download and no code to paste.

Installing

1. In your BigCommerce control panel, open Apps, then App Marketplace, and search for Asyntai AI Search.
2. Press Install, then Confirm on the permissions screen.
3. Sign in to Asyntai, or create a free account. Your store address and email are already filled in.
4. That is all. The app screen shows the bar's status and how many products we have read.

Reading the catalogue takes a minute for a small store and longer for a large one. The bar switches on by itself when the first products are indexed; the app screen updates while you watch.

What the App Can See

The install asks for three permissions, and each one has a job:

• Content: modify. This is how the app puts the search bar on your storefront. BigCommerce calls it a storefront script, and the app creates exactly one.
• Products: read-only. This is the catalogue. Names, descriptions, prices, images and stock, read once a day.
• Information and settings: read-only. Your storefront address and currency, so product links and prices in the results are right.

Orders, customers and payments are not part of the install.

Where the Bar Appears

Cornerstone, the BigCommerce default theme, keeps its search box behind the SEARCH link in the header. The AI Search Bar takes the place of that box, so your shoppers open it exactly as before and get the new results.

On another theme, the bar finds the theme's search form on its own and takes its place.

To put the bar somewhere else, for example on your home page, add an empty element to the theme where it should appear:

<div data-asyntai-search></div>

Your theme styles the space around it, so the bar sits in the layout like anything else you put there.

Cookie Consent

If your store asks shoppers for cookie consent, BigCommerce loads the search bar under the functional category, the same category as live chat. A shopper who declines functional cookies keeps your theme's own search box.

Plans and Limits

A store connected through the app runs the bar on any plan, including the free one. Your monthly reply allowance still applies, and searches and chat replies share it.

When the allowance runs out, the bar removes itself and your theme's own search box comes straight back. Your shoppers keep being able to search. The bar comes back by itself when the allowance resets. You do not have to update or reinstall anything.

Keeping Your Catalogue Current

We re-read your whole catalogue every day. New products, price changes and sold-out items reach the search bar within a day.

Our chat assistant goes further. Before it answers about a product, it reads that product's price and stock from your store again, in the moment. If you run the chatbot as well, its answers carry today's numbers.

Search Analytics

Every search phrase, and what the shopper clicked, is in your Asyntai dashboard under Search analytics. It shows you what people ask for and cannot find, which is the shortest list of products you should add next.

If Something Does Not Work

• No bar appears. Open the app in your control panel and read the line beside the coloured dot. It says exactly why the bar is off.
• Reading your catalogue does not finish. Uninstall the app and install it again. The catalogue sync starts fresh on every install.
• The bar is in the wrong place. Your theme has no standard search form. Use the data-asyntai-search element above to place it yourself.
• The store is not launched yet. A store that still shows the Coming Soon page can be read and the bar is installed, but only visitors with the preview code see it.

Uninstalling

Uninstall the app from Apps, My Apps in your control panel. The bar disappears at once, your theme's own search takes over, and the catalogue link is closed. Your Asyntai account and its knowledge base stay as they are.

Using the Chatbot as Well

This app adds the search bar only. To add the chat assistant too, install our separate Asyntai AI Chatbot app from the same marketplace. The two work side by side on the same pages and share the same knowledge base.