It’s not unusual for online shoppers to face an overwhelming amount of choices when searching for products. Someone plugging in a search for a laptop or Bluetooth speaker might be confronted with hundreds of options. Narrowing down the search results can be difficult – even impossible – without a tool like faceted search. 

Faceted search lets shoppers refine results based on specific attributes like price, brand, size, color, shape – anything relevant. It turns a potentially frustrating shopping experience into one that’s much more intuitive and easier.

What is Faceted Search?

Faceted search is a search technology that enables users to filter and organize large lists of products from your catalog. Customers can narrow down their search results using attributes like size, color, price, and brand. Faceted search acts like a digital filing system for products – it’s a way to bucket their product results based on multiple criteria. 

Faceted search isn’t quite the same thing as a faceted search engine. The former is what consumers experience when they use filters to narrow down their search results. The latter is the technology behind this filtering system. 

The feature gives your customers an easy way to organize and display product results in a way that’s easy understand. It removes the overwhelm. Faceted search and navigation work together to create a smooth browsing experience. 

Faceted Search Examples

Here are some faceted search examples for different types of ecommerce searches: 

1. Jane’s Industrial Equipment Search

Jane, a procurement manager, needs new conveyor belts for her factory. On an industrial equipment site, she uses faceted search to filter by product type (conveyor belts), material (rubber), length (50-100 feet), and load capacity (1000-2000 lbs). This narrows her options to a few suitable choices in her search results and guides her to exactly the products she wants.  

2. Marta’s Budget-Friendly Smartphone

Marta needs a new smartphone but has a tight budget. She uses faceted search on an electronics marketplace to filter by price range ($200-$300), brand (Samsung and LG), and screen size (5.5-6 inches). This reduces her results from hundreds of potential phones to a few dozen affordable options that meet her criteria.

3. Ollie’s Nut-Free Snack Search

Ollie has severe nut allergies. He uses a grocery store’s website with faceted search to filter products by dietary restrictions (nut-free) and product type (snacks). This helps him quickly find safe, affordable snack options without spending hours reading labels in-store. It also shows him items he may not have known about.

Search Facets vs Filters

The terms “facets” and “filters” are often used interchangeably. That makes sense since they both work to make product search much easier for customers by narrowing down results. But they’re not quite the same. Let’s break them down to understand how they work in ecommerce search.

Search Filters

• Filters are broad and basic. They’re like the departments in a physical store, divided broadly by category – Women’s Clothes, Home Goods, Men’s Shoes, etc. You pick one filter at a time and each choice might leave you with hundreds of items. It’s a start, but it can still leave you sifting through pages of results trying to find exactly what you want.

Search Facets

• Facets are more precise and they let you combine multiple criteria at once.  Once you’ve entered the Men’s Shoes department in our metaphorical physical store, you’ll head over to “running shoes” then pinpoint a few by color (blue, white, etc.). Facets do this for you, letting you drill down by pinpointing size, color, price range, brand, etc. Combining multiple facets is how shoppers narrow down their search results to those items that they’re most interested in buying. It leaves them with a couple dozen shoe choices versus hundreds.

How to Implement Faceted Search

Implementing faceted search requires thoughtful integration with your existing ecommerce platform. Start by analyzing your product data and identifying key attributes that will serve as facets. You’ll need to create a system to index this data, making it searchable. 

Many ecommerce platforms offer built-in tools or integrations for faceted search implementation. Remember, faceted search isn’t a one-time setup. You should routinely analyze customer behavior and search patterns then refine and improve your facets based on how needs and behaviors change.

Faceted Search Best Practices

When implementing facets, visualize the search experience from your customer’s perspective, then keep the following best practices in mind:

• Choose relevant facets: Pick attributes that are the most meaningful for your retail category and your customers. For example, Price, condition, and display type makes sense for laptops while Brand, Carrier, and Model make sense for “cell phones.” Think about how your customers search and start there. 
• Keep it simple: Don’t overwhelm users with too many options. Stick to the most important facets. You can always add more later based on user behavior.
• Use clear labels: Make sure your facet labels are easy to understand. Avoid jargon or technical terms that might confuse shoppers.
• Allow multiple selections: Let users choose more than one option within a facet (e.g., multiple colors, sizes, etc.) This gives them more control over their search results.
• Show the number of results: Display how many items match each facet selection. This helps users see that they’re getting closer to finding what they need.
• Create a mobile facet strategy: Mobile screens get crowded quickly, so facets should be chosen with extreme care. Select the most popular facets to start with and consider using expandable menus to save space on smaller screens.