When customers land on your store, what happens next depends on how quickly and easily they can find the product they want—or the one they didn’t know they needed. This is where the Shopify Search & Discovery app comes in. Recently supercharged with new features in Shopify’s Winter 2025 Edition, this free app is now one of the most powerful tools available to all Shopify merchants, including those on non-Plus plans.
For Indonesian merchants in particular, where customer browsing behavior is often mobile-first and preference-based, optimizing your product discovery can dramatically improve user experience and conversion rates.
At Expatify, we’ve helped merchants across categories—fashion, electronics, food, and lifestyle—use Search & Discovery to elevate their storefronts and unlock more revenue through smarter, more intuitive shopping flows. In this article, we’ll break down what the app does, highlight its latest features, and show how we can help you implement them.
What is Shopify Search & Discovery?
Shopify Search & Discovery is a free app developed by Shopify that lets merchants customize how products appear in search results, collections, and recommendation sections. It's a powerful complement to Shopify’s native search system, providing more control over what customers see and how they discover new products.
With this app, you can:
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Manage search relevance (e.g., synonyms, pinning products to the top).
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Create custom filters and faceted navigation.
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Set up related product recommendations and complementary products.
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Feature or hide specific products on search pages or within collections.
These tools help shoppers find what they want faster—and help merchants subtly guide them to higher-value or more strategic products.
What’s New in Winter 2025: Smarter Discovery for Everyone
Shopify’s latest update to Search & Discovery brings features that were once exclusive to Shopify Plus or custom dev work into the hands of all merchants. Key highlights include:
Combined Listings for Variants
You can now group product variants (like color or size) into a single product card with swatches shown in search and collection views. Previously, each variant would show as a separate product—leading to visual clutter and confusing duplication. Now, your store can look and feel more professional, especially for fashion and electronics merchants who offer many colorways or models.
Expatify Insight: We helped an Indonesian fashion brand unify their hijab collections with color swatches, making the collection page 30% more compact and improving click-throughs by over 20%.
Enhanced Product Recommendations
Merchants can now add two types of recommendations:
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Related Products: Alternatives that serve the same need.
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Complementary Products: Add-ons that enhance the item (e.g. chargers, cases, etc.).
These show up on product pages and help increase average order value (AOV) by suggesting the right products at the right moment.
Custom Filter Enhancements
You can now:
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Define filter logic more granularly (e.g. AND/OR rules).
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Display filters as checkboxes, swatches, or range sliders.
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Reorder and rename filters for better UX.
For Indonesian merchants with mixed-language product tags or local terminology, this is essential.
Example: A local electronics store using “Warna” and “Color” tags for products can now unify them under one label and organize the filter properly for both Bahasa and English shoppers.
Use Cases for Indonesian Shopify Merchants
Here’s how different merchants in Indonesia can use Search & Discovery to boost performance:
Fashion & Apparel
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Combine color variants with image swatches.
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Pin bestsellers to the top of collection pages.
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Recommend complementary products like accessories or scarves.
Electronics & Gadgets
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Use related products to suggest alternatives (e.g. comparing iPhone 14 and 15).
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Complement with chargers, headphones, or cases.
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Filter by brand, specs, price, and availability.
Multi-Category Stores
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Use advanced filters by category, price, promo tags.
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Customize search results per collection.
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Tailor product recommendations based on what’s in the cart.
Food & Lifestyle
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Recommend bundles or combos.
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Filter by dietary needs, packaging type, or origin.
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Hide unavailable variants or show pre-order messages.
How Expatify Helps: From Setup to Strategy
At Expatify, we help Shopify merchants in Indonesia unlock the full potential of Search & Discovery. Whether you're on Shopify Basic, Advanced, or Plus, we:
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Audit your current search and filtering setup.
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Design a discovery flow that fits your brand and product range.
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Implement combined listings, custom filters, and recommendation rules.
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Test and iterate for better performance.
One of our clients, a beauty brand from Jakarta, saw a 35% boost in search-to-purchase rate after we redesigned their search filters and pinned top-converting products to search results.
We don’t just install apps—we build shopping experiences that convert.
Ready to Upgrade Your Product Discovery?
Search is where intent happens. If your customers can't find what they want fast—or get inspired by what else they could buy—you're leaving money on the table.
With the new Search & Discovery updates, Shopify now gives every merchant the tools to compete on experience, not just pricing. And with Expatify’s local insight and Shopify expertise, you can deploy these tools strategically.
Contact us today to get started with a free discovery audit or implementation package.
Let’s turn your site’s search bar into a sales engine.
