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Why Shopify search can't find your SKUs: 58 of 62 part numbers missed

26 October 2026 · 5 min read

A trade customer has a part number on an invoice. They type it into your search box the way they always do, without the dash. Your store says there's nothing there, even though you have it in stock. We wanted to know how often that happens, so we tested it.

The problem in one number

Between 19 and 21 October 2026 we searched 21 Shopify stores that sell by part number. They were mostly UK plumbing, electrical and car parts shops. For each one we took real codes from the store's own catalogue and typed them without the dash, dot or space the store uses.

58 of 62 searches found nothing. Every store had at least one miss.

A typical example: 221-612 finds a WAGO connector. 221612 returns zero results. Same product, same store, one missing dash. We saw the same pattern with codes like USM499 against US-M499, and 069D against 069-D.

We used only what any shopper can see: the store's public search suggestions (/search/suggest.json) and its results page (/search?q=…&type=product). We didn't log in to any store or change anything.

How Shopify's SKU matching actually works

Shopify documents SKU search clearly, and the rules explain most of what we saw (Help Center):

• A shopper can find a product by its full SKU or barcode.
• A partial search "matches the first 3–15 characters of a SKU". Shorter or longer partial searches don't match.
• "Characters from the middle or end of a code don't match, unless they're a complete segment that's separated by hyphens, slashes, or spaces."
• Typo tolerance doesn't cover the SKU field. The fields Shopify lists for typo tolerance are title, description, product type, tags, variant title and vendor.

For the dropdown, Shopify says product suggestions for a SKU or barcode "are based on the code exactly as it was entered" (Help Center). The dropdown also shows at most 10 results.

Shopify also says matching "counts from the first character, with or without hyphens". Their own examples show what that means: for a code stored as abc1-888-xl, prefixes like abc1, abc1-8 or abc1-888 work. The hyphens stay in place as you type the start of the code. That is not the same as typing the whole code with the dashes stripped — 221612 for a product stored as 221-612. In our tests, that second case usually returned nothing.

There is an exact way to search a code: variants.sku:"221-612". But Shopify notes that search syntax turns off typo tolerance, semantic understanding and query suggestions in predictive search. And shoppers don't type syntax.

What we saw in the wild

Missing dashes were the biggest pattern, but not the only one. Three cases stood out. We've kept the stores anonymous.

1. The missing dash. The 58 of 62 above. The shopper types the right code. The store has the right product. Search doesn't connect them.
2. The trade abbreviation. A UK plumbing store sells more than 20 thermostatic radiator valve sets. Searching TRV returns zero results. Every plumber says TRV. The product titles spell it out.
3. The everyday word. On a UK electrical store, fuse box shows fused spurs and no consumer unit at all. On another store, stop tap brought up basin mixers first. The first stopcock was at around position 17.

Codes are a problem on the dropdown too. On the Shopify Community, a UK tool retailer said most of their customers search by product code. A reply tested 20 of the store's codes in the dropdown. Nine never returned the right product. They returned a numerically close code instead, often as the only result. The same codes worked on the results page (Shopify Community, reply).

Synonyms and part numbers are different problems

The TRV and fuse box cases are about language. The shopper's word and the catalogue's word differ. Search matches words, so it misses the product or finds something that shares a word, like "fused" or "tap".

Until September, merchants could fix that with synonym groups in Search & Discovery. That feature has been retired, and Shopify now relies on semantic understanding instead. We covered what changed in Shopify retired Search & Discovery synonyms.

Part numbers are different. A code has no meaning for semantic matching to work with. 221612 and 221-612 are the same thing to a plumber, but not to an index that treats the dash as a boundary. Synonym groups never applied to SKU matches either. So shops that sell by code need help with both: their trade words and their codes.

What actually fixes it

We built Termatch for these two jobs. It works inside your theme's own search, so there's no new search page to style. Here's what it does, and what it doesn't.

• Synonym groups as hidden tags. You group words like TRV and thermostatic radiator valve, or fuse box and consumer unit. Termatch writes them onto matching products as tags. Tags are a field Shopify's own search already reads. You can import your old synonym list as a CSV or TXT file.
• SKU tags, including the compact form. Termatch tags each product with its SKUs, including a version without dashes, dots or spaces. So 221612 has something to match.
• Exact-SKU jump on the results page. When a shopper presses Enter on a full code, Termatch opens the product directly. It ignores dashes, dots, spaces, slashes, underscores and case.
• Strict mode on the results page. For searches where precision matters, it keeps loose look-alike matches out of the results.
• Easy to undo. Termatch only touches tags it added, and you can remove them all in one click.

To be clear about the limits: Termatch doesn't change the order of Shopify's dropdown. For fuse box, synonym tags make consumer units a match, and strict mode can keep fused spurs off the results page. It won't rearrange the suggestions as someone types.

It works on every Shopify plan, including Basic. Starter is $9 a month and Pro is $19 a month, both with a 14-day free trial. Termatch is currently in Shopify App Store review, so it isn't listed yet.

What to do today, with or without an app

1. Test your own codes. Take ten best-selling part numbers. Search each one with and without its dash, in the dropdown and on the results page. Write down what comes back.
2. Check searches with no results. Your search reports show the words and codes shoppers try that your catalogue doesn't answer.
3. Add trade words as product tags. Tags like TRV or stopcock work on any plan and cost nothing. Check your theme first, as some themes show tags on the product page.
4. Add the compact code as a tag on products where customers drop the dash. It's tedious by hand, but it works.
5. Use product boosts in Search & Discovery for your highest-value searches. Boosts reorder results but don't remove loose matches (Help Center).

If you'd rather not keep tags up to date by hand, that's what Termatch does for you, and it shows you exactly what it changed.