Lighting the Way

or Or how we illuminated customer search for Nanlite, transforming product discovery into a precision tool that matches their world-class lighting equipment.

COMPANY PROFILE

Nanlite is a pioneering manufacturer of professional lighting solutions for photography and videography. Launched in 2019, their forward-thinking approach, robust catalog, and growing traffic created the perfect environment to optimize digital discovery. They just needed a search experience that matched their technical excellence.

VISIT NANLITE

The Challenge

Despite strong traffic and an engaged customer base, Nanlite's search functionality wasn't quite ready for its close-up. Beyond search, their highly technical product catalog demanded a more sophisticated data architecture. Standard BigCommerce product fields couldn't capture the depth of specifications professional buyers need when selecting lighting equipment.

Early in their ecommerce journey, they needed a solution to increase search effectiveness, eliminate spam attempts, manage complex product data, and gain actionable insights into customer intent. In short, they needed to shine a light on the customer journey itself.

The Approach

We identified Searchanise as the ideal tool to improve Nanlite's onsite search experience, while recognizing that search alone wouldn't solve their product data challenges. Their impressive traffic volume, diverse catalog, and early adoption spirit made them a perfect candidate for a comprehensive solution. Our mission was to elevate their search experience and data architecture to match the precision of their lighting products. Key goals included:

Implementing highly visible, accessible search functionality across all devices—because if customers can't find the search bar, they can't find your products.
Optimizing search prominence and usability with both a floating search icon and full-header search box, especially for mobile users.
Architecting a custom metafield structure to manage complex technical specifications beyond BigCommerce's standard product fields.
Integrating Salsify PIM to create a single source of truth for product data that syncs seamlessly with BigCommerce.
Providing comprehensive analytics within BigCommerce backend to understand real customer search behavior and intent.

The Solution(s)

We successfully integrated Searchanise into their BigCommerce platform, with floating search, a fixed search icon that remains prominently visible as users scroll through any page, always accessible with a single tap, and a comprehensive search bar integrated into the site header for desktop users.

Nanlite's professional-grade products required detailed technical specifications. We architected a custom metafield structure integrated with Salsify PIM. When Nanlite's product team updates technical specifications in their PIM, those changes automatically sync to the website. The result: accurate, comprehensive product information that helps professional buyers purchase confidently without manual data entry or version control issues.

We also eliminated malicious traffic through Searchanise's intelligent filtering, dropping spam and security breach attempts to zero, and delivered comprehensive search analytics accessible in BigCommerce's backend—search terms, clicked products, no-result reports, and partial match suggestions—empowering the Nanlite team to fine-tune content strategy based on real customer search expectations and behavior patterns.

Search Results

The enhanced search implementation and data architecture delivered immediate and measurable impact. Nanlite experienced a 43% growth in search usage compared to previous periods, with an impressive 82.5% click-through rate on the search application. The team now has access to rich data previously unavailable, enabling them to optimize product offerings and content based on genuine customer intent.

Perhaps more importantly, the custom metafield architecture created a scalable foundation for managing their growing catalog of technical products. Product pages now display comprehensive specifications that professional buyers depend on, while the content team maintains control through Salsify.

Another project that demonstrates how the right technical solutions, carefully implemented, can dramatically improve both user engagement and operational efficiency.