Check your Shopify site searchwith your own product names.
Enter your store URL for a free check in about 20 seconds. We search with your own product names, typed the way shoppers do — hiragana like たんぶらー or half a part number — and see if the right product comes up.
What we check
We test your product names with 10 kinds of input
We try ten ways shoppers commonly type. Test words come from your own product names; measuring with words you don't sell says nothing about your shoppers.
Hiragana search
Katakana in a product name, typed in hiragana
Kanji by reading
Kanji in a product name, typed as its hiragana reading
Partial part number
Only the first few characters of a part number
Romaji search
Typed in romaji without switching to Japanese input
Missing long-vowel mark
One "ー" left out
Full-width letters and case
A Latin product name typed full-width or in lower case
Suggestions while typing
Whether product suggestions appear while typing
Half-width katakana
Katakana typed in half-width
Small kana
A small kana typed full-size (キャンドル → キヤンドル)
Full-width part number
A part number typed in full-width
Why search
If search finds nothing, shoppers leave
About half of shoppers go straight to the search box. If they can't find the product there, some simply give up and leave.
In large-scale user testing, roughly half of participants turned to search first when looking for products.
A benchmark of 170+ ecommerce sites and apps found that 56% fail to adequately support users' search needs.
Shopify's standard search matches Japanese by runs of three or more consecutive characters (kanji also in pairs). Searching by part of a part number only works when the code contains a hyphen.
Predictive search, which shows suggestions while typing, doesn't list Japanese among its supported languages.
What we found
Across 82 stores, Japanese input variations went unmatched
In September 2026 we ran this check on 82 Japanese-language Shopify stores that don't use a search app. Store names are withheld.
- 46 of 70
- Searching a katakana product name in hiragana left half or less of the matching products near the top. In 23 stores, none appeared at all.
- 41 of 57
- Searching a kanji word by its reading, such as どなべ for 土鍋 (clay pot), left half or less of the matching products near the top. In 19 stores, none appeared at all.
- 81 of 82
- showed no product suggestions while typing, because Shopify's predictive search doesn't support Japanese.
- 55
- was the median score of the 76 stores we could score. Over 70% of stores handled half-width katakana, a missing long-vowel mark and a part number typed only partway with standard search.
Source: measurements with the Maru Search free check (September 25, 2026, store names withheld, Pepin)
Method
We score by the products ranked at the top, not result counts
- We don't compare result counts
- Shopify's standard search includes loosely related products. Some stores returned dozens of results even for meaningless words, so counts tell you little.
- We compare how many target products reach the top
- We search with the spelling in your product names (e.g. タンブラー) and the way a shopper might type it (e.g. たんぶらー), and compare how many target products appear on the first page.
- Good80% or more of the original
- Almost40% or more
- Needs workless than 40%
- Part numbers are judged by position
- A target product in the top 3 counts as Good. If products whose part numbers start the same way (other colours, for example) come first, a lower position still counts as Good.
- We try again when a comparison isn't possible
- If even the original spelling doesn't bring target products to the top, we try another word from your store (up to three per item). Items that still can't be compared, or that have no word to test, are left out of the score.
- We look at Shopify's standard search
- We measure Shopify's standard search results at the time of the check. Synonyms registered in the Search & Discovery app can't be read from outside, so they aren't distinguished. In stores with a search app, results may differ from what shoppers see.
- How we access your store
- Every request identifies itself as PepinSearchCheck, and we don't read pages that robots.txt disallows. Product information is used only for the check.
Provided by: Pepin (developer of Maru Search)
FAQ
Free check FAQ
Is it really free?
Yes. No sign-up and no email address needed. Only if you'd like to talk about the results, use the form below them.
Which stores can be checked?
Live Shopify stores whose main language is Japanese. Password-protected stores and stores whose product list can't be read can't be checked automatically, so we'll show you a form to request a manual check.
Does it put load on my store?
One check sends at most 30 requests, one at a time with a pause in between. If the store asks us to wait, we wait that long before continuing. We only read public pages and never touch the admin or order data.
What should I do if my score is low?
Shopify's standard search has no settings that change how it matches. Registering synonyms in the Search & Discovery app catches some paraphrases, but hiragana, readings and partial part numbers can't be covered word by word. Installing a search app is the shortest way to change how matching works.
Can I use it if I already have a search app?
If the app replaces your search results, they'll differ from the Shopify standard results this check measures. When we find signs of an app, we say so above the results.
Are results stored?
No. We keep a store's results for 30 minutes so repeated checks don't hit the store again. To keep them, use Save results as PDF.
Can I exclude my store from the check?
Yes. If you run the store, send us its URL through the contact form and we'll exclude it from then on.
Does Shopify's standard search treat hiragana and katakana the same?
Often not. In 46 of the 70 stores we measured with this check, searching a katakana product name in hiragana cut the matching products near the top to half or less of the original spelling. Shopify's help also says Japanese is matched by runs of three or more consecutive characters. You can check your own store on this page for free.
Does Shopify's predictive search work in Japanese?
No. Shopify's Predictive Search API doesn't list Japanese among its supported languages, so Japanese stores get no product suggestions while typing. Maru Search shows suggestions while typing in its header search on Basic and above.
Start by checking your own store.
Just enter the URL; results arrive in about 20 seconds.