2021 Boost Commerce Wrapped: Preparations for the Next Big Jumps

October 4, 2024

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6 min read

We are reaching the end of 2021. Like a ritual at Boost, we sit back and rewind all of our activities this year. So here is the 2021 year in review of Boost Commerce. But first, let's run through some exciting updates of the Product Filter & Search app in the last quarter of 2021.

Quick Product Updates of Q4/2021

Things you might be missing from our Filter

Needless to say, swatch filters are of great use to demonstrate the colors, prints, or patterns of your products. With a view to making the styling of swatches more accessible, we have enabled a Swatch style setting when creating a filter option using swatch display. There are now 4 options for you to choose from.

You can pick the design as you prefer but our recommendation is:

Grid view looks better when you have a small number of swatches
List view should be used if you want to display the product count of each swatch (grid view doesn't have this)

In preview, each Swatch style looks like this:

From left to right: Round swatches (grid view), Round swatches (list view), Square swatches (grid view), Square swatches (list view).

Range slider filters also have a new setting to Shorten values. When you turn on this toggle, abbreviations will be used to display large numbers. For example: 12K instead of 12,000, 1,5M instead of 1,500,000.

What's coming?

In many cases, customers prefer nearby locations to reduce shipping time and avoid delays in delivery. A location filter will allow shoppers to choose the places where they want to purchase from. Therefore, we'll soon introducing the new Filter by inventory locations which is extremely helpful for stores with multiple places to stock inventory, fulfill orders, and sell products.

Also, we are on the way to releasing more layouts for the filter tree. Besides the horizontal and vertical positions as usual, there will be off-canvas and more. So stay tuned for the update.

| More product updates in 2021:

Big updates on Instant search & Search setting

Before the new filter layout is released, we have already made new Instant search layouts available.

Go to Search > Instant search display, you will find 3 options for Instant search layout. Underneath each design is further settings to customize the search widget to your likings.

Also, there is a new setting for Search box onclick which lets you enable recent searches and/or add search term suggestions, product suggestions. When customers click the search box, these suggestions will show up instantly with no search term input.

Another update under the Search setting is the In-collection search. This new feature allows shoppers to search for products on a particular collection page.

What's new with Theme setup?

From now on, the previous Theme revert is merged to Theme setup on the menu bar. On the full list of all the themes with the app's filter and search, you can find the Action button to remove the search features or both the search and filter from your theme.

Awesome news: No feature limit on all plans

After the pricing change in July 2020, we applied different feature limits in Synonyms, Stop Words, Product Ranking, Merchandising, and Analytics for some pricing tiers. However, starting from Oct 15, 2021, users of all plans can have unlimited access to these features. For more details, please take a look at the new pricing plan here.

Milestones of Product Filter & Search app in 2021

In this 4th year of operation, we were over the moon to hit 10,000 customers in May. Now, we are honored to help more than 12,000 Shopify merchants leverage online sales with advanced product filter and instant search.

We crossed 10,000 users in May and now it accelerated to 12,000.

The number of reviews for the Product Filter & Search app also increased to more than 1,100 with 95% 5-star reviews. Reading your comments and feedback is always a big encouragement and a huge source of inspiration for us.

This year, we also cracked a new market - Germany - with the app having a version in Deutsch. 2 weeks after our Germany launch, we were officially at the #1 position in the Shopify Local Collection: Useful Apps for Germany! Hopefully, Boost Product Filter & Search will be available in more languages next year.

We were also in the Featured apps section on the app store for Germany and Singapore locales.

With all the efforts and resources to support our dearest customers, we were featured in a case study with the Amazon Web Service. To know more about our investment in infrastructure, you can read the full case study here.

Finally, our affiliate program has been airing since September. Join us here to get a 20% recurring commission and many more benefits.

How was 2021 for Boosters?

With a significant rise in customers, our human resources also quickly scale up to cater to the users’ demands. There are nearly 80 members in our Boost family. We have new friends in the Philippines, Brazil, and Venezuela so in the near future, we hope to provide 24/7 support all year round.

The continuing impact of COVID-19 makes it difficult for the whole team to have regular offline meet-ups. Still, we managed to organize the 4th year anniversary of Boost Commerce in Nha Trang in March with the participation of the Vietnamese members. It was a joyful party with some touching moments in which we had time to look back on our ride.

This year, our HR-Admin team has reached a new level of creativity through various bonding activities. We sent out care packages with basic medications to help strengthen the immune system of Boosters or vegetable boxes to provide Boosters in lockdown areas with vitamins.

Our annual Christmas party was hosted online but the traditional activity of gift exchanging was still carried out successfully thanks to the HR-Admin team and the help of some online tools.

Such a pity that Google Meet can't accommodate all 79 Boosters.

Prior to Christmas Eve, we also opened an online mailbox so Boosters can send best wishes to others. We got a lot of lovely and meaningful messages.

Some of the wishes Boosters sent to each other during Christmas. There are also some funny ones to our founders too 😉.

What to look forward to in 2022?

2021 has witnessed significant changes in the Shopify ecosystem with the Online Store 2.0. At Boost, we are working hard to adjust ourselves with these updates. As you can see, the app is integrated with Sections-available themes. We also support the theme app extension for users.

However, there are more to come. With the increasing demand for buying and selling online, we understand that merchants need more tools to facilitate product discovery in their online stores. Therefore, state-of-the-art technology like AI and machine learning will soon be applied within our algorithms. Together with this, we plan to release a new Merchandising tool, Product Recommendation & Personalization in the first half of 2022.

We started humble and we will grow sustainable.

Finally, although we said it last year and the year before, it's not enough to show our gratitude to all the dearest customers, affiliates, and partners. Thank you for believing in our values. You are the drive that makes us keep moving forward. We also want to express our deepest appreciation to all Boosters around 8 countries: the US, Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Venezuela, the Philippines, Spain, and Vietnam. Thank you for your ingenuity and diligence 🤗

Let's raise the glass for a memorable 2021 and a promising 2022! 🥂🥂🥂🥂

Happy New Year 🎊

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Ellie Ho

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Content Marketing Specialist

October 15, 2024

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5 min read

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2021 Boost Commerce Wrapped: Preparations for the Next Big Jumps

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