6 Product Discovery Trends Shaping eCommerce in 2025

Ellie Ho

May 2, 2025

•

5 min read

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In eCommerce, the journey from first click to checkout increasingly hinges on one critical factor: how easily and intuitively shoppers can discover the right products. Effective eCommerce product discovery is no longer just a backend feature. It has become central to the customer experience, conversion rates, and revenue growth.

As technology advances and shopper expectations continue to rise, the rules of product discovery are evolving. Brands that want to stay competitive need to rethink their discovery strategy now. In this article, we explore six key product discovery trends shaping eCommerce in 2025 and why they matter for Shopify and Shopify Plus brands.

1. Intent-Driven Search Is Replacing Keyword Matching

Shoppers do not always know the exact product name or SKU they are looking for. They use natural language, broad descriptions, or even questions. Traditional keyword-based search often fails to connect these queries with the right products, leading to frustration and lost sales.

A Coleman Parkes report indicates that businesses are significantly increasing investments in search and discovery technology. 43% of surveyed merchants boosted their site search spending by more than 8% in 2023, and a similar percentage plans further increases in 2024. This highlights the growing recognition of search optimization's crucial role in driving sales and revenue.

Various reasons to open the wallet for site search investment.

In 2025, intent-driven search is emerging as the new standard for eCommerce product discovery. Powered by AI and natural language processing (NLP), this approach interprets meaning and context, not just keywords. It corrects typos, recognizes synonyms, and prioritizes results based on shopper behavior.

Shopify brands that adopt intent-based discovery can reduce bounce rates and increase conversions by ensuring shoppers find relevant products faster.

Implementing a smarter site search strategy doesn’t have to break the bank. Boost AI Search & Discovery offers an affordable, AI-first approach to transforming how shoppers find products. The AI-powered semantic search feature goes beyond keywords, understanding the true intent behind every query. With NLP, typo tolerance, and AI-driven synonym recognition, Boost delivers personalized results based on each shopper’s browsing behavior. It’s a search engine that thinks like a shopper, ensuring fast, relevant results that reduce bounce rates and drive conversions.

But Boost doesn’t stop at just search. Its predictive product bundling curates personalized bundles based on customer preferences and real-time behavior and showcases them directly within instant search results. This seamless blend of intelligent recommendations and real-time discovery elevates the shopping experience, encouraging bigger baskets and boosting average order value (AOV). By delivering the right product combinations at the perfect moment, Boost helps merchants turn search intent into higher revenue and happier, more engaged customers.

Boost’s AI-driven discovery tools offer a self-optimizing merchandising solution, reducing manual work while delivering smarter, more precise selling outcomes. It's the magic of AI-powered automation, tailored for modern merchants ready to accelerate growth.

2. Zero-Result Mitigation Is Becoming Essential

Every zero-result search is a missed opportunity. Whether caused by spelling errors, unusual phrasing, or unavailable inventory, these moments often lead to shopper drop-off.

Leading eCommerce brands are closing this gap with zero-result mitigation strategies. This includes offering alternative suggestions, displaying trending products, or using AI-powered recommendations to keep shoppers engaged.

By preventing the “no results found” dead end, merchants protect revenue and create a smoother discovery experience that supports higher conversion rates.

Boost provides exceptional toolkits designed to address the root causes of no-result searches and minimize their impact.

Utilizing Boost's comprehensive analytics helps you pinpoint specific search terms that are currently not yielding any results. This valuable insight allows you to identify gaps in your product catalog and take proactive steps to optimize it.

Great to know: Unexpected benefits you can get from site search analytics

Furthermore, merchants can set up AI-powered recommendation widgets on search result pages, offering intelligent suggestions to keep shoppers engaged and prevent them from abandoning the site due to no-result searches. These recommendations may include relevant alternative products, trending items that align with the shopper's intent, or even personalized product bundles tailored to their individual preferences. By proactively offering these alternatives, you can protect your revenue and create a smoother, more satisfying product discovery journey for your customers.

3. Why Personalization in eCommerce Product Discovery Is Now Essential

Personalization has shifted from being a nice-to-have to an essential strategy in eCommerce product discovery. Today’s shoppers expect brands to recognize their intent and respond with relevant results, recommendations, and promotions.

More and more businesses are incorporating personalization in their online empire.

In 2025, merchants are moving beyond static product recommendations. They are using real-time behavior data, including recent searches, filtering preferences, and browsing history, to personalize discovery experiences. AI-powered personalization automatically adjusts product rankings, suggests bundles, and promotes high-converting products tailored to each shopper.

This level of personalization not only increases engagement but also directly drives conversions and AOV.

Boost's personalization engine delivers precisely that. It uses real-time behavior data, including recent searches, filtering preferences, and browsing history, to personalize the entire discovery experience. Product rankings adjust dynamically, bundles are intelligently suggested, and high-converting products are promoted based on individual shopper preferences. This level of personalization fuels engagement, drives conversions, and directly impacts your bottom line.

4. Mobile-First Product Discovery Will Define Conversion Success

Mobile commerce continues to dominate eCommerce traffic, but many discovery experiences still prioritize desktop users. Poor filtering, slow search results, and non-optimized layouts on mobile lead to high exit rates and abandoned sessions.

In 2025, mobile-first discovery optimization is essential. Features like sticky filters, smart search suggestions, and fast-loading product lists help reduce friction for mobile shoppers.

By designing discovery specifically for mobile devices, brands can improve conversion rates, boost engagement, and create a shopping experience that matches modern consumer behavior.

Boost provides a comprehensive suite of tools that empower you to elevate the mobile shopping experience for your customers. With prebuilt layouts and templates, it simplifies the process of creating a mobile-first product discovery journey.

Various filter layouts for mobile.

The Visual editor allows you to effortlessly design responsive filter and search layouts that adapt seamlessly to different screen sizes. Smart styling within the Visual editor expands customization capabilities even further, allowing you to effortlessly apply styles from your chosen theme or an external URL, ensuring visual consistency.

For those with coding expertise, the Code editor provides a platform to fully customize the look and feel of the search and filter functionality, and other elements, giving you granular control over the presentation.

5. Localization Becomes Central to Global Discovery Strategies

As more brands expand globally through platforms like Shopify Markets, localization is no longer optional. Shoppers expect product discovery that feels local, from language and currency to product relevance and merchandising strategies.

Localization goes beyond translation. It involves adapting product visibility, ranking logic, and search behavior to match the cultural context of each market. AI-powered localization enables brands to personalize discovery experiences across regions without manual intervention.

For Shopify brands scaling internationally, localized product discovery supports stronger engagement and global sales growth.

Boost simplifies global selling by seamlessly integrating with Shopify Markets. Our built-in translation capabilities and compatibility with third-party translation apps ensure your storefront speaks the language of your customers.

Boost also automatically syncs market data, including currencies, pricing adjustments, product availability, and language preferences, for a truly seamless, localized experience. This ensures your global customers enjoy a consistent and efficient shopping experience.

6. AI-Powered Merchandising Is Replacing Manual Strategies

Traditional merchandising approaches, such as manual product pinning or static bestseller rankings, are labor-intensive and slow to adapt to shoppers' behavior.

In 2025, more eCommerce brands are shifting to AI-powered merchandising automation. These tools dynamically adjust product placement, recommend bundles, and prioritize high-performing items based on real-time data.

Boost is enhancing the Shopify merchants' sales by transforming their static storefronts into dynamic, performance-optimized experiences. With Boost’s Product Performance Ranking, your store can automatically prioritize best-selling and high-converting products, ensuring shoppers always see what’s most relevant. This intelligent feature analyzes real-time shopper behavior and sales data to re-rank products dynamically, boosting click-through rates and conversion rates without lifting a finger. It’s merchandising magic, designed to increase sales and profitability.

Features like predictive bundling and upcoming A/B testing capabilities of Boost allow merchants to optimize their merchandising strategies without manual effort.

Automated merchandising not only saves time but also ensures that discovery remains relevant and performance-driven. For shoppers, this means finding the right products faster, seeing relevant bundles at just the right moment, and enjoying a seamless, personalized discovery journey. For merchants, it means bigger baskets, higher conversions, and more revenue.

Why Product Discovery Trends Matter for Growth in 2025

Product discovery is no longer just about having a search bar or a filtering sidebar. It is about creating a seamless, personalized journey that understands shopper intent and removes friction at every step.

These six eCommerce product discovery trends reflect where the industry is heading. Merchants who embrace these strategies will be well-positioned to deliver faster, smarter, and higher-converting discovery experiences.

To learn more about how Boost helps Shopify brands power intelligent product discovery through AI-powered search, dynamic merchandising, and personalization, explore our Product Discovery Playbook or request a demo.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is product discovery in eCommerce?

Product discovery in eCommerce refers to the process of helping shoppers find the right products through search, filters, recommendations, and merchandising tools. A well-optimized discovery experience improves engagement, conversions, and AOV.

Why is personalization important for eCommerce search?

Personalization ensures that shoppers see products that are relevant to their preferences and behavior. Personalized search results and recommendations lead to higher engagement, better user experiences, and stronger conversion rates.

How can eCommerce brands reduce zero-result searches?

Brands can reduce zero-result searches by using AI-powered intent recognition, typo tolerance, synonym detection, and alternative product suggestions. These strategies keep shoppers engaged even when their initial search does not return exact matches.

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Ellie Ho

•

Content Marketing Specialist

May 2, 2025

•

5 min read

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6 Product Discovery Trends Shaping eCommerce in 2025

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