Maru Search Help for Shopify: SKU-First Search, Typos and Japanese Scripts

The install itself is a one-block add in the theme editor — no code edits, no theme file changes. The paid work is the index and the merchandising layer around that: deciding what matches first, how synonyms behave, which products get boosted or pinned, and how search results read as a merchandising surface rather than a dump of relevance scores.

Install the block and verify the fallback. Add the Maru block to the header or search surface the theme uses, confirm the search bar renders on desktop and mobile, and verify that disabling or uninstalling the app returns the storefront to Shopify's native search cleanly. The automatic fallback is one of Maru's main de-risking points — testing it before launch is non-negotiable.

Index verification across every published locale. Maru detects your published locales and indexes each language separately. The setup check is confirming the index for each locale: product count matches the storefront, SKUs are present on each language variant, and metafields that should be indexed actually are. The sync health view in admin auto-checks every 6 hours; the expert work is reading it rather than assuming it's always green.

Synonym dictionary (Pro). Stores lose searches to vocabulary mismatches as often as to typos — "sofa" versus "couch", "sneaker" versus "trainer", a brand's internal taxonomy versus how customers actually ask. The Pro plan's custom synonym dictionary covers this, and the setup work is pulling the top zero-result queries from analytics, grouping the real ones, and writing synonym rules that map customer language to catalog terms.

Product boosts and pins (Pro). Pinning selected products to the top of specific queries — a seasonal hero to the brand term, a new drop to the category query — is the lever most merchandising teams want. The strategy call is which queries carry enough traffic to pin against, and the discipline is reviewing those pins quarterly so they don't go stale.

Field-weight tuning (Pro). Deciding how much weight the title, SKU, tags, description and metafields each carry in ranking. A store that leans heavily on SKU search needs the SKU field weighted higher than title; a store where customers search by category keywords needs the tag field weighted up. This is a one-time setup with occasional revisions as the catalog mix changes.

Metafield search and filters (Pro). If product attributes live in metafields rather than tags — material, dimensions, compatibility codes, country of origin — Pro-plan metafield search unlocks them in both query matching and filter facets. The setup work is picking which metafields matter for discovery and configuring the filter surface in the search results page.

Filter design and ordering. Beyond the standard price-and-category filters, the search results page needs an opinionated take on which attributes to expose and in what order. For a store with 2,000 SKUs that's a very different filter set than for one with 50,000. The expert work is picking the two or three filters that actually move conversion for your catalog, not surfacing twelve.

Reviews in search. From the Basic plan up, Maru collects, requests and imports product reviews and shows star ratings in search results and filters. The Pro plan adds search by words in reviews. The setup work is importing existing reviews cleanly and deciding whether review content should influence what shoppers find.

Custom search UI on the Search API (Pro). The Pro plan includes a JSON Search API for building your own search UI in the theme: a custom results page, header search, or results on collection, product and cart pages and blog articles. It works on the Online Store only and can't be called from Hydrogen or other headless front ends, native apps or checkout. Pepin publishes the API spec and a reference implementation in its docs, and this is the part of a Maru project that needs a theme developer rather than a settings pass.

Analytics review as the ongoing work. Trending keyword analytics (Basic plan) and purchase analytics with improvement suggestions (Pro plan) are only valuable if someone reads them. The retainer version of the setup is weekly or monthly: pull the zero-result queries, pull the queries that convert well below site average, decide whether the fix is a synonym, a pin, a weight change or a catalog fix.

Maru's install is lightweight by design — one block, no code edits — so the cost sits mostly in the configuration and ongoing merchandising, not the deploy. Ranges below reflect general Shopify setup, app integration and CRO rates as of October 2026.

Three plans, flat monthly pricing, no usage fees. As of October 2026: the Free plan covers up to 50 products with Japanese typo tolerance and variant matching, search filters and 7-day analytics (searches, zero-results). Basic is $29.99 a month for unlimited products, cross-search across blogs and pages, suggested and popular keywords, real-time product data sync, trending keyword analytics and 30-day search analytics. Pro is $49.99 a month and adds the custom synonym dictionary, product boosts (pin selected products), search field weight adjustment, product metafield search and filters, purchase analytics with improvement suggestions, review features and review-based search, and a search API for custom front-end work. Both paid plans include a 14-day free trial. Charges are USD, billed every 30 days. Confirm current pricing on the Shopify App Store listing before you commit — app pricing can change.

One-block install with automatic fallback. Maru installs as a single theme block in the editor — no Liquid changes, no theme file edits, no fragments left behind after uninstall. If the Maru service is unavailable, the storefront falls back to Shopify's native search automatically, so the search bar never breaks. For stores running the Horizon theme or a custom theme the client doesn't want touched, this install model is Maru's single biggest differentiator against the other large search apps on the App Store.

SKU, partial input and typo handling. Exact SKU and barcode matches always rank first, so a customer who pastes a part number gets the right product. Partial input still finds it — half of a SKU is enough. Typo tolerance is built into the normal matching rather than a zero-results fallback, so a mistyped query returns the intended products the first time. Accented and case variants (Café, cafe, CAFE) all match. For Japanese catalogues, hiragana, katakana and kanji variants are collapsed (ひらがな / カタカナ / 漢字), and full-width versus half-width character differences stop blocking matches.

Multi-language indexing by published locale. Maru detects published locales and indexes each language separately rather than running one blended index. Supported languages: English, Japanese, Dutch, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), French, Czech, Turkish and Polish — twelve in total. For Shopify Markets stores running two or more locales, this is where the index behaves properly instead of ranking an English product above a Japanese query because of raw word frequency.

Sync health and 6-hour auto-check. The admin surfaces a sync health view that auto-checks every 6 hours and flags gaps between the Shopify catalogue and the Maru index. Repairs are automatic where possible; the expert work is reading the status and investigating anything flagged, rather than assuming the sync is always clean.

Data access. Device and activity data on customers, store owner and blog contributor info, products and collections (edit), order history for the last 60 days (read), web pixels and reports (edit), online store pages (read), files in Shopify admin (edit), and locales and translations (read). The full access list is on the Shopify App Store listing and in Pepin's privacy policy.

Reviews and launch date. Launched 24 April 2026. 5.0 rating across 3 reviews as of October 2026 — every one from a store in Japan. Social proof outside the Japanese market is thin so far; EN-first merchants should treat the Japanese reviews as evidence the Japanese-script handling works well, not as a general endorsement for an English-only storefront.

Support in 12 hours. Pepin's own support promise is replies within 12 hours, including weekends. Documentation lives at search.pepin.studio, with an English FAQ and app docs.

Built for Shopify certification. Not currently listed as Built for Shopify.

Most Maru Search setups fit one of these shapes. Pick the one closest to yours when you brief a Shopify setup, app integration or CRO specialist.