Search & Filter Tests in Navigation Menus: 8 Examples, 4 Results

Why search and filters matter in the navigation menu

The menu is where shoppers go when the page in front of them doesn't show what they want. A search field or a well-ordered set of links there can rescue a visit that would otherwise end.

Measured results

Search bar in the menu

Oliver Kenyon added a search bar inside the mega menu: +$81,050/month, +$0.05 revenue per session and a forecast of +$972,600/year.

Oliver's mega menu with a search bar, visuals for the top two collections and USPs won +$13K/month and +$0.21 revenue per session. The search bar was one of three changes.

Search plus a reordered mobile menu

On a garden furniture store, Oliver's mobile menu test made four changes: a search field at the top, Clearance moved to first with a 60% off label, its dropdown removed, and informational links pushed to the bottom. It won +$92,000/month.

Oliver's note is that the old menu was organised by taxonomy rather than by money. The best offer sat at the bottom, behind a dropdown, in the same size as Contact.

Visual categories and best sellers

Oliver added category icons and a Best Sellers section with product images to the mega menu: +$42,736/month, forecast at +$512,832/year. No search bar was involved.

A

→

B

+$92,000/month

Mobile menu: search at top, Clearance first with 60% off label, no dropdown

Navigation & menuSales, urgency & limited-time offers@oliverkenyon

A

→

B

+$81,050/month

Added a search bar inside the mega menu

Navigation & menuFilters, sorting & site search@oliverkenyon

A

→

B

+$42,736 per month

Added category icons and a Best Sellers section with product images to the megamenu

Navigation & menuProduct images & gallery@oliverkenyon

A

→

B

+$13K per month

Mega menu with search bar, top-2 collection visuals and USPs

Navigation & menuUSP bars & benefit icons@oliverkenyon

Losing or flat tests

No losing or flat tests are listed. Three of the four winners bundled several changes, so only the plain mega menu search test isolates the search bar. Expect some menu tests on your own store to lose.

Untested ideas

• Milos suggests pulling your top searches with no results and mapping them to product terms with synonyms in Shopify Search & Discovery.
• Kasper Dolk suggests predictive search that suggests bestsellers, along with fewer main categories and clearer labels.
• Kasper reports heatmaps showing about 5% of traffic clicks search and lands on the same 20% of products, which is the case for popular-product suggestions in the search box.
• Kasper also suggests giving bestselling products or collections their own block in the navigation.

Placement and design patterns that won

• A search field visible at the top of the menu, not hidden behind an icon.
• The money links first: the best offer or top collections ahead of informational pages.
• Images or icons for categories and best sellers.
• One tap to the key page, with no dropdown in the way.

Related tests elsewhere on the store

See the broader navigation menu tests, homepage category filter tests, collection page filter tests and the full filters and search collection.