Frequently Asked Questions

Inops is an AI-powered product discovery app for Shopify stores. It replaces traditional keyword search with intent-based semantic search, allowing customers to describe what they want in natural language and receive relevant results — including curated multi-product bundles assembled within a budget.

Inops supports two core discovery modes:

• Linear search — returns individually ranked products matching the customer's intent
• Bundle discovery — assembles multi-item packages across product categories, within the customer's stated budget, with an AI-generated explanation for each selection

Inops is installed from the Shopify App Store and requires no theme modifications.

Keyword search matches exact or near-exact words. If a customer types "casual outfit under $100" and no product description contains that phrase, keyword search returns zero results.

AI semantic search understands customer intent. It maps the query to meaning — what the customer is trying to achieve — and retrieves products that satisfy that intent, even when the words do not match exactly.

Key difference in outcomes:

• Industry average zero-result rate for keyword search: 10–15%
• Inops zero-result rate: below 2%

This means fewer abandoned searches and more customers finding relevant products.

Bundle discovery is a feature where customers describe a complete need in plain language — for example, "complete surf kit budget $500" or "date night outfit for her" — and Inops assembles a set of complementary products across multiple categories that together satisfy the request within the stated budget.

Each bundle includes an AI-generated explanation for why each item was selected. The bundle is assembled at query time from the merchant's live product catalog.

Bundle discovery differs from pre-configured product kits or manually curated collections. It is dynamic and responds to the specific wording and budget of each query.

Inops has been tested with catalogs of up to 5,000 products, using Fashion Nova catalog data as the benchmark dataset.

At 5,000 products:

• Linear search average response time: 2.6 seconds
• Bundle discovery first result time: 1.4 seconds

Product sync runs in the background and supports catalogs of this size without timeout errors. Larger catalog support is available — contact Reef Digital for details.

Measured on a 5,000-product catalog (Fashion Nova benchmark data):

Mode	Average time
Linear search	2.6 seconds
Bundle discovery (first bundle)	1.4 seconds

These times cover the full pipeline: query understanding, OpenSearch retrieval, AI reranking, and summary generation. Inops uses multiple AI providers with automatic switching for reliability.

Inops is installed from the Shopify App Store:

1. Go to apps.shopify.com/inops-ai-search-discovery and click Install
2. Approve the requested permissions in your Shopify admin
3. Sync your product catalog (runs in the background — typically a few minutes for up to 5,000 products)
4. Generate your shop context (one click — Inops reads your catalog and builds a semantic profile)

Total setup time: approximately 5 minutes for a store with up to 5,000 products.

No theme modifications are required. Inops injects via a JavaScript SDK snippet added automatically during install.

Yes. Inops integrates via a lightweight JavaScript SDK snippet that is injected independently of the active theme. No theme files are modified during install or operation.

Inops is compatible with all Shopify themes, including Online Store 2.0 themes and headless storefronts using the Shopify Storefront API.

Product boosting is a feature that allows merchants to increase the ranking weight of specific products or brands in Inops search results.

How it works:

• Set a percentage boost on a product, variant, or brand — for example, +50% for a brand
• Boosted items rank higher in search results without any changes to the underlying product catalog or descriptions
• Boosts can have an optional expiry date (for seasonal promotions or time-limited campaigns)

Product boosting does not affect Shopify's native search. It applies only within Inops search results.

The Shopify Admin interface for Inops supports three languages:

• English
• German
• Italian

Search itself is not restricted to these languages. Inops searches across product catalog content in any language present in the merchant's catalog. Semantic search works across languages because it maps meaning rather than matching text strings.