(Impact Theme) Predictive Search via SKU in Search Drawer

Technical Q&A
1

Hello!

First of all, I am using the Impact Theme. The Theme has a Search Drawer that pops up when you click on the Search icon. Within that Search Drawer, you can search for different kinds of products, and that works fine.

My issue is, that when you type in the SKU of a product, it will not show up in the predictive search. When you hit Enter, the product will show up though. In the predictive search, it says no products found, which is misleading and I also can’t guarantee that users will hit Enter after it already said that nothing was found.

My workaround right now is to disable the Search Drawer, which makes the Search icon open a dedicated search site where you HAVE to hit Enter in order to search for something. This doesn’t look nowhere as good as the Search Drawer though.

Is there any way to make predictive search via SKU work within the Theme’s search drawer?

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2

Hello @ChrisXSyntace

Shopify’s default predictive search (used in most themes including Impact) typically pulls results based on product titles, descriptions, tags, and vendor names — not SKUs by default.

That’s why your SKU searches return results only after hitting Enter, which triggers the full search results page, but not in the predictive search dropdown.

Possible Solutions:#### Option 1: Customize Predictive Search to Include SKUs

To make SKUs searchable in the predictive dropdown, we’d need to modify the predictive-search.liquid file (or the JS that fetches predictive search results) to include the SKU metafield or variant.sku in the search index.

However, Shopify doesn’t officially support this via predictive API out of the box. So this approach involves a custom workaround like:

  • Adding SKUs as product tags or searchable metafields, and

  • Modifying the theme’s predictive search logic to surface those.

This method requires some theme customization but gives a seamless drawer experience and SKU search support.

Option 2: Continue Redirecting to Full Search Page

As you’re currently doing, redirecting users to the full search results ensures SKU searches work — but it does affect UI/UX and is less elegant.

Our Recommendation:

We suggest going with Option 1, where we:

  • Inject the SKU data into searchable fields

  • Adjust the predictive search logic to recognize it

  • Maintain your current search drawer look and feel

Let me know if you have any issues!

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3

I was worried this might be the case. Adding the SKU as Product Tags is a good idea though, though a lot of work since we already have hundreds of products in the inventory. We’ll probably follow this approach though, thanks!

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