Input/help on a custom search

Hello,

I’d really appreciate some input on this.

My agency have a client, for who we are developing a custom search. The client is in the car parts business (both used and new parts), and has around 50k SKU’s. The search is on an own, separate page, from where customers should be able to filter on brand, model, year, type of part etc.

Basically, the client wants their customers to be able to, for example, search for ‘door’. The search then would display all SKU’s that either are doors (attribute, type=door) or has ‘door’ in description, pretty obvious stuff. We have Infinite Scroll on the site.

The issue is that this client has around 2 000 unique doors, meaning a search for ‘door’ will be really slow. Another issue is the search and Infinite Scroll, the search would only search for items that is loaded on the page. As default, the SKU’s are sorted A-Z, showing all kinds of parts starting on A, by a bunch of different car manufacturers. So, for the search to work properly with this development/solution, I’d have to scroll to the absolute bottom (thats a lot of scrolling for 50k SKU’s) and then use the search. At least if I’d like to search for something starting with letter ‘Z’.

Our external developer says the only option to make it work would be to require the customers to choose at least one, preferably two filters (for example, brand=Volkswagen, model=Golf) before showing results. Unfortunately, I am not a developer myself, so I can’t tell if this is true. Neither can I evaluate if the solution built is a good solution. Another issue here is that some parts are more common, and even after choosing two filters, we are still having close to 1k SKU’s. The infinity scroll handles around 300-350 SKU’s.

Perhaps you guys can help me here, either with a suggestion on how it can be developed different, if you see any obvious pointers to give, if our external developer is wrong/somewhat right/right, or any other ideas.

Thankful for all input.

Have a good day!