Purchase intent: let the search find "the love stone" even if the product page doesn't say so

In a minerals shop, Vives de la Cortada, the customer types "mineral del amor" (the love mineral). Anyone in the trade knows that means rose quartz. The search returned five results and none of them was rose quartz.

It wasn't a search failure. It was worse: the rose quartz product page didn't say "amor" anywhere. Not in the name, not in the description, not in the tags. A search engine, however clever, compares what the customer types with what's written on the product page. If the seller knows it and the page doesn't, neither does the search.

This happens in every catalogue. People search by what something is for, or by what they call it at home, and product pages describe what it is. This post explains how we've closed that gap, with real examples from three shops.

What purchase intent is

For every product in your catalogue, and in every language of your store, Findalo's AI reads the product page and writes the phrases a shopper would use to ask for that product: two to six words, the way they're typed into a search box. What it's for, what problem it solves, what people call it when they don't know the technical name.

Those phrases aren't visible in the store. They're stored alongside the product and feed into the search: the keyword search, the meaning search and the shopping assistant. They're written once per product and rebuilt on their own when you change the page. There's nothing to configure or maintain.

Minerals: "piedra del amor" and "para la abundancia"

Back to the minerals shop. This is what the AI wrote for three products, reading only their product pages (the phrases are in Spanish, the shop's language):

Product	Shopper phrases
Rodados de cuarzo rosa	piedra del amor · rodado para el corazón · cuarzo rosa para el amor propio · piedra de la amistad
Llavero de punta de citrino	citrino para la abundancia · citrino para el dinero · citrino para el éxito · citrino para la confianza
Rodados de amatista	amatista para dormir · amatista para la calma · amatista para el estrés

The result in the search, with the same searches as before:

• "mineral del amor": from 5 results to more than 190, and the first ones are rose quartz: pendants, rings, candles with rose quartz.
• "piedra para la abundancia" (stone for abundance): citrine, topaz, pyrite and aventurine, which is what a shop assistant in the trade would show you.
• "algo para dormir mejor" (something to sleep better): amethyst, howlite, lavender and a salt lamp. Before, this search didn't have a single word in common with any product page.

And since the shop sells in five languages, the AI wrote the phrases in each language, not translated. In English, rose quartz is "love stone" and "heart chakra sphere"; in French, "quartz rose amour" and "quartz rose apaisant"; in Italian, "sfera pietra amore". Each market searches with its own words, and the phrases are written with that market in mind.

Medical instruments: a catalogue in German

The second example is a surgical and dental instruments shop with its catalogue in German, USTOMED (case study). It's the hard case: technical names, figure codes and measurements, and professional buyers who often don't type the catalogue name but the one used around the clinic.

The AI wrote the phrases in German, because the catalogue is in German. We explain them so you can see what it did:

Catalogue name	Phrases the AI wrote	What they mean
Stethoskop, schwarz	Hörrohr Arzt · Notfall Stethoskop · Arztkoffer Zubehör	"Hörrohr" is the colloquial word for a stethoscope, the one a doctor would say out loud, and it doesn't appear in any product name. "Accessory for the doctor's bag".
KLEIN, Kinderzahnzange, Unterkiefer, Molaren	Dentalzange für Kinder · Molaren Zange Kinder · kleine Zahnzange	"Dental forceps for children", "molar forceps for children", "small dental forceps". The catalogue name starts with the brand, and the buyer doesn't know it.
LISTER, Verbandschere, abgewinkelt	Stoffschere · Medizinische Schere · Chirurgische Schere	"Fabric scissors", "medical scissors", "surgical scissors". Bandage scissors are asked for by what they cut.
SALMA Löffel/Stopfer Kombination	Knochenmaterial einbringen · Augmentation Löffel · Knochenmaterial kondensieren	"Place bone material", "augmentation spoon", "condense bone material". The use, not the instrument's name.

We checked it in their search: "Hörrohr" finds the stethoscope, "Zange für Kinder" puts the children's forceps first, "Stoffschere" lands on the bandage scissors and "Knochenmaterial einbringen" brings up the three instruments used for that. None of those words was on the product pages. Nobody at the shop wrote a synonym.

Shoes: when the name is a model code

The third case is a chain of shoe shops, Espacio Piessanos (case study). Their product pages are named after the manufacturer's model: "SLIP-INS GLIDE-STEP AT EASE", "BOBS B FLEX FLEX PROOF KAKI", "NEGRO ESPECIAL DIABETICO". Nobody searches like that. People search for what's wrong with their feet.

Catalogue name	Shopper phrases
NEGRO ESPECIAL DIABETICO	zapatos para pies hinchados · calzado para diabéticos · zapatos anchos para pies sensibles · zapatos para problemas circulatorios
BOBS B FLEX FLEX PROOF KAKI	zapatillas para lluvia · calzado impermeable mujer · calzado vegano kaki
SLIP-INS GLIDE-STEP AT EASE	zapatillas fáciles de poner · zapatillas sin cordones mujer · zapatillas para estar en casa

In their store, "zapatos para pies hinchados" (shoes for swollen feet) returns the diabetic model first; "zapatillas para lluvia" (trainers for rain) brings up the waterproof ones; "zapatillas fáciles de poner" (easy-to-put-on trainers) returns fourteen laceless models. These are the searches a sixty-year-old customer makes on their phone, and before they ended in zero results or on a "not found" page nobody looks at.

What it doesn't do

It doesn't invent properties. The AI writes from what the product page says and from what's known about the product. If a page has the name and two lines, the phrases will be generic ("zapatos negros mujer", black women's shoes) and the search won't know more than what you've written. With this change, a well-described product page performs much better; an empty page is still an empty page.

It doesn't replace your synonyms. The synonyms and rules in the dashboard are still there, and they still take precedence. They're for what only you know about your business: that in your shop "the kit" is one specific product, or that a search has to lead to one SKU and not another. Purchase intent covers the general, what a good shop assistant in the trade would know on day one. The particular is still yours.

You don't see it in the store. The phrases don't appear on the product page or in the results. They only change what the search finds and what the assistant recommends.

What it costs and how it's switched on

Nothing extra. It's included in every plan with semantic AI, from Pro up, and it's active in every store on those plans. There's no button: the AI writes the phrases when the catalogue syncs and rebuilds them when a product page changes.

To check it in your store, search the way a customer who doesn't know the name would: "something for…", "what is … for", the everyday word. If the result is good, it's already working. If it isn't, the cause is almost always in the product page, and that's where it's worth investing.

If you want to see it with your own catalogue before deciding, write to us and we'll set it up with your products.