Search tips

The following are some tips on how best to find what you're looking for in our shop:

 

Browse Home Page

Our home page highlights featured releases and a selection of featured product categories. The featured products and categories will change on a regular basis.

There are more categories in our shop than are featured on the home page so to browse other categories please see the Browse Categories entry below or browse our sitemap.

 

Browse Categories

The navigation of our website is based on product category and genres or sub-categories within each product category.

Our primary product categories are Music, Books, Video & Magazines. Selecting a product category will take you to a category page where you may browse products in all genres in that category.

Hovering over a product category will bring up a list of genres or sub-categories related to the category. Selecting a genre or sub-category will take you to a genre or sub-category page where you may browse products within that genre or sub-category within that category.

When browsing you may narrow down your results by using filters (see below) and/or by label (see below).

You may also sort your results in a number of different ways (see below).

 

Search By Label

We use the term label to represent record labels, book publishers & film studios.

The top 10 labels (as measured by the number of product on the label) in our shop are featured near the bottom of our home page.

Selecting Labels in our navigation menu will bring you to a page displaying all significant labels our shop stocks. From there, you may select any label and you will be taken to a label page where you may browse all products we carry from that particular label. You may further narrow down the results within the label using product filters (see below)

When browsing within a category you may narrow down your results by label by selecting a label in the All labels dropdown menu.

 

Product Filters

Filters allow you to narrow down results obtained when browsing or searching as follows:

• By Format: CD, Vinyl, Hardcover, Paperback, Blu-ray, DVD, etc.
• By Type: Box Set, Compilation, Reissue, Live, etc.
• By Release Date: Last month, Last 4 months, Current Calendar Year, Last Calendar Year
• By Featured: Selections will change depending on feature

You may select multiple boxes in each filter category or across filter categories

 

Price Slider Filter

A lower and upper price limit can be set to filter products on the page. The price slider's limits are defined by the products on the page. For example, if a price slider has a maximum price of $300, this is because the most expensive product on the page is $300.

 

Search 

A search bar is located at the top of the shop that enables you to search for specific products. 

The fields that are searched include:

• Title
• Brand
• Content/Description
• Article Code
• Barcode

The search algorithm is very broad both in the fields and words it searches. Thus, the key to searching is to use as few key words as possible, but making each word as unique as possible. It also helps to use one word from the artist/author name and one word from the title.

For example, searching for "Eno" will not only bring up items by Brian Eno, but also any item that references Brian Eno as an influence in it's description. It will also bring up any word that contains the letter sequence "eno", thus any description with the word "enough" will show in the results.

Search for "Brian Eno" and you will likely get fewer results than searching for "Eno" since it will exclude words with the letters "eno" in them. However, you will still get more than just Brian Eno items. You will also see any items with Brian Eno in the Description which may be the case for items he's produced or band's that he's influenced.

Search for "Brian Eno Apollo" and it will narrow down the results even further.

A further thing to keep in mind is that the sequence of words will affect the results. For example, "Eno Apollo" will return a different result than "Apollo Eno"...yes, we know it's confusing but unfortunately we have no control over the search algorithm. 

Thus searching will depend on how wide a net you'd like to cast. Sometimes it's useful to cast a wide net and see what shows up (a search/browse combination); other times, it's better to be more specific, and find exactly what you're looking for.

Search results may also be further reduced using filters as noted above.

 

Search By Release Date

To search for all items from a particular release date, enter the date in the search bar in the following format MM/DD/YYYY, i.e., 06/22/2020.

 

Sort Browsing & Search Results

Browsing & Search results may be sorted in the following ways:

• Popularity - This option sorts products based on the number of views. Products that have the highest number of views move to the top of the list.
• Newest products - This option sorts products based on when you added each product to your store's inventory. Newly added products move to the top of the list.
• Lowest price - This option sorts products by price—lowest to highest.
• Highest price - This option sorts products by price—highest to lowest.
• Name ascending - This option sorts products alphabetically in ascending order—A to Z.
• Name descending - This option sorts products alphabetically in descending order—Z to A.

The default sort view for top-level Categories is Newest products. The default sort view for genres & sub-categories is Name ascending. When sorting by name, Music will sort by Artist Name - Title, Books & Video will sort by Title - Artist Name.

Please remember that search results may cast a wide net depending on the terms used, thus, when searching for an artist or title by name, you may need to scroll ahead a few pages to find all items by that particular artist or with a particular title.

 

Product View

There are two ways to view products: Grid or List layout. To change the layout click either the grid or list icons.

Footer

The footer of our website has links to search All Products and New Products. New Products are products that have recently been added to the online shop, they may not necessarily be new releases (i.e., a new product may be a best selling catalog title added to the shop for the first time).

To search for new releases, use the filter by release date capability noted in the Use Filters section above and select Last Month or Last Four Months.

 

We hope the tips noted above will assist in your journey to find the music, video & books you're looking for. Thank you!