To enable product SKU search, navigate to Elevated › Product Search › Settings › Advanced Options and expand the Search Scope panel. Toggle SKUs to ON, then click Save Settings. The indexer automatically includes SKU data. Customers can then find products by entering partial or complete product SKU values.
If you prefer video, here’s a quick walkthrough of the entire process.
Navigate to Elevated › Product Search › Settings.
Locate the Advanced Options section on the left side of the page. Click Advanced Options to expand it.
The Search Scope panel appears at the top of the expanded section.
In the Search Scope panel, locate the SKUs toggle.
Toggle SKUs to ON.
Click Save Settings at the top of the page.
The indexer automatically rebuilds to include SKU data from all products. A success message appears indicating how many products were indexed.
Visit a page on your frontend where the product search form is placed.
Type a known product SKU into the search input. You can enter the full product SKU or a partial value.
Confirm that the correct product appears in the live AJAX dropdown results. If multiple WooCommerce products share similar SKU patterns, all matching products will appear.
Product SKUs are typically short alphanumeric codes that identify specific items in your catalog. Customers who know the exact model number, part code, or manufacturer reference prefer to search by product SKU rather than browsing categories or guessing product titles.
When you enable the SKUs toggle, the indexer extracts the _sku value from each WooCommerce product and adds it to the search index alongside titles and any other enabled fields. This means a customer searching for WBH-001 will see that product even if the search term does not appear in the title or description.
By default, product SKU search supports partial matches. A customer typing WBH will see all products with SKUs beginning with those characters. This is useful when customers remember a product family code but not the complete variant identifier.
WooCommerce product SKU search works in combination with other enabled fields. If Titles, Descriptions, and SKUs are all enabled, a single search query matches against all three data sources. If you want to restrict the search to SKUs and titles only, you must disable all other toggles in the Search Scope panel. However, most stores leave titles enabled so customers can search by either product name or SKU.
Product SKU search returns no results
Confirm the SKUs toggle is set to ON in Search Scope and that you clicked Save Settings. Verify the product you are testing has a SKU entered in WooCommerce. If you recently enabled the setting, click Force Index Rebuild in the Indexer section and test again.
Partial product SKU matches do not work
Check your Match Strictness setting in Advanced Options › Fuzzy Matching. If set to Hard (Strict) or Off, partial matches may be limited. Set it to Normal or Soft to allow partial product SKU matches.
Wrong product appears for a SKU search
If multiple products share similar SKUs, the search will return all matches. Ensure your product SKUs are unique in WooCommerce to prevent overlap.
