Meet Ausgeknipst
Ausgeknipst is a fast-growing specialist brand from Würzburg, Germany — run by Anto and Vladi, two engineers and lifelong analog photography lovers. What began as a necessity (“How do we keep our own cameras alive?”) evolved into a global catalog of over 500 ultra-specific components, manufactured in Germany and shipped worldwide.
Their customers are not casual shoppers.
They are collectors who inherited their father’s Minolta.
Engineers restoring a Nikon F from the 1970s.
Purists who feel the weight, history, and soul of every mechanical click.
These cameras carry stories — weddings, holidays, decades of memories. And the mission at Ausgeknipst is simple:
Give these cameras a second life.
To do that, the right parts must be found quickly and with complete confidence.
But the store’s native search wasn’t keeping up with that mission.
The Constraint Holding Everything Back
As the catalog grew, the original store structure turned into a hinderance. The symptoms were:
1. Navigation Overload
If a customer only needed parts for one specific camera, they still had to wade through irrelevant products for dozens of others. A Nikon FE user has zero interest in Olympus OM components. Yet the store’s navigation forced everyone through the same crowded menus.
That’s friction.
Too many steps.
Too many irrelevant paths.
This killed the purchase intent of buyers who knew exactly what they needed.
2. A Hidden Search Bar
Technical buyers arrive with intent: they already know the camera model, part name, or SKU. But the search bar — the one tool that could deliver instant answers — was buried several clicks deep.
On a store built for precision shoppers, hiding search is like hiding the checkout counter.
3. Zero Visual Cues in Default Search
Shopify’s out-of-the-box search displayed plain, text-only results — no hierarchy, no tags, no “New” labels, no discount visibility.
Nothing that helps customers make decisions fast.
The Impact
The result was predictable:
- Customers getting lost or overwhelmed
- Longer time-to-product
- Higher bounce rates
- Fewer conversions and more abandoned sessions
- More support questions
- A store experience that felt out of sync with the precision and quality of the products
Ausgeknipst wasn’t suffering from a product problem.They had a product discovery problem — and it was limiting their ability to help customers keep their beloved cameras alive.
The Solution
Ausgeknipst implemented Rapid Search to address the discovery bottleneck — and instantly turned the store from a maze into a guided, intuitive buying experience.
Why Rapid Search Was the Perfect Fit
✔ Always-Visible Search Bar
This alone was transformative.
The moment customers land on the site, they can begin searching — no more hunting through menus.
✔ A Modern, Visually Structured Search Interface
Rapid Search transformed product results from plain text lists into a clean, engineered interface that aligns with Ausgeknipst’s brand values of precision and clarity.
Customers now see:
- High-quality thumbnails
- Green “New” tags
- Discount and promo badges
- Clear visual hierarchy
Visual hierarchy = faster decisions = more revenue.
✔ Multi-Layered Search Results Across the Entire Ecosystem
Ausgeknipst produces not only parts, but knowledge: detailed blog posts, community updates, and educational content on YouTube, Reddit, and photography forums.
Rapid Search surfaces:
- Products
- Collections
- Relevant blog articles
- Educational content
Search becomes more than navigation.
It becomes the knowledge center for the entire analog ecosystem.
The Results
1. Product Discovery Became Instant
Customers can now type, find, and buy within seconds — without ever being forced to scroll through irrelevant products.
2. A Higher-Trust, Higher-Quality Experience
The new interface reflects the precision engineering Ausgeknipst is known for.
Visual tags spotlight new releases and limited runs.Badges highlight promotions.Thumbnails enable quick scanning.
The overall experience feels coherent, modern, and built for specialists — exactly what customers expect from a brand manufacturing high-precision components in Germany.
3. Search Became the Center of the Customer Journey
Instead of being a hidden afterthought, search now functions as the fastest route to:
- The right part
- The right camera system
- The right piece of content
Customers stay longer, click deeper, and convert more.
Performance Improvements
While Ausgeknipst continues collecting long-term data, the early measurable improvements include:
- A clear increase in conversion rate among search users
- Faster product identification and fewer abandoned sessions
- A major reduction in navigation friction
- Stronger engagement due to more visual search results
In other words:
Customers simply find what they need — quickly, confidently, and with far less effort.
Congratulations to Vladi and Anto!
