Advanced Search Function Tips and Best Practices: Finding products on FineOnline has never been faster

Using our intuitive search screen, finding the promotional product you need is a breeze. It's important to remember that you don't need to fill in every field. Most often, you will only want to fill in one or maybe two of the search fields.

Only use more criteria if you want a specific item in our catalog. Here are some more helpful tips for searching our database:

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THEME

If you do not know what specific item you want, try a theme search to locate products that are related to your intended use. Leave this field blank if you aren't looking for a particular theme. You may also choose a theme and add keywords to narrow your search.

KEYWORDS

A keyword can be any characteristic of the item. Usually, adjectives make great keywords. For example, if you searching for a ballpoint pen, "ballpoint" would be a keyword. Similarly, if you are looking for a waterproof flashlight, "waterproof" would be a keyword.

If you list multiple words in the keyword field, the search engine will return products that match all of the specified words anywhere in their keywords or descriptions. To search for a specific phrase, enclose the phrase in double quotes (e.g., "METAL FINISH").

For advanced searches, you can join multiple keywords together with "AND" and "OR" (without the quotes). "AND" will require both of the words to be present (default), and "OR" will only require one of the words to be present. You can also tell the system to ignore certain keywords by preceding it with "NOT" (without the quotes). For example, "WATERPROOF AND NOT METAL" would ensure that the item is waterproof but would specifically ignore any metal items.

You can also use parentheses to signify which connectors go with which words. For example, " (WATERPROOF OR "WATER RESISTANT") AND PLASTIC" would locate flashlights that are plastic and are also either waterproof or water resistant. Note that WATER RESISTANT has quotes around it since it is a phrase.

Lastly, the asterisk can be used for wildcard matching. For example, "MET*" will find all items with keywords that begin with the letters M-E-T.

COLOR

Color should be used if you want to specify the actual item color. You can use "AND", "OR", "NOT", parentheses, quotes, and the asterisk in the colors area just like you can in the keywords field.

OUR ITEM #

The item number field should be used to locate products we recommend. You can also use this field to recall products that you've previously found in our catalog. These codes are sometimes also referred to as SPCs. You can enter multiple item numbers by separating them with a comma.

If you fill in this field, you should leave all of the other fields blank.

Price

The price range specifies the lowest and/or highest price that you're willing to pay for the item. Your price should be entered in dollars. For example, "5" would be recognized as $5. To specify cents, you must make sure to use a decimal point. For example, if you were looking for items between 10 and 60 cents, use ".10" and ".60" in the lowest and highest price fields, respectively.

If you want the search sorted from lowest to highest price, click the "Sort By Price" box.