CU Introduces Industry-First Integrated Search Engine... Enhancing Store Owner Operational Efficiency

Improving Information Accessibility with Keyword Search, Real-Time Trending Keywords, and Word Autocomplete to Boost Sales

CU announced on the 30th that it has introduced an integrated search engine into its store management system for the first time in the convenience store industry, aiming to enhance the operational efficiency of franchise owners.

A store management system with an integrated search engine has been introduced at CU
Photo by CU.

This is the first time in the franchise industry that a search engine has been introduced specifically for franchise owners rather than customers, and the system has been designed to be accessible even at the POS checkout counters for the convenience of store owners.

CU revamped its store management system into a portal format in 2019 and developed the integrated search engine by collecting franchise owners' usage patterns and feedback accumulated over four years. As a result, keyword search and real-time popular search terms have been applied, enabling quick access to the vast amount of information within the store system.

The biggest change in this system upgrade is the keyword search function based on morphemes. Morphemes are the smallest units of language with a specific meaning. Previously, the simple query function recognized the entire search term as a single keyword, returning only results that matched the input word 100%.

CU registered all data within the store management system?from product information to notices and manuals?into the solution program and analyzed franchise owners' search input patterns to create a morpheme encyclopedia. Accordingly, morphemes within search terms are automatically separated, allowing all results containing each keyword to be retrieved.

For example, previously, searching for 'Baek Jong-won dosirak' would only return products that perfectly included that phrase. After the change, results such as 'Baek Jong-won Hanpan Dosirak' and 'Baek Jong-won Gogi Ssam Dosirak' are recognized as combinations of individual morphemes 'Baek Jong-won' and 'dosirak' and are displayed accordingly.

CU also introduced a real-time popular search term feature. Popular search terms currently trending across more than 17,000 CU stores nationwide are updated every hour, allowing individual stores to easily grasp trend information that might otherwise be missed. To help each franchise tailor marketing to regional characteristics, real-time popular search terms and top-selling rankings of nearby stores are also displayed. Additionally, various functions such as word auto-completion, initial consonant search, and recent search history have been implemented to enhance search convenience.

Park Jun-yong, Head of the Information Systems Division at BGF Retail, said, "We completed the integrated search engine after more than 10 months of development while continuously communicating with franchise owners. This upgrade ultimately aims to improve franchise owners' information utilization efficiency and increase store sales."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.