This Year's Strangest Product Searches

Every so often, we like to look through all the search terms that our customers have entered into our site to check results are meaningful and get an insight into trend and any gaps in our ranges.

Sometimes this can be exceptionally useful… other times; it’s a journey into a confusing and terrifying world. Here we take a look at some of the types of search we see, and some personal highlights.

The Hopelessly Generic

In this category we found the fairly open-ended search terms of wall, blue and boxes. Around the office we would love to meet the individual who was looking for a wall and would relish the chance to talk to the shopper who didn’t mind what industrial product they bought, as long as it was blue.
It is hard to tell, but maybe the wall search could have been related to office partitioning? We also hope that the customer who searched for boxes was able to be a little more specific before having to wade through several thousand things we sell that could be described as a ‘box’.

The Slightly Horrific

Here we find the worrying search for an ear dispenser, I’m not sure I’d like to work in a factory where the loss of ears was so frequent that they needed a special vending machine to provide replacements.

The Amusingly Odd

The three entries here conjured up images probably far removed from what the customer was after;
Absorbent Socks - Special footwear capable of sucking up puddles, leaving you with socks the size of sleeping bags that weigh the same as a small pony.
Baffled Tanks - I like this one as it brings to mind confused armoured cars wandering the countryside and sadly shaking their heads at their inability to understand the modern world.
Bench Lips - Just sounds like the sort of gym injury you’d rather avoid.

The Completely Bizarre

I’m just going to leave you with this one; Arthur Lowe saying now tidy up there’s a good chap
How was this supposed to get anyone to a product? What were they after? Do we look like a database for sitcom quotes? If this was your search, please get in touch and tell us what on Earth was going through your head.