Auto-Complete

The Auto-Complete API provides real-time search suggestions for vehicle-related fields across the United Kingdom automotive market. This specialized tool leverages MarketCheck's extensive UK inventory database to deliver intelligent auto-completion capabilities, enabling developers to build sophisticated search interfaces with relevant term suggestions and inventory counts.

With flexible field-based matching and contextual filtering capabilities, this API enables developers, automotive platforms, and search applications to implement efficient search experiences that guide users toward available inventory and popular search terms.

Overview

• Active Inventory Search: Provides suggestions based on current active UK dealer listings
• Relevance-based Sorting with prefix, substring, and case-insensitive matching
• Contextual Filtering allowing refined suggestions based on search context
• Performance Optimization with configurable count thresholds and result limits

Base Path

GET https://api.marketcheck.com/v2/search/car/uk/auto-complete

The following example demonstrates how to use the Auto-Complete API to get suggestions for vehicle makes and models based on user input.

import axios from 'axios';

const options = {
  method: 'GET',
  url: 'https://api.marketcheck.com/v2/search/car/uk/auto-complete',
  params: {api_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', field: 'make', input: 'BMW'},
  headers: {Accept: 'application/json'}
};

try {
  const { data } = await axios.request(options);
  console.log(data);
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error);
}

Explore the full range of parameters available for configuring auto-completion behavior in the Request section below.

Request

The Auto-Complete API provides extensive auto-completion capabilities for automotive search interfaces. You can generate suggestions for vehicle specifications, geographic locations, and various attributes while applying contextual filters to refine results based on current search state.

Parameters

Available parameters for configuring auto-completion behavior and filtering suggestions:

Defaults

• country: Automatically set to uk for United Kingdom market
• term_counts: Defaults to false - returns simple array of matching terms
• Use term_counts=true to include inventory counts for each suggestion
• facet_min_count: Defaults to 1 - minimum inventory count threshold for terms to appear in suggestions

Required Parameters

The following parameters are required for auto-completion requests:

• field - The field to search for auto-completion (see Available Fields below)
• input - The user input to match against

Available Fields

Auto-completion is supported for the following vehicle and location fields:

Contextual Filtering

Apply additional filters to refine suggestions based on current search context. Use any of the standard inventory parameters to scope suggestions to specific criteria:

• Geographic Scope: Use county, city, postal_code, or radius to limit suggestions to specific regions
• Vehicle Filters: Apply make, model, variant, year, etc. to get contextual suggestions
• Inventory Type: Use engine_size, seller_type to scope suggestions by listing type

Sorting & Matching

Auto-complete results are automatically sorted by relevance using intelligent matching algorithms:

Matching Types:

1. Prefix matches - Terms beginning with input (highest relevance)
2. Case-insensitive matches - Flexible text matching
3. Substring matches - Terms containing input anywhere

Performance Limits:

• Maximum 50 terms returned per request for optimal performance
• Results automatically ranked by relevance score
• No manual sorting parameters available

Response Schema

The Auto-Complete API returns suggestions in two possible formats depending on the term_counts parameter setting.

Default Format (term_counts=false)

Returns a simple array of matching terms, optimized for basic auto-completion:

interface AutoCompleteResponse {
  terms: string[];
}

With Counts Format (term_counts=true)

Returns detailed response with inventory counts for each suggestion:

interface AutoCompleteResponseWithCounts {
  terms: { item: string; count: number }[];
}

Use Cases & Examples

Intelligent Search Suggestions

Implement intelligent search suggestions that adapt to user input, providing relevant vehicle and location terms that match current inventory availability.

Example:

Here we're providing auto-completion for vehicle makes as the user types, returning the most relevant suggestions based on current UK inventory:

import axios from 'axios';

const options = {
  method: 'GET',
  url: 'https://api.marketcheck.com/v2/search/car/uk/auto-complete',
  params: {api_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', field: 'make', input: 'vau'},
  headers: {Accept: 'application/json'}
};

try {
  const { data } = await axios.request(options);
  console.log(data);
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error);
}

Contextual Model Suggestions

When users have already selected a make, provide contextual model suggestions that are relevant to their current search criteria and geographic location.

Example:

Here we're providing model suggestions for BMW vehicles in London, ensuring suggestions are relevant to available inventory in that region:

import axios from 'axios';

const options = {
  method: 'GET',
  url: 'https://api.marketcheck.com/v2/search/car/uk/auto-complete',
  params: {api_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', field: 'model', input: 'focus', term_counts: 'true'},
  headers: {Accept: 'application/json'}
};

try {
  const { data } = await axios.request(options);
  console.log(data);
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error);
}

Location-Based Auto-Complete

Provide location-based auto-completion for cities and counties, helping users quickly find and select their desired search location.

Example:

Here we're providing city suggestions as users type, filtered to a specific county to maintain relevance:

import axios from 'axios';

const options = {
  method: 'GET',
  url: 'https://api.marketcheck.com/v2/search/car/uk/auto-complete',
  params: {api_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', field: 'city', input: 'lon'},
  headers: {Accept: 'application/json'}
};

try {
  const { data } = await axios.request(options);
  console.log(data);
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error);
}

Inventory Count Filtering

Filter auto-completion results to only show terms with sufficient inventory counts, reducing noise and focusing on popular or well-stocked options.

Example:

Here we're filtering suggestions to only include makes with at least 50 vehicles in inventory, ensuring users see popular and well-represented brands:

import axios from 'axios';

const options = {
  method: 'GET',
  url: 'https://api.marketcheck.com/v2/search/car/uk/auto-complete',
  params: {
    api_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
    field: 'make',
    input: 'a',
    facet_min_count: '100',
    term_counts: 'true'
  },
  headers: {Accept: 'application/json'}
};

try {
  const { data } = await axios.request(options);
  console.log(data);
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error);
}

See Also

• Inventory Search
• Past Inventory Search