Does it work if the customer misspells things?

Yes. Because it compares meaning rather than letters, a typo or shorthand does not break the search. What does break it is a product with no description in the catalogue at all.

What if the customer writes in another language?

That works too. A customer writing in Portuguese or English reaches the same product, without you having to load a translated catalogue.

Do I have to rewrite my whole catalogue?

No. Start with the items people ask about most and make sure the name says what it is in ordinary words. You can improve the rest gradually.

Can I see which products came in from my system?

Yes, from the panel. They are all in one table where you can search by name, filter by category, and show or hide what you have discontinued.

Product search by description instead of by code

How people actually ask

Product search by description is what your customer does whether or not your catalogue is ready for it.

Nobody types the code. They type "something waterproof for the rain", "the blue jacket you had last week", "the same as last time but bigger".

On the other side, an exact-match search needs the customer to use the word you used when you loaded the product. And that word almost never matches.

Why exact-match search fails

It fails in three different places, and all three are common.

Vocabulary. You loaded it as "windbreaker". The customer types "rain jacket". Zero results.
Description by use. The customer describes what they want it for, not what it is. "For cycling when it rains" matches no field on your product sheet.
Language and spelling. Typos, shorthand, or simply another language.

The result is always the same: the customer gets "I could not find anything", which is the worst possible answer when the product is sitting in the warehouse.

What changes when descriptions are understood

The practical difference is that search stops comparing letters and starts comparing meaning.

"Something waterproof for the rain" reaches the right product even if your catalogue calls it something else. And it works no matter what language the customer wrote in.

That takes two tasks off a person's desk:

Translating what the customer described into the item's real name.
Looking it up and coming back with price and availability.

What still has to come from your side

Worth being honest here, because this does not fix a badly loaded catalogue.

If your products are loaded as "ART-4471" and nothing else, no search will find them by description. The meaning has to live somewhere.

What does pay off:

The product name saying what it is in ordinary words.
The category filled in.
The description, even a short one, mentioning what it is for.

You do not have to rewrite the whole catalogue. It is enough that the items people ask about most are decently described.

Where search ends and the order begins

Search alone closes nothing. What makes it useful is what happens next.

Once the product is found, the right move is to answer with the price your system holds and check whether it can actually be fulfilled before building the order. Not the other way round.

Order matters. Confirming first and verifying later is how you generate the orders you have to cancel.

Conclusions

Your customer describes the product, they do not name it the way you loaded it.
Exact-match search fails on vocabulary, on use, and on how people write.
Understanding descriptions saves somebody translating every question by hand.
None of this fixes a catalogue loaded with codes alone.
Finding the product is half of it: price and availability come from your system.

Product search by description: your customer does not know the code