Jennifer, another question I forgot to ask. When we perform a search a couple of events are being set (event6 and event12) both indicate that user has performed search. eVar5 (currently merchandised) captures search term. When I look at the Adobe UI, I no longer can see the e16 and e12 despite the fact that these are set in the same image request (see screenshots below). By any chance you can explain why is this happening ? Can't fully understand. Thanks

It appears that all instances of event6 / 12 are pointing to the "Unspecified" column. I can't understand why.

Hey @fj81
for you question "if we set the merchandised eVar with the add to cart binding event, a product is bound when add to cart happens. Does the transaction need to happen during the same visit in order to attribute search term(s) to the specific product purchase ?"
I believe this depends on the expiry set on your eVar (the default is "visit", but you change that in the Admin panel, maybe try Visitor?) Like anything... test, test, test.... in your QA/Dev environment try different scenarios and make sure the data is tracked as expected.
As for the events not triggering, that is odd... I've really only used "Product Syntax" before....
and I've never had an issue with the events.... events passed in s.events map to all my merchandising eVars, and events that I specifically pass per product only map to those products..... maybe you need to bind those events when you use the "Conversion Variable Syntax".. but I don't know what this will do to the non-merchandising eVars? If the event will correlate or not... sorry, I wish I could be more help on that......