One of the major contributors to the rising popularity of eCommerce is the convenience of shopping from a wide variety of products from the comfort of one’s location. The two most important things to note here are “convenience” and “wide variety of products”. Both are equally important and go hand in hand – having a limited portfolio is not even an option. But imagine having a huge portfolio of products while consumers cannot easily find the product they are looking for.

This is why having a smart search on your eCommerce store is necessary for its success. An efficient onsite search not only helps consumers find products but is also an important touchpoint with your customers. Businesses can draw valuable insights into the shopping habits of consumers from their search behavior, allowing them to learn and target them more effectively.

Smart Search Drives an Evolved Consumer Experience

Briefly compare your online consumer with someone who walks into a brick-and-mortar store and receives immediate assistance to find the right product. A good product search option on an eCommerce store is the closest virtual equivalent to providing a similar experience. An effective search is also known to positively influence conversion rates and therefore justifies the cost and effort required to implement it.

Build a Lasting Impression

In most cases, consumers visiting an eCommerce store are already aware of their requirements and simply head to the search box to key in their needs. For most brands, search boxes are among the first touchpoints for visitors. To build a lasting impression and convert visitors into paying customers, the accuracy and relevance of search results are crucial.

Businesses can take this further by leveraging the auto-suggest features that most advanced search tools provide. The auto-suggest feature helps consumers better articulate their requirements while allowing businesses to guide them toward the desired landing page. An optimized search tool also helps reduce apprehensions among first-time buyers.

Zero Results Page – A Huge Turnoff

A zero-results page can frustrate consumers and cause them to leave your store. Advanced search functionality can show similar or complementary products in the absence of an exact match. This increases the chances of conversion compared to displaying a blank page.

Efforts should also be made to use tools that can handle misspelled words or queries entered without spaces while still producing relevant results. This also applies to hastily entered inputs or variations caused by phonetic differences across languages. The right search technique can help you target a broader audience beyond demographic barriers.

Understand Consumer Behavior

The search terms entered by consumers provide valuable insights into their needs, desires, and frustrations. Beyond searching for products, customers may look for employment opportunities, feedback options, or store locations. Identifying patterns in such behavior can reveal opportunities to improve site layout, highlight relevant information on the homepage, or even reach out to customers with personalized solutions.

Narrow Down the Consumer Intent

A detailed study of search queries can uncover valuable information that may vary depending on the product category. Analyzing search terms and subsequent actions can help predict consumer intent.

For example, a single-word search query such as “dress” or “boots” may indicate low purchase intent, whereas more detailed searches such as “red Nike shoes for women size 7” could indicate stronger purchase intent. With this knowledge, merchants can use advanced merchandising algorithms to determine the order of search results.

Prioritized Selling – Helps Marketing Efforts as Well

Retailers can use search results to market products more effectively. Platforms like eBay and Amazon do this very well by displaying popular products or items from highly rated sellers first, followed by less popular products.

Conclusion

The attention span of online consumers is extremely short. If they are disappointed at the first interaction point – the search box – there is a high chance they will leave the website. Easy website navigation and effective internal search help make products easily discoverable. Combined with eCommerce best practices, this can help drive revenue and strengthen customer loyalty.

The bottom line is this: you may spend significant marketing dollars bringing visitors to your website and design the best-looking site among competitors, but if consumers cannot find the product they are looking for, they will not purchase from you.