Relevance drives conversions. Seems obvious, and although on-site search and personalization are not new concepts, they are still relatively unexplored and immature as industry-wide practices. With such a surge in the DTC space lately, more brands are realizing the importance of properly using search to improve customer experience.
Findify has built a business around helping eCommerce customers find relevant products. Ed Ceballos, Head of Partnerships at Everflow sat down with Findify CCO Joakim Amadeus Olsson to learn about how on-site search directly impacts conversion rate optimization (CRO) and drives overall business growth.
Here are three reasons you may want to focus some effort on improving the site search functionality in your eCommerce shop.
Acquiring customers is expensive. Marketers spend significant portions of their budgets to attract customers. Therefore, losing those customers due to the experience your online shop is offering is obviously something most shop owners would want to avoid. So, paying close attention to the customer’s journey is crucial to ensuring you’re offering an experience that's as hassle-free as possible. The chance of a conversion decreases for every second a shopper can’t find what they are looking for.
Joakim noted that shoppers using site search tend to convert up to 5x more than those simply browsing. This trend really illustrates the powerful impact search has on buying power, indicating that when shopping tools actually help the shopper to stay focused, they’re more likely to buy.
Context is everything. Using personalization, you can offer an experience specific to the individual customer, a process in which customers tend to offer a lot of valuable context. And the more context you have, the more likely you’ll be able to make a cross sale. Cross-selling, especially with items on which you have larger margins, is a home run. Not only do you get an opportunity to offer relevant products to the shopper which has the potential to positively impact future sales, but you can also serve offers that simply benefit your business. Ideally, upselling and cross selling is a mix of both of these objectives.
“Actions, like clicking on a product, or skipping it, putting the product on cart, buying it: all of it can be used to present a personalized experience.” - Joakim Amadeus Olsson
The added value of context offered is the insight you get into the types of products your customers are looking for. If you are seeing similarities amongst unsuccessful search queries, then you might consider adding that product to your shop’s offerings.
We are easily distracted. As time progresses, technology is advancing and our expectations morph as our attention spans get shorter. Joakim recalled a joke told in the form of a Huffington Post headline: “The Best Place to Hide a Dead Body is Page Two of Google”. The same is true in eCommerce, so it’s crucial to display what’s most relevant to your shopper on page one. Once a shopper lands on your site, you don’t have much time to show them what they are looking for before they move on to another store.
When a shopper lands on your page and engages with the on-site search, they have provided the base from which you may offer further recommendations. You’re able to match complementary products with the one they searched for while curating a personalized experience with the shopper’s interest in mind while helping them to stay on task.
If you would like to discuss how search and personalization could help your site, feel free to visit findify.io or reach out to Joakim directly at joakim@findify.io.
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