The performance of an eCommerce site greatly depends on the site search option. As per research, today’s consumers have a very high expectation from the “search feature” of an eCommerce site. Each site visitor wants to find their required product without having to spend much time on the site.
Customers want to add the search keywords on the search button and find their required product easily to view the product information. An eCommerce site that is unable to offer a convenient search option may seem to be a redundant one for today’s customers. If they are not happy using a site, they will simply abandon the site and move on to a competitor’s eCommerce site. Meaning, you will lose business for just not adding a simple search button.
So, if you run an online store, are you able to live up to the expectations of your target group? Read on to know the importance of eCommerce site search and what you can do to improve the search feature of your website.
What Is Meant By Site Search?
The search bar (which generally looks like a magnifying button) in eCommerce sites is called site search. The site search feature helps the site users to easily find what they are looking for by putting appropriate search keywords in the search bar. eCommerce site owners can leverage the site search option to help users find their desired product or service and encourage them to make a positive purchase decision.
Consumers these days are getting more and more dependable on robust search features offered by the popular sites in the industry. And, as the top search engines on the web as well as social media offer such elaborate search options, consumers these days do not want to compromise on this front while shopping online.
So, if you want to make your online store successful, you must add a robust site search option to meet the expectations of your target group.
Importance of eCommerce Site Search
Let us first understand the importance of an eCommerce site search and how it can benefit your online store.
Understand Customers Search Behaviour
As your customers look for their favorite product on the eCommerce site, you will have more data on the customers by analyzing their product preferences. You will get this data by considering the products a customer searches for on the eCommerce site. You will also know customers’ page movement behavior from one product to another.
Knowing the customer behavior and their search history will help you to stock up your inventory and accordingly serve your customers. You may also send them in-app push notifications about new arrivals or the availability of a product they have been looking for via the search function.
Improve Marketing Strategy
When you know about a customer’s behavior on the site, you can strategize your marketing plan based on that to keep them happy in buying products from the site. You will also get to know about the most popular products or services by analyzing the behavior of all the customers registered on your eCommerce site.
You can plan your marketing strategy around the data gathered from the customer’s behavior on the site. You may communicate with the customers directly and inform them about new offers and discounts and encourage them to make a positive purchase decision.
Generate Leads and Get Conversions
Knowing about the search history of your customers and their purchase behavior will help you to generate leads. You can create a marketing strategy based on the data you generate from the search history of your registered customers on the eCommerce site. You can plan to woo these users to make a positive purchase decision by giving them discounts or coming up with new offers on a product of their choice.
Curating a customized marketing plan will help you to generate more leads and also achieve more sales conversions. You may prompt your target group about their recently searched products, show them the discounted rates if there are any, and accordingly encourage them to buy the product.
Improved Customer Experience
A good site search feature can increase the customer experience by many folds. If customers can easily find a product they are looking for on the site, the chances of a sales conversion increase manifolds. And, it also increases the chances of customers using the site every time they want to make a purchase.
There are many users who abandon an eCommerce site if they are unable to find their favorite product quickly. So, you must ensure to have a convenient search button with a robust search feature to help customers find what they are looking for.
How To Improve Your eCommerce Site Search
In this segment of the article, we will discuss all the necessary aspects of how to make a robust eCommerce site search. We will also discuss how a simple search button adds value to the site and allows site users to make a positive purchase decision for a product.
1. Keep The Search Button Visible
The search button generally comes in the form of a magnifying glass shape. You must display the site search button on the top of every page so that the customers can locate it whenever they want to search for an item.
Your customers should not be looking for the site search button and waste time on that. Instead, it should be visible on every page of the site so that they can use it as and when they need the search button.
2. Add Autocomplete Or Autocorrect Feature
It is important to add autocomplete as well as autocorrect of spellings for the name of products on your eCommerce site. Many customers may not know the correct spelling of your product name. The autocomplete option helps them to search and locate their favorite product easily, even if they type the first few letters of the product name.
This feature greatly adds to the customer experience and helps in more sales conversions.
3. Use NLP (Natural Language Processing)
The advanced form of autocomplete and autocorrect is natural language processing (NLP). It is based on artificial intelligence (AI), in which the site can understand the search bar input or voice command and accordingly show results to your customers.
The use of NLP can help save the time of the customers, and they would have a better purchase experience on your site.
4. Optimize the Site for Mobile Devices
The most important part of your eCommerce business is that your website should be responsive and offer the same user experience to customers as they get while using the desktop version. So, hire a developer who has experience in developing responsive eCommerce sites.
The mobile device compatibility of your eCommerce site will help you in getting more conversions.
Conclusion
The site search opinion has become one of the most important features of an eCommerce site. Hire website development agency that has a team of expert designers and developers who can develop the best of its kind eCommerce store for you.
Helping your customers with an advanced site search option will increase sales conversions and also help you know and understand your user behavior and their purchase history. You can gather a lot of data and insights on customer behavior to accordingly plan your marketing approach. Remember, the right marketing approach can encourage more and more customers to use your site and make purchases each time they want to buy a product.