Looking to improve customer experience on your ecommerce site? Bira’s multi-channel selling platform partner EKM, shares some top tips on how to do this.
During a webinar organised by EKM, Sam Smith, UK account manager at Doofinder explained how to improve the customer experience on your ecommerce site using intelligent search and other onsite strategies. Just in case you missed it, we are going to tell you the main points of his presentation in this post.
Doofinder, an AI site search technology for ecommerce sites partnered with EKM over a year ago to provide a better product search available to any EKM merchant.
We are sure they won’t mind us saying that the standard search lacks in a few areas that Doofinder can make up for. Particularly when it comes to handling typos and misspellings and relaying all this data back to you, the merchant.
To put it simply, Doofinder makes sure your customers can find exactly what they are searching for!
The importance of site search for ecommerce
Many merchants overlook the site search thinking it is not a priority or because no customer has ever complained about it. There are a lot of excuses to avoid the job of improving site search.
If you find yourself thinking the same, then we have a few interesting stats we’ll be sharing with you throughout.
We are going to look at the importance of site search for an ecommerce business.
- How to leverage your site search to sell more
- Looking at the mobile search with voice and image search capabilities
- And the power of AI in search for your EKMPowershop
Ecommerce search numbers
If your site search is slow, returns irrelevant results, can’t handle simple misspellings and typos, then you could be missing out on quite a lot.
Pretty much everyone uses Google nowadays when they open up their browser. We are almost conditioned to use search to find what we are looking for when we are online.
So why should it be any different when the customer lands on your website?
Studies show 59% of users frequently use the website search box to navigate on a site.
And 15% of users would rather use the search function than the navigation menu.
We have had a company called The Powersite that implement our search tool and they saw a 65% increase in searches.
On top of this, site search is the perfect place to understand your customers. It’s the only place on the website that the customer is going to ‘communicate’ with the website through the use of a keyboard and type exactly what they are looking for.
This data can be crucial to understanding your customers and open your eyes to opportunities as well.
In the eCommerce world, between 15-20% of searches return ‘No Results’. That’s quite a lot of customers not finding anything at all!
It’s not good enough to simply say ‘No Results found’ you are in effect opening the door and seeing them walk away.
But website’s using the Doofinder technology are smashing this out of the park, only 1.3% of searches made through Doofinder are not returning results!
How can onsite search help increase conversion rates?
As we told you before The Powersite increased their searches by 65% using Doofinder. So the main question here is, do more searches mean more sales?
Simply put, the answer yes!
Searchers are five times more likely to convert with higher average order values.
A search should really be like a shop assistant, going for the upsell and cross-sell. If I am looking at shampoos, maybe you want to suggest a shampoo and conditioner pack.
If someone is looking at running trainers, you’ll want to show them the newest models you have in stock.
Or if someone comes on looking for a book you don’t have, would you just see them out the door? Or would you suggest a book by the same author, or a similar story within the same genre?
These are all opportunities you can leverage with your site search to push the sale and make sure the customer doesn’t leave empty-handed.
I personally have worked with a beauty and cosmetic company who used search to increase their average order by £8.
This very same company actively monitored the search and learned from the data that was being provided by the Doofinder admin. They noticed a ‘No Results’ search for a brand they did not stock, what did they do? Well, they went and got the brand to sell!
You could very easily set up a rule that shows an alternative product, don’t have Nike running shoes, well show Asics.
Going back to the 1.3% No Results data from our clients, this proves that showing an alternative is better than showing nothing at all.
This is supported by the fact that with Doofinder our clients have reduced the bounce rate post search by 75% and the click rate on search by 25%. Meaning a good search can work wonders for the metrics which in turn will convert into more sales!
Site Search and customer loyalty
Think about the last time you went to a shop, in person! Maybe for some of you, it was a few months ago now with the lockdown!
When you got there, were you greeted by a friendly assistant who helped you look for the product that you needed, or were you left just to wander around and find it yourself?
Like with most things in life, the more help you receive, the more special you feel and more you feel valued by the person spending time on you. This is the same when it comes to online. The better the experience, the more seamless your journey online, the better you feel about the website.
Simply finding the product isn’t going to turn a new customer 100% loyal to your business.
But if you can easily find what you are looking for then it is the first step in promoting customer loyalty.
There are a lot more steps along the way, like the description, the specifications, reading reviews to try and build up an idea of whether the product is suitable for you or not. Then, of course, the delivery and quality of the product and after service.
We look to make this first step as easy as possible for your customers. Whether it be on desktop or via mobile. Doofinder will be able to ensure your customers get a quality search, including options to search by voice and by image.
Neat features like an image search may just give a good enough first impression for the customer to stay on the site.
And if you have those things in place such as accurate size guide, specs and reviews, then it all comes together to support customer loyalty.
How do I know if a smart search is right for my business?
Using any technology that is driven towards improving sales is always going to be right for your business. Whether it’s search, reviews or a payment gateway.
We would say it is particularly important if you have a catalogue of more than 50 products. If you sell six products, you can put them all on the home page and it’s almost irrelevant to have a search.
If you are going to look at your search today, then I would say test for a few things.
- Misspellings. Can your search handle them?
- Are the results presented quickly and most importantly are they relevant to your search?
- Can you access the reports that show you how many searches returned 0 results? What were those searches? And how often have they occurred in the past month?
- Are you able to influence the results? Can you set up a rule to show an alternative?
If you find yourself answering “no” to any of the questions, then it may be worth looking into a better search.
The best way to find out whether an AI-powered site search can help your EKM shop? Well, the best way is to test it out!
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