How Online Retailers Can Use Site-Search to Drive Revenue

Online retailers are now familiar with the concept of site-search; this much is a given. Unfortunately, what they usually don’t know is just how valuable it can be. You see, this functionality has come a long way since it first emerged on the scene and is now able to much more than merely enable shoppers to, well, find things they came looking for. Today, the site-search functionality can help process search requests and deliver results much more quickly, offer suggestions to the user, autocorrect typos, and more. As you can imagine, this functionality has come to play a rather important role in the world of e-commerce.

But is that all a modern-day site-search functionality brings to the table? What it stands to provide for any e-commerce website transcends the bounds of simple functionality. Robustly built search solutions are now able to help online retailers. It helps integrate advanced navigation features, advanced analytics, avant-garde search assistance, and so much more. Now, this is quite important because research shows that 1/2 e-commerce customers make use of the site search feature. More importantly, studies have found that people who search for objects via the site-search functionality contribute anywhere between 30 to 60 percent of the revenue.

Now, let’s see how you, too, can leverage this functionality better.

1. Tap into Natural Language Processing: See, with different people come different ways of speaking and using the same language. Accuracy is crucial, of course, but it can be hard to achieve owing to the nuances involved in the usage of the language. And that’s where Natural Language Processing comes in, which can ensure your search function can factor in relevant nuances, including syntax, grammar, etc. 2. Site-search needs to be smart: Unfortunately, the benchmark for running searches is Google. Now, we are not saying you must deliver the tech behemoth’s levels of intelligence in your search functionalities. Nonetheless, it must be able to simplify at least and ease the process of executing a search. So, besides correcting spellings, it should also be to determine what the user is looking for based on the phonetics. Such abilities help deliver a seamless search experience for customers. 3. Autosuggest: The ability to anticipate customers’ queries is a great asset for any e-commerce website because it helps them save precious time. And not only that, a solid autocomplete can then enable the system to deliver an appropriate suggestion to the customer. Plus, a truly high-quality autosuggest and autocomplete functionality may even help bring some sense of familiarity (think Google again).

Suffice it to say that setting up a top-notch search functionality for your e-commerce venture isn’t precisely a cake walk. But the efforts will be worth it; this much is for sure. So, if you are running a fashion e-commerce website, get in touch with a vendor for online fashion portal development or any other that suits your particular line of business. With their expert guidance, you too, can build a search experience that is guaranteed to deliver results!