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Site Search Isn’t Sexy, It Scores Sales

Posted by Tim CallaneCommerce, Site Search, User Experience

There’s no question. Site search isn’t sexy, but it doesn’t have to be, because the revenue it drives speaks for itself. Internet Retailer Senior Editor Thad Reuter said it best in his February article, Reading Shoppers’ Minds:

“Site search receives little in the way of celebrity-level attention in e-commerce… But with retailers typically reporting two or three times the amount of conversions for site search users, the stakes are obvious: Better site search can translate into more profits.” Period.

However, one question still remains: Which site search approach best connects shoppers with the products they’re most likely to buy, making shopping easier and retailers more profitable? Do online shoppers use natural language search, which interprets subjective terms to serve up search results? Or do the most relevant search results come from learning site search, which “learns” what specific search terms resonate most with consumers and – with SLI Learning SearchTM technology – reranks the order of search results based on the latest activity of users?

In e-commerce, there is some uncertainty around the demand for natural language search. North Face e-commerce manager, Charles Caison, told Internet Retailer, “At North Face, for instance, most shoppers search using terms that describe the product, not ambiguous phrases that require natural language processing to decode. It may be that we have been trained by Internet search engines for keyword searches rather than natural language searches.”

A new SLI study also supports Caison’s insight. To demonstrate site search user behavior today, SLI evaluated natural language terms, focusing on subjective search terms including “cheap,” “nice” and “cute” for a Fortune 100 retailer. As you can see in the chart below, out of 67,000 searches, the word “quality” was only used 3 times while “cheap” and “nice” had similar results. The findings reveal that subjective search terms are not yet commonly used among online shoppers.

Total searches performed ~67k
Searches containing “cheap” 11
Searches containing “quality” (high-quality) 3
Searches containing “nice” 0
Searches containing “cute” 42

 

Lakeshore Learning, an IR Top 500 company, also finds less use of natural language search from its shoppers. Lakeshore Vice President of E-commerce Sam Sarullo told Internet Retailer, “an analysis of the retailer’s top 1,000 searches revealed that consumers use an average of 1.8 words to search – a signal that consumers remain wedded to keyword search, and that natural language-type searches may not yet be intuitive. That said, I see return customers who are more familiar with our products using these natural language or long-tail searches.”

The beauty of Learning SearchTM is that if it detects shoppers’ use of longer search terms, it will “learn” and tweak its results to reflect that behavior. Learning Search continuously analyzes the terms and phrases that prove most popular and lead conversions.

Perhaps the best argument for the value of Learning Search is to let e-commerce companies’ results speak for themselves. Here are some of the results leading retailers have experienced using Learning Search:

  • Lakeshore Learning, an education supplies manufacturer: 30% increase in online sales
  • Boden, a British clothing retailer: 1.8x higher conversion rate using search
  • e.l.f. Cosmetics, an international cosmetics brand: 21% higher per-visit value using search
  • Marine Depot, world’s #1 supplier of aquarium supplies: 11% increase in revenue
  • SurfStitch, Australia’s #1 surf retailer: 30% improvement in page position for organic search

Some say “sex sells,” but in e-commerce, Learning Search sells more.

Time to Take E-commerce Personally

Posted by Shaun RyaneCommerce, Site Search, User Experience

Thumb up 2015At the beginning of each year, many people ask me what trends to expect in e-commerce technology for the year ahead. For 2015, I see vast opportunities for increased personalization in the online shopping experience.

Most retailers do a poor job of personalization because they don’t know enough information about their customers, or because the information they have is poor quality. Their knowledge is limited to what they can gather through the interactions customers have with them, which are inevitably a small part of shoppers’ total retail experiences – plus they often lack context.

An example of failed personalization is when I recently logged on to Amazon and saw an array of suggested romance novels – not because I’ve read or purchased them, but because my wife did so using my account. Although Amazon has information about a lot of purchases made on my account, they don’t know who those purchases are for. Other retailers know even less about me than Amazon does and are likely to make even worse recommendations.

As an industry, I think we can do a lot better with personalization.

Customers Expect a Personalized Experience

Shoppers enjoy having a seamless shopping experience. For example, in our core competency areas of search, navigation and recommendations, if these work well then they’re almost invisible to shoppers – shoppers just know that they’re getting what they want quickly and with minimal effort. There is an opportunity to use personal information to improve this experience further. Most online shoppers are willing to have a site gather and store personal information about them if they know that it will benefit them in the future. For instance:

  • In a study by ClickFox, more than 80 percent of respondents said they expected retailers to know their purchase history and past consumer experiences
  • In a survey by Accenture, 73 percent of consumers said they prefer doing business with retailers who use personal information to make their shopping experience more relevant

While consumers expect and prefer the personalized shopping experience, they also want the ability to control how their personal information is used. Trust is also a critical factor, and retailers can best earn customers’ trust by consistently providing secure and positive shopping experiences.

Personalization is a Priority for SLI Systems

At SLI Systems, advances in personalization are among our high priorities for the coming year. In supporting more than 1.5 billion search queries last month, we have a wealth of insight into search and conversion patterns for shoppers around the globe. When we combine that knowledge with our team’s decades of expertise in site search and navigation, there’s a lot we can do to continue improving the ways we help shoppers quickly and easily find what they want to buy.

Personalization takes many forms and SLI already offers several ways of personalizing the shopping experience. We show recent searches and recently viewed products, which are simple but very effective. We also offer the ability to use cookies that identify brand preferences during browsing in order to offer more personalized product suggestions.

We also have customized solutions for customers that want to auto-filter based on gender or other previously-gathered customer information. For example, when you navigate on BodenUSA.com to the women’s section of the site – then perform a search for “shoes” – the SLI engine remembers you’re looking at women’s products and keeps you in that section for your subsequent searches, unless you specify otherwise.

There’s a lot more we can and will do with personalization. I look forward to unveiling future products and features that bring personalized shopping to an entirely new level.

To hear more on this subject, I invite you to listen to the on-demand version of our latest webinar, “The Shopping Experience of the Future.” On the webinar, I am joined by Lakeshore Learning VP of E-commerce Sam Sarullo and SLI Systems CMO Tim Callan to discuss personalization and other trends for 2015. 

E-Commerce Sales Growing, but We Can Do Better Than 9%

Posted by Shaun RyaneCommerce, Site Search, User Experience

Each year, online sales take a bigger slice of the ‘total retail sales’ pie. This year, analyst firm Forrester expects e-commerce sales in the United States to reach $294 billion, a small 9% slice of all sales in the country. That means that 91% of retail sales still occur in brick-and-mortar stores. The question is: can e-commerce do better? Can e-commerce grab a larger slice of that pie by making simple changes? A recent large-scale study on e-commerce search by the Baymard Institute says YES.

“When e-commerce search works, it’s fast, convenient and efficient. It’s no wonder that so many users prefer searching over clicking categories. Unfortunately, our recent study finds that search often doesn’t work very well,” said Christian Holst, Baymard Institute co-founder.

The Baymard Institute found:

  • 16% of e-commerce sites do not support searching by product name or model number
  • 18% of sites provide no useful results if the product name was off by a single character
  • 70% require users to search by the exact jargon for the product type that the site uses, failing to return relevant products for “blow dryer” if “hair dryer” is typed
  • Searches with symbols and abbreviations are not supported by 60% of e-commerce sites
  • Only 40% of sites have faceted search, despite it being essential to e-commerce search because it is the foundation of contextual filters

Consistent with Baymard Institute findings, our own SLI study conducted last year found that 57% of e-commerce brands were not using their site search data to enhance marketing campaigns. Only 25% of retailers integrated site search data into email marketing campaigns to better customize offers; 27% created SEO landing pages populated with site search results and custom banners; and only 13% took advantage of site search to power mobile search.

It’s also interesting to note that amid generally weak Q2 earnings, the retail giants that announced spikes in e-commerce sales ranked as having excellent site search in Baymard’s search study:

  • #2 Wal-Mart global e-commerce grew 24%, heavily contributing to a $3.2 billion increase
  • #4 Wayfair, multinational e-retailer, reported a 50% YOY increase to total $574 million
  • #5 Sears, multinational department store chain, reported strongest sales came from e-commerce
  • #11 Staples, the world’s largest office-supply chain, grew its web sales 8%
  • #13 The Home Depot, the largest home improvement retailer in the U.S., increased its online sales 38% to $1 billion

The take-away? The e-commerce industry can do better than 9%. As more e-commerce sites optimize site search, online shopping experiences will improve and e-commerce will gain a greater share of the $1.7 trillion retail pie.

To see how small changes in your site can significantly impact revenue, schedule a demo with an SLI Systems sales director.

E-Commerce Sites Fend Off Firefly with Social, Search & Video

Posted by Tim CallaneCommerce, Success Stories, User Experience

Think again, Amazon. The Fire Phone’s new Firefly feature – an alleged “showrooming on steroids” – may be one more way you drive more shoppers to your site, but it can’t beat the hundreds of thousands of e-commerce sites in the U.S. that are driving visitors to their own websites with incredibly creative content. In fact, more than 40% of marketers report that inbound marketing, such as blogs and social media, demonstrates a positive return on investment for their company.

Using compelling content, smart online retailers like Kidrobot, ReNew Life and Artbeads give customers unique and memorable shopping experiences that create powerful brand loyalty and convince customers to buy. Here’s a peek into how they do it:

1. Kidrobot Goes Social

Designer art toy retailer Kidrobot regularly sees its Instagram posts receive 1,000+ Likes, and many of its YouTube videos have received 10,000+ views. So Kidrobot brought its videos, Instagram photos, Twitter feeds and Facebook content into easy view on the search results pages of its site. Now when shoppers search Kidrobot for a product, they’ll also see Tweets, Instagram posts and other social content related to the product searched.

Social content can certainly motivate shoppers to buy. When Kidrobot integrated its social media content into its search result pages, online orders increased 13%.

When going social, the most important consideration is to leverage it in a way that aligns with the way your customers use it. If you have more fans on Pinterest than Twitter, cater to those users with high-quality photos perfect for pinning.

2. ReNew Life Uses Standout Site Search

One of the latest best practices for site search is an advanced autocomplete function that can suggest search terms, categories and specific products – as soon as shoppers type in the first couple letters of their searches. This type of autocomplete is especially powerful for retailers with products that don’t lend themselves to very specific searches, such as health and wellness retailers that often have users searching for conditions rather than specific products. ReNew Life is a great example. A search for “cleanse” offers up product suggestions for a variety of types of cleanses, along with other popular search terms.

Optimized site search has allowed ReNew Life to grow sales in a big way.  The conversion rate for ReNew Life customers who use site search is nearly 10%, more than 4x higher than non-search users.

Implementing content-rich site search is a great way to improve conversions on your e-commerce site. A standout site search can go above and beyond customers’ expectations, building loyalty and driving sales.

Capture3. Artbeads Offers How-To Articles and Videos

Retailer StacksandStacks.com found that a customer who viewed a product video was up to 144% more likely to buy the product.​ Online shop for beads and jewelry supplies Artbeads.com truly exemplifies the power of how-to videos by showing shoppers exactly how to create stylish jewelry looks with their products. In addition to more than 125 videos on its YouTube channel, Artbeads also incorporates these how-to’s into its e-commerce site, displaying links to the exact products viewers need to purchase to make the pieces shown in the videos.

With rich content integrated into its site search, Artbeads’ conversions from search increased 30% (over a 4-week promo period), while overall site conversions rose 8.6%.

Offering how-to articles, particularly in the form of nicely edited videos, displays your brand’s expert knowledge to users. When shoppers see that your company is an authority in the field, they will return to your site as a reliable resource again and again.

To learn more about how e-commerce sites can increase conversions by creating remarkable content, watch a recorded webinar on this subject or download our free e-book, Use Creative Content to Turn Online Shoppers into Buyers.

Why You Don’t Need to Brush Your Hair When You Buy Cosmetics

Posted by SLI SystemseCommerce, Merchandising, Navigation, Ratings and Reviews, Site Search, Site Search Tips, User Experience, Web Search

Are you addicted to cosmetics? Hoarding makeup is not uncommon. If you own multiples of eye shadows, lipsticks, blushes and brushes (as I do…), then you’re not alone. Indeed, it’s globally pandemic: according to research by Feel Unique, there are millions of women on the planet who hoard cosmetics. The same research also found women spend more than US$170,000 on makeup in their lifetime — and would rather ditch their man than go without cosmetics. Really! (Can’t say I share that sentiment!)

Pore-refining, firming, lifting, tightening, toning, brightening, whitening, collagen, retinol, vitamin A, vitamin C, aloe vera, lactic acid, glycolic acid, grapefruit seed extract… sound familiar? Of course, all of these processes and ingredients promise women the one thing we’re so desperate to hold on to … eternal youth.

Traditionally, women have bought beauty products offline, visiting their aesthetician at a department store cosmetics counter, pharmacy or specialised cosmetics boutique. Some still do, to get the informed opinion of someone they possibly know and certainly trust.

But that’s changed. Nowadays, consumers can access this information from the comfort of their own home (where, they’re probably wearing a snail slime mask — yes it really exists, I’ve tried it). They can even browse for cosmetics on the go via their tablet or mobile device.

With online beauty e-tailers such as Sephora, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Adore Beauty and Strawberrynet, women can feed their insatiable beauty-beast desire in a matter of minutes. Online beauty retailers are not only price competitive and stock the latest and most coveted beauty products — they also provide a wealth of information in the form of blogs and forums. So instead of talking to one person, who no doubt has some degree of vested interest in the sale (which may, or may not change their view of a product’s suitability), women can get the honest feedback from as many people as reviews they want to read. And often it’s those comments that shape purchasing decisions.

Buying online is also fast.

Beauty e-tailer e.l.f. Cosmetics (which stands for “eyes lips face”), has an intuitive search solution that instantly connects users with the products they’re looking for; in fact, the search “learns” from past site search behaviour by tracking visitors’ aggregate search queries and clickthroughs. What does this mean? That digital shoppers are being presented with the most popular and relevant search results. (So no plugging in “eye shadow” to annoyingly receive results for “mascara”.)

Beauty e-tailer, e.l.f. Cosmetics, “learns” from every visitor’s search. The result is a search function that helps users find exactly what they’re looking for in a matter of seconds.

Beauty e-tailer, e.l.f. Cosmetics, “learns” from every visitor’s search. The result is a search function that helps users find exactly what they’re looking for in a matter of seconds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t know exactly what you’re looking for? No need for a breakout. In addition to the user product reviews and popular and relevant searches, online beauty retailers make the shopping process even more stress-free by offering best-sellers, how-to’s, celebrity-inspired looks and video makeup tutorials… as well as a list of all the products required to achieve those looks. Did a new blush colour catch your eye in a magazine, but you can’t recall the product’s name? Not a problem. Sticking with our savvy beauty e-tailer e.l.f. Cosmetics (and yes, I do own quite a few of their products!) allows you to search for the product type, e.g. “blush,” to reveal “as seen in,” which displays cosmetics and skincare that has received press mentions.

Reviews written by people who’ve previously bought the product help visitors decide what to buy.

Reviews written by people who’ve previously bought the product help visitors decide what to buy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also like e.l.f. Cosmetics’ intuitive product-recommendations engine; this optimises suggested products based on recommendation logic and data learned from past customer behaviour. For example, when a visitor lands on a product details page for a lipstick, they’ll be presented with other products typically bought with that lipstick, such as a lip exfoliator.

Australia’s Adore Beauty uses video demonstrations to help guide shoppers’ decisions.

Australia’s Adore Beauty uses video demonstrations to help guide shoppers’ decisions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Australian-based cosmetics e-tailer Adore Beauty allows visitors to navigate its site by skin type, catering for dry, oily, problem or blemish-prone skin. Shoppers can also search for products by ratings and reviews; this will be important if they only want to consider top-rated products to buy.

Onsite videos demonstrating how to use products also help to humanise the whole digital experience. While it’s not the same as asking the assistant at the counter for tricks in using shaded tones to make your eyes appear larger, you can sit, to your heart’s content, and learn how to apply products you may never have seen before, or products you felt too silly to ask about. You get the benefit of experts, and no one will know — until, of course, they see how well you can shade your eyelids!

So to fellow beauty addicts who haven’t yet tried the online shopping experience, give it a go: chances are, you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for!

Technology Makes Back-to-School Shopping Elementary

Posted by Dawn MortenseneCommerce, Navigation, Site Search, User Experience

Though many of us are barely settling into summer, retailers are already touting back-to-school clothes and supplies. This year, the role of e-commerce in back-to-school shopping is bigger than ever. According to a June report by eMarketer, online back-to-school purchases in 2014 will increase 16% over 2013 – a growth rate that’s nearly triple the 5.85% growth rate in overall retail sales.

Smart retailers are optimizing their mobile sites and using more advanced search and navigation technology to capture the growing audience of online back-to-school shoppers.

Mobile-Optimized Sites

In mobile shopping experiences of years past, many site visitors would give up out of frustration with the cumbersome navigation. Today, retailers with good mobile-specific sites make it exceptionally easy for customers to shop using smartphones or tablets. These retailers will gain loyalty and carry an advantage into back-to-school shopping and beyond.

tea collection 15July14Tea Collection is a great example of a mobile site done right. My eight-year-old’s one desire for new clothing is a maxi dress (the kind that “are swirly and go to the floor,” in case you didn’t know). On Tea Collection’s mobile site, I search “Girls 8 maxi dress” and three great options come up – all in the right size. Easy peasy, as a third grader might say.

Advanced Site Search & Navigation

Just as with mobile search, online retailers will win shopper loyalty when they make it easy for visitors to find and buy what they’re looking for. Just as great search is critical to help shoppers find exactly what they want, great navigation is essential to help them browse or narrow down items in a broad category.

I went to Lakeshore Learning’s site knowing that I wanted some type of learning game. I typed “learning game” in the search box, then with 529 search results I was able to narrow down to a few great options by clicking the refinements “mathematics,” “puzzles & games,” “3rd grade” and “top rated.” Yes, The Allowance Game looks like a great way to ease my third grader back into math practice.

Next, visiting Gymboree, I searched for some clothing basics for my 12-year-old, entering “girls uniform navy.” Up popped navy blue cardigans, skirts, pants and hair accessories – I picked what I needed and was on my way through checkout. Done.

It’s Not Always So Easy

Unfortunately, not all e-commerce sites make it so simple for visitors. It’s hard to know the immense value of good search technology until you encounter a site that does it poorly. I thought I might stock up on notebooks, folders and other basic staples at DollarTree.com. But when I searched “notebooks,” the results just showed me filler paper, legal pads and journals. I had to scroll beyond the first 12 results before I saw composition notebooks and spiral bound notebooks. Annoyed with the less streamlined experience, I left the site and decided to pick up these items another time.

Make Sure Shoppers Don’t Lose Patience

As more stores learn how to do search and navigation right, consumers lose patience with retailers who make it more work than fun to do their shopping. Retailers who want to compete effectively need to keep up, and that means looking for the best technology possible for site features like search, navigation, product recommendations and merchandising. Retailers who go with a cheap, basic search function just to check that item off their list are missing the opportunity to delight and retain the customers who are used to better relevancy and a better, faster, more fun shopping experience.

Results Pour In As Zachys Improves E-Commerce Experience

Posted by SLI SystemseCommerce, Success Stories, User Experience

Do you have a favorite online store where you shop for specialty items and always find something that fulfills your desires? For lovers of high-end wine and spirits, Zachys Wine & Liquor is a popular destination. Because Zachys’ customers largely know what they’re looking for when they visit the site, they don’t spend lots of time browsing different pages and products. As Zachys’ E-commerce Director Victor Castro explained, customers tend to search, find what they want, and purchase — 1, 2, 3 — which also means if they don’t see something that grabs their interest right away, they’re gone.

Zachys knows the importance of delivering site search results that are right in line with shoppers’ expectations, which is why the company turned to SLI Systems not long ago. Since implementing SLI Learning Search, Zachys has seen 33% more visitors use the search box, and conversion rates and per-visit values for search users are twice those of non-search users.

zachys RAC for blogZachys also uses SLI Rich Auto Complete and learning-based navigation pages to boost those results, and now sees Rich Auto Complete results producing a 10x higher conversion rate than the site average.

For long-tail search terms that tend to have higher conversion value, Castro’s team uses SLI Site Champion to create dynamic SEO-optimized landing pages. The optimized landing pages get higher rankings in Google and Bing, which drives more high-converting traffic to the site. Another key to Zachys’ online success is the use of extensive refinement options in search results, along with merchandising banners for popular terms.

If you want to learn more about Zachys’ e-commerce success using SLI, read the Chain Store Age article or the press release. And if you need to put in place a strategy for generating higher revenue from search and navigation, similar to what Zachys has done, feel free to reach out to us at discovery@sli-systems.com.

Amazon, You Don’t Know Me

Posted by Max BunagRelated Search, User Experience

I’m an avid online shopper. It’s convenient and simple, and best of all, I don’t have to deal with annoying store clerks. These are attributes that are absolutely necessary in my ideal shopping experience. Amazon.com is one of my shopping destinations of choice because of its wide selection of products. It’s like Walmart with a cooler name and actual customer service. The online juggernaut also gets into my head via typical big data fashion — it always tries to guess what I want. The keyword in that last statement, however,  is “tries.”

Amazon thinks it has me figured out as a shopper. The retail giant knows that if I click through to an item on a search query — an item like “Legend of Zelda” — even if I don’t ‘add to cart,’ I have shown interest in said item. Ideally for Amazon, the next time I visit, I would see, click, and buy one of these ‘recommended’ items related to “Legend of Zelda” that are scattered throughout my view as I browse the site. Although Amazon’s concept is spot on, it’s not quite right in execution.

I searched for “The Legend of Zelda,” and as we all know, “Zelda” and all its associated products are exclusively Nintendo products. Therefore, if I’m performing search queries for anything “Zelda” or “Mario” or “Metroid”-related, you’d think that Amazon would recommend Nintendo-specific products to me.

This isn’t the case with Amazon’s recommendations. On my Amazon homepage, I have an entire “recommended” section devoted to — you guessed it — Sony and PlayStation accessories and games. Not only is this a waste of valuable real estate, it’s a missed opportunity. If Amazon’s recommendation algorithms were effective, they would surmise my interest in Nintendo and show Nintendo accessories and games in my feed. PlayStation 3 games are absolutely no interest to me as a Wii U owner.

Now I was curious; would Amazon’s algorithms make similar incorrect assumptions outside the realm of the video game console wars? The conclusion was what I expected. I performed search queries for iPhone and Apple products, clearly showing Amazon that I have an interest in iPhones and Apple products. But, back on my homepage, I get a section dedicated exclusively to LG and Samsung phones. I have literally asked Amazon in all its infinite wisdom to show and bring me directly to iPhones, and the retailer shows me something it should know I don’t want. It’s no different than asking a sales associate where the iPhones are and that associate trying to up-sell LG and Samsung accessories — it does not make sense. In the brick-and-mortar retail world, this would be a lost customer.

There are countless instances of these faulty “product recommendations” not only on Amazon, but all over the e-commerce web space. In theory, product recommendations are a form of suggested selling. It’s the same as merchandising like-products next to each other on a store endcap. If you put too many random products near each other, or completely unrelated ones, you’ll confuse and lose that customer to the store with better merchandising. Need proof? Look at the in-store customer experience in T.J.Maxx and Marshalls versus the experience at Target or Best Buy.

Effective recommendations are a proven way to up-sell and increase conversion. To be effective, however, relevancy is absolutely necessary. SLI Systems recently announced the availability of a new product, SLI Learning Recommendations, which uses the power of SLI Learning Search data to provide contextually relevant recommendations. To learn more, take a look at our Learning Recommendations product page, or contact me at max.bunag@sli-systems.com.

Max Bunag, who clearly favors Nintendo over Sony, is an enterprise sales representative for SLI Systems. 

Create a Better Shopping Experience with Refinements

Posted by Kemberly GongRatings and Reviews, User Experience1 comment

Think back to the last time you were in a big-box retail store with an overwhelming array of products. How did you find your way around, without being paralyzed by the vast selection? Retail merchandisers work to make it easier for you by categorizing groups of products in certain areas of the store. Signs point you to the correct aisle for bed and bath items, electronics, toys, and other products, so you’re not wandering aimlessly.

For online shoppers, the experience can be very similar. If users encounter a large set of search results for a particular keyword, they can also feel overwhelmed. As an e-commerce merchant, you can help them tremendously by offering refinement options to narrow numerous product results to a manageable set. While site search is considered one of the most essential elements to an e-commerce site, refinements are just as crucial in guiding shoppers to the right product, and to a sale.

Our new Big Book of Site Search Tips for 2014, available for free download, is filled with ideas for improving this vital part of your site search solution. Here are just a few of the suggestions from the Big Book – and you’ll also find more than 100 tips on everything from search box placement to merchandising in the Big Book.

Make refinements intuitive: Don’t force visitors to guess what your refinements are trying to say. When shoppers come to your site, they may have certain keywords in mind. Name refinements in a way that will match your users’ language, and that makes sense for the products you’re selling. SLI customer ReNew Life, which sells probiotics products, has a refinements category called “Concerns,” which highlights common health and wellness issues that customers may experience:

renew life - refinements

Pick the right place for refinements: Depending on how your visitors search your site, different placements for refinements may be called for. The most common spots are in the left navigation pane, and at the top of the search page. Either option may work fine, but you should test different positions and see which ones your visitors use most. We don’t recommend using the bottom of the page for refinements, since it forces visitors to scroll down, and the right side of the page may confuse visitors that aren’t used to seeing navigation bars there. Additionally, if your site utilizes search pages with infinite scrolling, consider floating refinements that will travel down the page as a user scrolls.

Refinements for ratings and reviews: Sometimes a series of reviews can be the difference in deciding whether or not to buy a product. Depending on the e-commerce business and product types, some visitors find value in sorting products by ratings or reviews. You can allow visitors to refine their search results based on the star rankings, for example, which can help users narrow down a selection to only top-rated products.

Allow users to navigate between refinements: If a visitor has clicked on a certain refinement, but decides he or she wants to see a different refinement, don’t force them to click the “back” button to get to the original search results page first. Users should be able to simply click a different refinement option from the page they are on, and see a new batch of results.

These are just a few of the many tips that you should keep in mind when optimizing your e-commerce site experience to make browsing and shopping easier. Download the 2014 edition of the Big Book of Site Search Tips today.

What features do you plan on adding to your e-commerce site in 2014? We’d love to hear from you! 

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