When evaluating user experience and online sales results, search capabilities matter more than you think. In the present era of tough online competition, no online store can afford to lose business. Hence, it is extremely important for you as an online retailer to present your Magento online store’s products to your online customers and prospective visitors in the best manner possible. To achieve this aspect, it is essential for you to install a better search capability on your online store so that the user experience as well as online sales results improve at the same time.
Many online merchants tend to overlook this aspect, hence they focus on alternative methods such as increasing cart conversion rates or average order sizes by trying to implement eCommerce digital marketing services or better alternative product recommendation tools or even targeting customers via call center based online behavior and even other solutions that focus on increasing sales. In this long and circuitous process, online merchants tend to forget one important tool – the search tool that has the potential to be utilized by more than half of your online audience. Let us examine how the search tool helps drive visitors to the products they really want and those you want them to see. It is also worth examining how the search tool impacts sales.
Not many merchants are serious about the sales potential they can generate through the optimal use of the search tool despite being worried about growth and conversion. Many merchants are simply not bothered to track site traffic and conversion from users who have done searches within their website.
While buying from a site such as Amazon or eBay, most people utilize the search tool to locate the products of their choice rather than navigate by category. The first step on an eCommerce site is usually a global search. This fact also applies to smaller merchant websites. Hence, enterprise class search capabilities, regardless of a small, mid, or large customer affect the conversion rates as well an order volume. However, this fact is overlooked by many merchants who are looking forward to grow sales quickly.
Many Magento merchants who utilize the search tool on their website have reported that their average order value increased considerably (some reporting as much as 11%) and conversion rates improved (in some instances as much as 3x higher) for search users than those for non-search users. Page views also increased (as many as 7 times more for a particular retailer), thereby giving a much better chance to drive sales for adding on accessories. Lastly, the average value per visit per customer increases when the search tool is used.
Therefore, it is highly advisable to have a strategy of making the search tool a prominent part of your Magento website design and layout. Additionally, ask a few of your customers to provide you with feedback about the effectiveness of your search tool and ask them if you can improve. Finally, leverage your web analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Omniture to track the behavior of search engine pages. These pages will give you an indication of how your pages perform better with the site search tool and without.
Shivi Rao is a content marketer with Krish. She has worked in various industries spanning technology, science, rural marketing, startups & unicorns, eCommerce business, and digital marketing, believing that content is the foundation to facilitate the visibility of any organization and ensuring her words do the same. In her free time, you can either find her lifting weights in the gym or feeding the strays.
7 October, 2022 The Holiday season is one of the busiest shopping seasons throughout the year. In 2021, the months of October and November witnessed a jump of 11% YoY and accounted for $211.41 billion in online retail. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday and Halloween to New Year, these two months are a gold mine for online retailers if all falls in place as per plans.
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