A good quality search on any ecommerce website can make or break its success. To highlight the importance of this, Google have written a white paper on the importance of a good quality search. The paper, entitled “Maximising website return on investment: The crucial role of high-quality search”, outlines the many benefits of utilising an effective, well thought-out search feature on any ecommerce solution. Some of the recent figures produced of late put into perspective how vital a well structured and effective search feature really is. After all, if customers cannot find what they are looking for in mere seconds, they will often simply abandon the search and sometimes even the website. This can directly translate into a loss of sales and bad reviews.
Ecommerce search statistics
In the White paper produced by Google are the following statistics that really emphasise the importance of a useful search feature on any ecommerce website:
- “90% of actual buyers used the search function to find products” – If you’re not catering to this huge percent of people you will be missing out on a lot of potential sales. If those 90% can’t find what they want they will simply go somewhere else.
- “When site navigation fails, 50% of site visitors will use the search engine” – If someone can’t work their way around your website with the standard navigation you provide, half of all customers will use the search function instead. If the search option isn’t there or doesn’t work properly that’s 50% of your potential customers that will just abandon your ecommerce site.
- “20% increase in sales for online stores implementing quality search functionality” – From implementing an effective search feature on your site your sales could increase by 20%. In effect the sales feature pays for itself.
What makes an effective ecommerce search engine?
There are many small things you can do to make your search much more effective. Including filtered search enables the customers to be as precise or vague as they wish to be in hunting down the products they want. Extending the search parameters to include FAQ results and business support so should they need to, they can use the search bar to find every answer they want on your site.
Why is an effective ecommerce site so important?
Well apart from increasing conversions, keeping your customers happy and increasing sales, there are some other benefits that haven’t been mentioned. Costs associated with customer service and support will be reduced as more customers will be able to find exactly what they want without your help. Another key benefit is happy customers! A vital asset to any online company, happy customers will come back and shop again and again. You must also remember with many review forums and rating websites any bad press your site gathers can be posted and seen by many otherwise potentially new customers.
Want any more information about ecommerce solutions? Contact Store Express on, Telephone: 0845 050 3500, Fax: 0845 838 2701, Email:sales@storeexpress.com.