E-Commerce Stores Focus on Shopper Experience to Convert Higher: Insights by Searchspring

Search functionality is the most commonly used feature by a massive 74 percent of respondents, followed by filters (65 percent), delivery calculators (56 percent), reviews (51 percent), and sorting (50 percent).

“This data reflects changes we’ve noticed,”  says Head of APAC at Searchspring, Kate Massey. “With onsite behaviours shifting, search is an even more critical component of the customer experience. Retailers equipped with innovative digital tools, including search, merchandising, and hyper-relevant product recommendations, see significantly higher conversion and AOV (average order value). Whilst the percentage of traffic using search is typically relatively low these motivated shoppers account for a significant portion of revenue. For instance, 22 percent of online revenue for craft beer retailer Beer Cartel is generated by shoppers who use site search.”

Shoppers using search and filter combinations are ‘motivated shoppers’, and looking at finding the most relevant products faster. “We’re working with merchants where data shows that shoppers who use enhanced filters convert at higher levels with greater AOV. For example, our customer, CostumeBox, gives shoppers advanced search filter options, including ‘product type’, ‘occasion’, and ‘theme’. As a result, the company has seen 4.5x higher conversion and 56 percent of revenue attributed to search,” explains Massey. While traditional filters like ‘price’, ‘category’, ‘brand’, ‘size’, and ‘colour’ are commonly used, enhanced filtering like ‘style’, ‘trend’, ‘fit’, and ‘sustainability’ are now being used with increasing frequency.

Another underutilised tool that heavily influences purchasing decisions is online reviews. According to Gartner, 85 percent of shoppers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Retailers who leverage online reviews can also empower shoppers to sort and filter products by top-review ratings quickly. Elevation of these top-rated (and often top-converting) products automatically places them in front of shoppers. Searchspring integrates with all major online review providers to further boost the power of reviews.

Massey says, “The retail outperformers of 2022 will use various digital tactics to make their customers’ path-to-purchase easier and gain share of wallet. So it’s no longer a case of keeping up with expectations, but rather leading with search, merchandising, and recommendations to create an outstanding shopper experience that can’t be ignored.”

Searchspring delivers the leading search, merchandising and personalisation platform built exclusively for retailers. To keep customers ahead of changing behaviours, Searchspring uses an automated product elevations program, Intellisuggest. By analysing every product view, click, add-to-cart and purchase, Intellisuggest forms a detailed understanding of shopper behaviour and preferences. Customers are served with highly-relevant results that improve the shopper experience instantly.

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