Effective product discovery is a win-win – customers get an enjoyable shopping experience and retailers see an uplift in conversions. Yet many brands are stumbling at the first hurdle by failing to provide relevant on-site search.
This can be a costly mistake, as inadequate search paves the way for customers to give up and go elsewhere. Ecommerce search abandonment is when a shopper searches for a product but does not find what they are looking for, and costs retailers more than $300 billion annually in the US alone.
In this blog, we’re going to explore exactly what causes search abandonment and how you can stop it from taking a toll on your ecommerce site.
Good on-site search can be very beneficial, often resulting in larger Average Order Values and ongoing brand loyalty. In fact, between 30% to 60% of visitors typically conduct an on-site search and those who do spend 3x more.
On the other hand, disappointing search could be leaking sales or costing you in different ways:
The sale as well as ongoing customer loyalty falls apart without the right on-site search. If customers can’t find what they are looking for, it won’t take long for them to bounce to the likes of Amazon or back to Google.
In short, customers expect speed, relevance and convenience when it comes to search. But as shoppers are using natural language to find products online, complex and long-tail searches are sky-rocketing zero results and making it more challenging to unfailingly meet expectations. Spelling mistakes as well as synonyms also wreak havoc on the relevancy of results.
The challenge of providing high-quality search and reducing search abandonment comes down to retailers unable to understand user intent and the context of the search, as well as the inability to accurately tag products with relevant keywords. This becomes more taxing as the product catalogue grows and site locations are added.
The good news is that these challenges can quickly become resolved by tapping into the powers of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
After their deployment of AI-powered search, which was focused on the 15% of searches that were identified as complex and longtail, PrettyLittleThing increased conversions by 20% for affected searches in the UK and by 34% for affected searches in France.
What’s more, PLT increased product detail page click rates from affected searches in the UK by 41% and reduced zero-result searches by 97%, showing an upturn in customer engagement and huge improvements in the quality of search.
These self-learning algorithms tailor each query to the customer’s intent and behaviour, to ensure continuous optimisation of search results and the product discovery experience.
It’s easy to take an effective on-site search for granted but search abandonment is a growing concern for retailers.
To tackle search abandonment, start by investigating its causes and employ intelligent tools such as AI-powered search to power relevant recommendations, fast response times and personalised product discovery experiences. You will soon see an uplift in conversions, improvements in customer loyalty and the ability to meet customer expectations.
To learn more about AI-powered search and discover how to improve your product discovery journey, check out our new feature guide, What is AI-powered search? Alternatively, to see how the Attraqt AI-powered search would directly benefit your business, book a free demo with one of our experts here.
