Search engines are powerful tools for guiding shoppers to relevant products on online retail sites. However, to maximize revenue and provide the best possible shopping experience, relying solely on search engines is usually not the best approach.
Instead, retailers should also use product search. By providing additional control over search results, search merchandising helps retailers realize business goals that search engines often miss.
To prove this, let’s look at four key benefits of search merchandising and how e-commerce sellers can use them effectively.
What is Search Merchandising?
Search merchandising, also known as “searchandising”, is the art and science of presenting search results in ways that take into account relevance, buyer intent and business goals.
Search merchandising typically works by taking the results generated by a search engine and then modifying them in some way that adds value. Examples of practice include:
- Personalize search results by highlighting products that shoppers are most likely to find relevant based on their search and purchase history
- Highlighting or promoting products and brands that have a higher profit margin
- Dynamic presentation of facets and filters based on shopper context
In short, instead of relying solely on search engine-generated results to determine how products are presented, search merchandising uses analytics, shopper behavior, and other contextual signals along with marketing and sales goals to increase the effectiveness of search results.
4 Key Benefits of Search Merchandising
Now that we’ve covered the basics of search merchandising, let’s talk about the benefits this practice offers to online sellers and their shoppers.
1. Improved search relevance
One of the key benefits of search merchandising is that it increases the chances that customers will find search results relevant, which is good for them because it improves their experience and good for businesses because it increases conversions.
Most online retailers realize that product data and customer preferences change over time, and these changes need to be evaluated and accounted for. A well-tuned basic search algorithm is the cornerstone of an effective product search strategy. However, search merchandising is most effective when the underlying search engine results are calibrated to provide accurate and relevant products for broad and common queries (also known as top queries) that customers use frequently.
Regularly evaluating and fine-tuning your search engine to adapt to changes in your product catalog, queries and shopper behavior will ensure the best results. Metrics like revenue, margins, sales position, customer ratings and reviews are extremely valuable for improving search performance and relevance. Using these metrics as support factors individually or in concert can help ensure that high-performing, high-ranking products are easily visible. When popular and profitable items are visible to shoppers, the likelihood of purchase increases.
2. Personalized shopper experience
Search merchandising is also a great way to deliver personalized experiences to customers. Instead of showing the same results for a given search query to every site visitor, retailers can use search merchandising to tailor results to specific visitors based on context, such as clickstream engagement, purchase history, and geographic region, using techniques such as the following:
- AI and Machine Learning: Recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning are bringing new and exciting ways to accurately analyze shopper behavior, search history and related interactions to determine user intent. These technologies enable dynamic ranking of search results and ensure that the most relevant products are consistently displayed at the top.
- Shopper Behavior Data: Clickstream data can provide rich insight into the journeys shoppers take on your site, which in turn provides insight into their preferences and interests. Additional data such as purchase history, cart additions and demographic information help create a deeper view of each shopper’s preferences, which marketers can use to personalize and rank search results.
Presenting search results based on shopper behavior ensures users see the most relevant products. When individual data is limited, aggregating behavioral data from all shoppers is a great way to go. Aggregating behavioral data and presenting search results based on shopper behavior helps showcase popular and highly rated products, reach a wider audience and improve the overall shopping experience.
3. Strategic product promotion
Search engines usually have no way of knowing which products a company wants to promote at any given time. However, product search allows online retailers to strategically influence and control the placement of products in search results. By giving marketers control, search merchandising can boost or bury specific products or brands, ensuring they get maximum exposure while less relevant ones are de-emphasized.
One of the powerful aspects of this approach is the ability to pin products to the most valuable positions in search results. This ensures that the best selling or promotional items get maximum exposure.
In addition, merchants can provide content for dedicated merchandising zones, where selected products, brands and categories are prominently displayed to immediately grab the attention of shoppers. Another advantage is the ability to curate product collections tailored to specific themes, seasons or campaigns.
This level of accuracy enables highly personalized shopping that offers customers products that match their needs and preferences. By leveraging the human touch, marketers can create searches that meet business goals, increase customer satisfaction, and increase conversions.
4. Improved shopper experience
Effective merchandising search improves the shopping experience by providing seamless, intuitive experiences that reduce friction while maintaining engagement, ultimately increasing conversion rates. Search merchandising helps in this area in several ways:
- Improved navigation: Using techniques like machine learning, websites can improve the navigation experience by dynamically generating facets and filters based on search queries, leading them quickly and intuitively to the products they want. Visual navigation elements that can be driven by machine learning or marketer curation are especially useful when search queries may be too broad to provide optimal results.
- Visual advantages: Strategically placed banners can draw attention to important brands, events or selected products. They highlight key products, promotions or calls to action, enhancing the overall shopping experience by providing visual interest and breaking up extensive product listings.
- Advanced query processing: Features like typo tolerance, synonyms, and query rewrites help ensure that minor mistakes or variations in search queries don’t get in the way of a shopper. Focusing on autocomplete suggestions that can quickly lead shoppers to popular searches and relevant products is another area worth investing in. Each of these features is a strong candidate for the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which can also provide the added value of understanding the context of search queries.
Look to merchandising for online retail success
Search engines are a powerful tool to help shoppers find what they want. But they are even more powerful when paired with search merchandising. By giving granular retailers control over search results, search advertising can help increase conversions and sales while enabling a smoother and more rewarding shopper experience.