New search engine Shoper will improve shopping conversions

Customers who use the search function in an online store end their visit with a purchase four times more often than others, data from Shoper shows. With the new version of the search engine, the online store software provider intends to further improve this result.

In March, several thousand stores running on the Shoper software saw a major improvement that is not at all apparent at first glance. The magnifying glass icons and the adjacent text fields look similar to before. However, even before you finish typing the name of the item you're looking for, you'll see the most relevant hints underneath. Among them, links to specific products, with a thumbnail photo and price.

This is one of the innovations introduced by Shoper with the implementation of the new search engine's algorithm. Merchants who have already launched it are reporting increases of more than 30 percent on average in the number of transactions for customers using the search engine. This rate is highest when shoppers use mobile devices, where navigation in the store is more difficult, and an effective search engine can make it much simpler.

- Our analysis of shopping time shows that a session on a store's website takes an average of 2.5 minutes. That's very little, so retailers should make it easier for shoppers to quickly find what they're looking for. It is important to rethink and refine the UX of the store and provide convenient and effective tools that shorten the path from start to finish, explains Jan Becla, E-commerce Marketing Coordinator at Shoper - The search function is usually used by customers who did not come to the store by accident. They are more engaged and determined than others. There are e-businesses where search plays a very important role. In one of our phone accessory stores, one in four customers finds a new gadget through the search engine, and in another, with fashion, as many as 43 percent of users start shopping by typing their shopping plans into the search box, the expert tells Shoper.

Why do stores need a good search engine?

A user typing a keyword into the new version of the search engine Shoper, does not have to think about how the vendor has named its products in the store's administration panel. The text completion mechanism searches for the given passages either in product names, their descriptions, categories and attributes, or by manufacturer names.

- We started 13 years ago as an e-commerce solution provider for small e-businesses. Now one in four stores running on our software has more than 1,000 products on sale. Growing, it's easy to miss the moment when a shopper is no longer able to browse the store's offerings "on foot" even if he or she is very interested in them or genuinely wants to buy a particular product. So it's worthwhile from the beginning to optimize your product descriptions for the search engine, or rather for the searchers - guessing their mindset. Sellers with Premium subscriptions have an easier task, because in this version the search engine also uses a dictionary of synonyms and catches typos. So they can adapt faster to changes and customers' needs, without changing the descriptions of hundreds of products," notes Jan Becla.

Experts at Shoper add that the new version of the search engine also makes things easier for retailers. Its autocomplete function also works "on the other side of the mirror," that is, in the administration panel. Thus, it effectively reduces the time needed to add new products.