For many eCommerce businesses, the line between a sale and a failed visit often comes down to the speed at which customers are able to find what they are looking for. While some businesses might opt for the standard search bars that come with their eCommerce solution, these often prove to be frustrating for customers, especially for those businesses that have large product catalogues.
This is another problem that many merchants face on Shopify, BigCommerce, and other eCommerce platforms. The problem is that the standard features that are offered do not necessarily meet the demands of their growing catalogue and their customers.
At Aware Digital, we are able to help businesses meet the demands of their customers through the implementation of Boost AI Search.
The Discovery Gap: Why Default Search Isn't Enough
Why the default search doesn't meet customer discovery expectations:
- Inadequate Relevance: Basic search only looks at exact keyword matches, not at customer intent.
- No Learning from Behaviour: Default search does not learn from what customers click, buy, or ignore.
- No Use of Reviews and Sentiment: No prioritisation of popular products based on customer review ratings.
- Information Overload: As the product catalogue grows, the discovery experience worsens.
As a result, customers do not convert, and the business misses out on sales as well as valuable engagement.
Introducing Boost AI Search: Better Discovery that Learns
Boost AI Search is designed to help address these issues by providing more relevant search results and recommendations to customers. Boost uses artificial intelligence to learn what works best for each customer.
Key Features of Boost AI Search:
- Better Search Results: Boost's search results learn what products convert best and rank them higher in results.
- Recommendations: Boost uses customer behaviour to recommend products to each individual customer.
- Merchandising: Merchandising teams can set rules to feature specific products, collections, or seasonal products.
Through the marriage of AI learning and manual merchandising control, Boost provides retailers with the flexibility to optimise their search experience.
Reviews: Adding Context and Confidence
Another unique advantage that Boost offers is the integration of reviews into search and recommendations. The Boost AI search engine is capable of analysing the following:
- Star ratings and review counts: Products with high star ratings are more likely to be displayed first.
- Sentiment and keywords: Reviews containing specific keywords may impact how products are ranked.
- Behavioural feedback: Products with more engagement are prioritised.
By analysing reviews, retailers are ensuring that their customers are not just shown relevant products but products that instil confidence in them.
Real Results: AI in Action
Merchants utilising Boost AI Search have seen significant improvements in key business metrics:
Conversion rates: Customers are more likely to find the products they are looking for, increasing the chances of conversion.
Average order values: The AI search engine provides recommendations that drive opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.
Engagement with product content: Reviews and recommendations drive clicks and engagement with products.
For stores with hundreds or thousands of products, these improvements can translate into significant revenue growth while also improving the overall shopping experience.
Best Practices for Onsite Search
While implementing an AI search is an important step, merchants must consider the following best practices to get the most out of Boost:
Filters and Faceted Navigation: Merchants can enable customers to filter results by various attributes like size, color, etc.
Synonyms and Common Misspellings: Merchants can ensure that the search is aware of common misspellings used by customers.
Merchandising Rules: Merchants can leverage Boost to showcase certain products during specific seasons.
Highlighting Review Data: Merchants can leverage review data by highlighting ratings within the search results.
These best practices enable merchants to leverage AI search results in the most effective way.
Why We Recommend Boost
At Aware Digital, our focus is to help merchants maximise every visitor. For merchants that have an extensive product catalogue or an underperforming search experience, Boost is an effective solution that can help merchants bridge the discovery gap.
Merchants can leverage Boost to create an effective shopping experience that is not only confident but also personalised.
Next Steps
If your store is facing issues with search performance or you'd like to learn about intelligent search for your customers, book a personalised Boost demo to see the platform in action here.