THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SITE SEARCH
I write this as somebody who has been involved in e-commerce and specifically site search for a number of years now, but my background was in retail on the front line. I have sat on the fitting stool, stood behind the cash register, done meet and greet at the door, been an overworked assistant store manager then run operations like Best Buy and left the industry as a field based regional executive. So I can offer a personal relevant perspective to those of you who are exploring the online channel.
Your online store may have been up and running for a decent period of time now and yes you are generating sales. Let’s face it you have paid enough to designers, integrators and digital agencies so you know it looks the part. You may also have paid out to those agencies offering to get you traffic, you have been optimized, modified, tagged and analyzed. To quote the Field Of Dreams “if you build it – they will come”, so, you have built it, they have come and yet they are not spending money, they are not converting into paying customers in the same way that somebody who made the effort to visit your bricks and mortar store is.
The reason for this is simple, either they found what they wanted but had an objection to buying it, (be it product, service or price ) OR they couldn’t find what they were looking for or even see something they wanted that was on your stock file. And that is OUR problem because that’s what we do. We can serve the customer with search results that are relevant to their enquiry and we can show them additional items that complement the item they are buying to increase your average order size. We can also merchandize your store so that your long tail is being constantly displayed; your best margin products get prominence (because we care for your bottom line) and requests for products your shop doesn’t carry are met with a suitable alternative. To round this off and keep it very simple – we have the best set of tools to enable you to reach record conversion and customer satisfaction numbers.
To put this in a real world perspective let me draw you an analogy:
You have just opened your finest high street flagship store, you have spent a fortune on the building, fixtures and fittings, your buyers have sourced the finest inventory at amazing prices, you have advertised in the national papers on TV and radio. The customers are queuing out the door but when they come in they are just not going to the checkouts. The problem is there is no staff on the floor, or the one staff member there can’t understand what the customer is asking for or is “ignorant” of what’s in stock and when he gets asked he just sulkily says you don’t carry products fitting the customer’s request and all but sends them next door. There is no information about the products anywhere (such as sizes, prices or colors) so nobody can find anything. The windows aren’t dressed so passing traffic won’t enter. There are no floor stacks to act as an impulse purchase, things are priced but the great offers aren’t highlighted and on top of all this the security cameras are off and the managers are in the cafeteria so no one is watching the customer behavior.
Now let’s see that scenario with a Celebros team in store:
Customers are met at the door, and politely asked what they are looking for. Then the smart multi-lingual assistant who understands true meaning behind any inquiry (in any language) walks the customer to the correct department, takes them down the right aisle, stops at the correct shelf and points to the most relevant item the customer is most likely to place in their basket. This item comes with all relevant attributes requested by the shopper (color, size, etc.).
On top of this as the customer is being escorted across the store various relevant offers pop up indicating famous brands or popular items in that department, items on sale and a free delivery service. When the item goes in the basket the assistant shows the customer relevant items they might also like, not just batteries or accessories, but items other people have historically bought with the same item.
So now you have a sales floor manager on a one to one basis for every customer, who is also recording what they touched, how long they read the label for, whether they turned it over and read the back, he follows them round the store and notes how long it takes to walk down each aisle, everything they did in fact whilst in the store. Being a gifted floor manager, he remembers this information and will use it for other customers who demonstrate the same behavior.
Sounds better, doesn’t it? This is what Celebros can do for you.
Visit our site for more details on our new ConversionPro V8 suite of conversion technologies including our best of breed award winning Semantic Site Search technology.
About The Author- Nick Dryer is the Celebros Sales Manager for all territories other than the Americas. Prior to this position he worked as Customer Relations Manager for companies such as Apple and Mio, after spending over 20 years in the UK Retail sector with companies such as The Link, PC World and Russell and Bromley.
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