March 07 2007

Searchandising makes a difference to e-commerce

Search tools convert shoppers to buyers at conversion rates of 5% or higher for 60% of companies which track this metric, according to research by market intelligence company Aberdeen (and sponsored by Mercado).

The Web Site Search: Revenue in the Results report (free pdf), also highlights that e-retailers with the highest returns from their website search applications were the ones that merchandised their offers by customising their search results to fit their specific products or services - 62% of best-in-class companies continually fine tune search to satisfy customers and meet their financial goals.

There is a direct correlation between the amount of effort put into managing the online search application and the benefits gained said the reports authors. Some 72% of best-in-class companies use rules-based results, 50% use faceted navigation and 41% use natural language processing - compared to the industry average of 42%, 37% and 28%.

"E-commerce search applications are innately suited to merchandising, due to their very nature of seeking out products. Yet 46% of respondents struggle with the proper method to manage this capability. To support this function, there is a growing contingent of vendors providing 'Searchandising' tools and techniques for inducing search results to benefit traditional retail merchandising," said John Lovett, Research Analyst at Aberdeen.

One such company is Mercado. Brian Beck, CEO of Broadspan Commerce is one of Mercado's customers. He commented: "Mercado has revolutionised how customers find products on our e-commerce sites - and how we merchandise for optimal sales. The integration of powerful tools, such as web analytics, enables us to do a lot with limited resources. It also allows us to take the guesswork out of executing our online initiatives."

Emma Herrod