Discovery is essentially the most important part of product management in e-commerce. The search functionality differs across different websites, but overall, customers must be able to access relevant results quickly and easily in order for you to raise conversion rates for your business.

In this article, we shall explore how you can optimize your website for better product discovery.

Product Discovery: The Key Factor

‘Product Discovery’ is the process through which a customer comes to your online store and discovers a relevant product. The time taken to get to the product is called ‘Product Discovery Time’. As a retailer, quick product discovery is imperative, because unless your customer can find a product he/she wants to buy, no amount of traffic or conversion optimization will be able to drive revenue. 

In a study conducted by ClickTale, it was observed that for e-commerce sites without an optimized search functionality, shoppers spent more time attempting to find their desired product, but left because they were unable to find it. Alternatively, on e-commerce sites with better search functionality, they spend less time but actually find the desired product faster. As a result, the customer sticks around to make a purchase despite spending less time on the site. If a customer has a sub-par experience while searching for products, they are likely to ditch the store resulting in an overall disappointing experience.

Up The Product Discovery Game

Now that you understand how product discovery drives revenue, let’s take a look at how you can optimize the e-commerce experience for your customers. Relevance is an important theme to base an e-commerce site on. The more relevant your site is to each individual shopper, the better your product discovery experience will be.

Begin with an optimized homepage that features current promotional offers, current sales, and time-sensitive offers to drive urgency. After this, you can add:

1. Personalized product listings based on recently viewed items to save time for a shopper looking to make similar purchases.

2. Showcase trending and popular best-selling products to draw in new customers visiting for the first time that lack browsing history.

3. Display new arrivals to give your customers a chance to view and possibly purchase your newest offerings.

4. Include educational content such as guides, product reviews, and product videos. This kind of content pre-sells your products to customers who are merely browsing through your online store.

Hook By Navigation

Customers use navigation when they are searching for products but are undecided on what exactly they are looking for. So the navigation on your site needs to be both fast and intuitive so as to not lose a shopper at the start of their search journey. 

Here are a few points to bear in mind:

1. Navigation menus must display a varied collection of categories and sub-categories to narrow the range from which a shopper can search for a product.

2. Fly-out menus i.e, menus that "fly out" from the left or right side of the screen, and are hidden until the mouse is moved into the area of the screen, are a popular option used by retailers for this purpose.

3. Adding filters to the search menu can help shoppers to selectively filter products based on necessity.

4. Make filterable and sortable attributes per product as complete as possible, such as tags for colors, sizes, brand etc.

5. Allow mix and match of the filter and sort tags to make search easier. For example, You can allow customers to search for pink and black dresses in one view instead of making them go through two separate searches for each color.

Faster, Accurate Results

Customers expect to get exact results from quickly typing in words into a search box. Your site search must be capable of handling input such as product names, product types, categories, FAQs, product features, keyword variations, and misspellings for an optimized solution. Create and optimize dedicated landing pages for users coming in from search engines. In these cases, it is critical to feature relevant products immediately and include a call to action or conversion action. As an example, if a user searches for black boots, they should ideally be redirected to a page showcasing boots under shoes with black pre-selected as a filter. You must also make sure to create dedicated landing pages for top search terms relating to your products and display the correct product listings.

Error 404 pages are an often-overlooked opportunity in e-commerce. For such pages, instead of discouraging a user away from your site, you may include best-sellers, current sales, promotions, trending product lists, etc that help customers discover products they want to buy.

Dedicated Landing Pages and Secondary Product Discovery

For customers who are looking for gift ideas, landing pages dedicated to best-sellers and trending product listings can be a boon. These pages are also great to include in subscriber email series. Popular products are automatically more desirable and dedicated landing pages are a great way to take advantage of that. 

All of the above takes place fairly early in the customer shopping journey. On the other hand, there is a further possibility of upselling using product discovery that you can place at the time of purchase. You can add product recommendations and items that are frequently bought together, and include products to ‘complete the look’. Another enticing option for online shoppers is to provide them with an opportunity to get free shipping by adding extra products to increase the size of the order or provide discounts for bundled products. These practices can aid in driving up average order values by cross-selling and upselling products.

We hope this was a helpful guide to optimizing your product discovery. From creating an optimized home page to offering secondary product discovery options, it is up to you how to implement these ideas in your online store to drive revenues.

There's a lot of chatter around how Augmented Reality will change the way people shop. While Augmented Reality holds value, every technology created has its specific use case. Retailers and brands must bear in mind the several aspects each of the technology provides and select those that align to their objectives and goals. Let's delve deeper into each of these technologies -

Image recognition

Image recognition technology enables consumers to search for products by just taking a picture of them. These visual experiences are usually more flexible in nature when compared to Augmented Reality experiences for the following reasons -

No requirement for users to download an extension or app 

While there are some versions of AR applications out there for mobile websites, it's still a long way from delivering a seamless experience for its users. AR experiences that perform well often require a user to download an app. Image recognition, here plays a pivotal role as it enables interactive experiences within a retailer's mobile web, and not just the native app.

There is no need for creating 3D models 

Developing 3D models for AR experiences can often be time-consuming and expensive. Due to its complicated nature, it even requires technical skills to deliver the experience. Image recognition can be used with the existing marketing and web collaterals and can be implemented with ease. Moreover, the changes made to the content will automatically be updated in the apps, keeping the experience up-to-date.

Providing a universal and inclusive experience for shoppers 

Devices play an important role when Augmented reality is concerned. The experience may differ between low-end and high-end user devices, with the highest quality devices getting the best results. This is not an issue with Image recognition as it allows brands and retailers to ensure that their content is delivered to their customers in the same, interactive manner, irrespective of the user's device.

Limitations of Image recognition vs AR

While Image recognition provides the aforementioned benefits, there are certain aspects that set Augmented Reality apart from Image recognition:

Content is visualized in a three-dimensional manner

The type of content linked to Image recognition often includes videos, promotions, product information pages, etc. which often aids the customer's purchase journey by allowing them to learn more about the products and it offers at one go. In AR, the content is represented in a three-dimensional format. The content visualized is not three-dimensional, unlike what many Augmented Reality experiences build upon.

Image recognition provides a transactional experience, not immersive

If a user/customer aims to visualize objects in their environment, Augmented reality can be a good option to choose from, as Image recognition limits the user or customer to place digital content into the real world. This comes especially handy while buying expensive furniture - with a 'try before you buy' functionality. The customer can use the functionality and get a feel of how it may appear against a realistic setup - and nudge him or her towards a purchase.

Conclusion

To put it briefly, image recognition helps create a smooth transition between the physical and the digital worlds and help customers through a shopping journey. It allows them to interact with real products with the help of the images and the product information. For instance, it allows the user to learn more about a product's nutritional values, the user ratings, allergens, check for its alternatives, similar products, complementary products, etc.

On the other hand, Augmented Reality goes from digital to physical. It lets customers interact with virtual products in their own environment when, in fact, are not present.

While they may support different use cases, both technologies can provide customers with different kinds of engaging experiences.

With the holidays being around the corner, the countdown has already begun on the numerous sales across all retailers and brands. A growing number of shoppers are avoiding stores and are increasingly embracing e-commerce to shop for gifts due to which prospects for online sales are looking up.

Here are five strategies that companies can focus on to break through the holiday shopping noise and score bigger online sales this season:

Using relevant imagery and information 

Displaying holiday-themed, creative and shoppable images, with product images from different angles as well as using video to showcase products creates more impact as it delivers a more immersive experience, in turn, increasing engagement. Personalized recommendations of products also stimulate interest and likelihood for a purchase.

Key purchasing elements about the products also need to be clear and precise, including the pricing and shipping options, which plays an important role at this time of the year.

Selling uncomplicated and useful products 

Shoppers must not be given too much choice and time to make a purchasing decision. Companies must choose products in such a manner in which it would tap into the shoppers' desires for products and that has the potential to enrich their lives. The best impulse purchases are the ones that shoppers don't regret - and the ones that are exciting, easy, and fairly universal.

Companies need to ensure that the products that are being offered answers a need for shoppers. It can be a gift for large groups such as all boys under 12, or a makeup palette that can compliment every skin tone, etc.  

Keeping the purchasing process simple 

The purchasing process refers to the technology (one-click purchase), fulfillment (free shipping), convenience (returns policy), and the driving factor - product content. During this season, impulse purchases happen more often, and in order to encourage shoppers to make a purchase, the product copy should be presented in a manner such that the shopper does not have any questions about the product, with the product copy being clear and concise, ratings and reviews being well presented with all the information up front.

Increasing visibility by diversifying platforms

In the digital sphere, one can not be sure where a shopper can come from, hence repetition is required. Showing products across various platforms and devices also help create brand recall for the shoppers and increasing the possibility of shoppers purchasing products. Retailers and brands can also depend on banner ads as they utilize “since you viewed” algorithms to feature adjacent products.

Informing shoppers on how much they will save

Shoppers would lean towards offers that allow them to save time or money - especially where gifting is concerned. Most shoppers choose to take advantage of a value deal while making purchases, especially during an impulse purchase. For digital, product copy should mention seasonal pricing or special gifts with the purchase, or free shipping. The information must be presented to the shopper clearly, but also with the mention of value to seal the deal.

E-commerce is an intensely competitive market where businesses need to keep innovating and adopting new technologies to sustain. These technologies come in packages, large & small, to help optimize the systems and processes, ensuring seamless experiences for the customers.

One of these technologies - Chatbots - has been a popular topic of discussion in the retail and e-commerce industries. Some discussions focus on how the user experience is improved while the remaining provides a detailed view of implementing and adopting chatbots for businesses. In this blog, we try to provide a holistic view of how chatbots help scale e-commerce businesses and subsequently consumers by dividing the benefits into three categories - predictive recommendations, engaging consumer engagement, reduction in the purchase process

Predictive recommendations 

E-commerce industries are user heavy and need to cater to different segments of audiences and their requirements. Whenever there is a discussion about the role of chatbots, one quote stands out -

“Goal is to turn data into information and information into insights.” – Carly Fiorina, Former CEO of HP

Imagine chatbots to be the one that hoards information and turn information into insights. They help customers find the products they’re looking for without extensive browsing, thereby providing users an incentive to stay on the platform and reduce drop-offs.

For instance, Amazon provides best-in-class search for users to find the products they want. The search takes into consideration a number of factors including user dialects, ease in product categorization and user buying behavior & patterns.   

Simple & Quick Consumer Engagement 

The primary function of chatbots is to be conversational by nature using text, buttons, and images and understand typed natural language requests. This is the reason that the most famous chatbots run inside messaging applications such as Facebook Messenger or Skype.

Hence, chatbots provide a huge benefit to e-commerce businesses to connect with the users.  In a high volume business of e-commerce, chatbots provide a highly scalable system to manage individual user conversations simultaneously for millions of users while gaining user insights to improve the product flow and experience.  

Reducing Purchase Time 

Chatbots help consumers to interact with the products at critical stages of their journey, increasing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and engagement. Chatbots provide the assistance to access product information quickly and make informed decisions to purchase the products.

Moreover, customers do not need to look at any other source to gain information on the products. Chatbots process information in the form of notifications, reminders, product updates to fuel conversions and enhance social experiences.

Image credit: Photo by Matan Segev from Pexels

The retail experience of a shopper is the latest area that AI and machine learning are causing disruption. Most retailers recognizing the potential of these technologies have started aligning them into their business goals. Two crucial aspects - data and computing power have changed in the past few years in the space of AI, which has opened up new opportunities for retailers today.

Computing power is easy to see, with the advent and rise of smartphones which have phenomenal computing power when compared to the bulky phones and computers used decades ago. Businesses today have unlimited computing access to train their AI algorithms. Furthermore, the data available today is extremely rich and scalable. AI systems that leverage learning techniques such as Machine learning thrive on large, rich data sets. When fed appropriately, these systems discover patterns and correlations that would be otherwise difficult with a human intervention. These machine learning approaches automate data analysis, enabling users to create models that can then be used to make useful predictions about other similar data.

The speed at which AI can be deployed depends on specific critical factors. The first is the ability to test and measure. Retail giants can effectively deploy AI and test and measure consumer response. They can also leverage AI to measure the effect on their entire supply chain.

There is some innovative and interesting robot technology taking place in retail such as Grocery giant partnering with Nuro.AI to deliver groceries to the customers’ doorsteps. But most significant changes will come from the deployment of AI rather than the use of physical robots or autonomous vehicles.

Here are 3 AI-based scenarios that will transform the retail experience -

AI can detect underlying patterns in the shopping behavior of shoppers from the products that they buy and the method used to buy them. This could be a simple weekly purchase of groceries from the supermarket, the sporadic purchases of wine from the liquor store or the complex midnight icecream cravings from the local convenience store.

At a larger scale, analysis of the behavior of millions of consumers would enable supermarkets to predict the number of households that cook pasta every week. This would then inform the inventory management systems, and automatically optimize the stock of pasta. This information can also be shared with the suppliers, enabling more efficient inventory management and organized logistics.

The pricing challenge for supermarkets involves applying the right price and the right promotion to the right product. Retail pricing optimization requires data analysis at a granular level for each customer, product and transaction. To be effective, many factors need to be considered such as the impact of sales due to the changing price over time, seasonality, weather and competitors’ promotions.

A well-defined machine learning program can factor in all variations, including details such as purchase histories and product preferences to develop deep insights and pricing tailored to maximize revenue and ultimately, profit.

In the past, customer feedback was collected through forms and feedback cards that were filled out and placed in a suggestions box. The feedback had to be manually read and acted upon appropriately. With the rise of social media, the platforms were leveraged to express feedback publicly. Retailers subsequently engaged in social media scraping software to respond, resolve and engage with customers.

With the growing innovations, machine learning will play a larger role in this space. Machine learning and AI systems will be able to analyze unstructured data from multiple sources such as verbal comments or video content.  

The evolving retail experience

As a shopper moves through various stages in life, the circumstances and spending habits change. AI and machine learning models will adjust and be able to predict the needs of the consumer before the consumer even searches for a product.

This shift to predictive marketing would change the way shoppers purchase products, bringing in suggestions and recommendations that they would not have even considered. The possibilities would widen, all because of AI - for both consumers and retailers alike.