Out of the top online retailers, 91% have improved customer conversion rates, 60% have increased average order value and 100% report year over year increases in customer satisfaction because of their Web site search applications according to a new report “Web Site Search: Revenue in the Results”, by Aberdeen.
86% of companies seeing the highest returns from their web site search applications perform moderate to extensive customizations to fit their specific products or services. The result for 83% of online companies is a positive return on investment from their Web site search applications.
“eCommerce 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,” said John Lovett, research analyst, Aberdeen. “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.”
Aberdeen asked companies about their web site search application performance measurement in three areas of their business to find out which metrics determine search application excellence. The three business categories are financial, operational and consumer. Each category includes Key Performance Indicators specific to Web site search that compare successful online companies to those that are lagging.
Consumer pressures were found to be key factors for ecommerce Web site. Producing accurate and useful results remains a top pressure for 78% of survey respondents who want to provide search tools to improve the customer experience. This was followed by the financial pressure of raising revenue according to 53% of all respondents. 35% said they felt pressure to gain a better understanding of customer behavior through search tools.
The primary strategy taken by 59% of survey respondents was to look for ways to continually improve their search tools while providing customers with relevant results.
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