Ecommerce retailers know that search engines play a crucial role in the customer experience. While shopping online, the first thing many people do is search for a product via the search bar. Consumers want quick and accurate results. That’s why it’s important to have a well-optimized search engine on your ecommerce site.
With UpStart Commerce Search, customers will have a smooth and intuitive search experience, even with slight spelling mistakes or synonym searches. We are constantly working to enhance and improve our smart search technology to make sure your customers have the best possible shopping experience.
Read more: 5 Ways Smart Search Maximizes Profit
Benefits of a Smart Search Engine?
The need for an effective search engine is pretty straightforward. Customers want an efficient search platform to navigate to relevant products. According to the data report on thinkwithgoogle, 65% of the people using ecommerce use search directly to look for a product, and according to forrester, 43% of the users on the retail website go directly to the search bar. Moreover, according to an article on ecommerce trends, 80% of people leave the ecommerce store if it fails to provide them with convenient website navigation, relevant search, or clear product information.
Our blog thoroughly explains the features of our search platform and how it caters to the needs of the customers.
Important Ecommerce Search Features
UpStart Commerce’s Search engine is powered by OpenSearch and is one of the most powerful search engines based on the Lucene library. According to the latest stats from DB-Engines, OpenSearch ranks at the top of the table, beating other search engines such as Splunk, Solr, etc.
Here are a few specifications of our search engine platform:
Search on Every Service
Headless APIs are the central point of our ecommerce platform. We provide search functionality on all the services. That means that each service or API has search functionality associated with it.
Synonyms Support
We provide synonyms support for search platforms. Our platform identifies the related synonyms and yields results accordingly. Take couch as an example; if the user searches for the keyword “couch,” the results pop up after searching for sofas, chairs, and related synonyms. We provide the ability to modify this manually, so you have control over your customer’s experience.
Spelling Correction
UpStart Commerce’s Search platform also provides support for correcting misspelled words. The applied algorithms produce results after correcting the misspelled words or searching for related products to the misspelled words. Spelling correction happens in a few different ways:
- Manual Configuration
- You can manually define similar spellings. “Phone” is an autocorrection for the misspellings “phon” or “fone.”
- AI and Machine Learning
- We created a system with AI and ML that identifies misspelled words. Then it locates words similar to the misspelled words to use in the search instead.
- Proximity
- Based on the keyboard layout, we estimate what someone would have misspelled by clicking the nearest button. Using this technique, it is easier to find similar results e.g., “ohone” can be the same as “phone” based on the difference between “o” and “p” on the keyboard.
Phrase Searching
Phrase searching is a technique where the system searches for a combination of words and retrieves the results that match the provided combination by the user. Our phrase search prioritizes phrases over words in the query. The search matching the entire phrase appears on the top of the search results. All words in the phrase are keywords.
Pagination and Facet Support
Another feature we provide is the support of pagination that decides the number of search results with respect to the page(s). Facets are a subset of filters and help a person searching refine their search options without losing their way. This makes the search results relevant, and the consumer doesn’t get frustrated over getting unguided navigation.
What’s Coming to UpStart Commerce Search in Phase 2?
With all these wonderful features we are providing, we have set some future goals for our search platform, and they will be available for you very soon. Here is a list of our upcoming features and enhancements:
Similar Product Suggestions
Relevancy is the key feature of any effective search platform. We are working on incorporating machine learning in our Search engine, and it will determine similar products based on the searched items. The product category or description determines similar products. For example, if the desired product is a phone cover, the recommendations can be other mobile accessories such as screen protectors.
Customer-Based Recommendations
Another future goal is providing customer-based recommendations where a customer gets recommended for similar products based on the items in their cart or the items they have searched for. For example, a customer searching for a bed may also be interested in pillows. This way, the customer gets suggestions about other products based on their needs determined by their search or buying history.
Conclusion
In conclusion, smart search functionality plays a key role in the ecommerce experience. It enables shoppers to quickly find what they are looking for while correcting errors and recommending similar products to provide accurate results. An intelligent search platform should also improve and adapt to the changing needs of users. Improvements lead to increased customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and ultimately, increases sales.
Investing in a high-quality search engine like UpStart Commerce Search can help you stay ahead of the ecommerce competition and provide a seamless shopping experience. Don’t underestimate the importance of a strong search platform.
Our platform is highly optimized with tons of features to make sure you get the best search experience. Start your free 30-day trial today!
