It is a process in which the user steps on the website and searches for a product (a product of their interest). The timer starts when they enter the store. Their total time to locate the product is called “Product finding time”.
To state it succinctly, when you enter a website, the virtual clock starts until you find the product. The moment you discover the product, the process of product finding is completed, and the total time taken by you to discover is termed “product finding time”.
The success of an eCommerce website relies on trademark execution in the area of product finding. Minimum the product discovery time, better the chances of conversion. Some stats suggest that product discovery time decides whether the website will have bounce rates higher than the conversions or vice-versa. Ecommerce specimens like Amazon and Alibaba have worked considerably to improve product discovery time.
Small-scale enterprises have managed to make visitors wander to their sites longer than larger stores. This sounds like a greater engagement time, but in actuality, customers spend more time locating the correct product leading to more bounce rates. Hence, it is imperative to work in the field of truncating the discovery time.
Browse through these tips and execute them relevantly on your website to enhance the product discoverability:
Table of Contents
Optimize your landing page
The landing page, the touchpoint at which users and machines interact for the first time, can be used as a crucial product discovery page. An optimized landing page can prevent major bounce rates. Personalizing a dynamic landing page can lead to an easy product search.
Execute the following points to optimize your online store:
Highlight Common Items: History has proved that festivals are the driving force for shopping. What do we buy during the Christmas season? Gift cards, clothes, and probably some apparel. Setting branded and common items on the homepage could save product discovery time immensely.
Bifurcate the Products: Myriad of products could baffle users. Make smart use of landing space. Bifurcate the products based on gender. Make two sections named his & her, and help your customers find the product without making them waste their time.
Exhibit New Arrivals: We either search for common commodities or new arrivals. Divide as many sections as you can on the landing page. Someone who wants the latest products should waste no time moving aimlessly through the website.
Work on customer’s navigation properly
You will need to figure out what audience uses navigation. Using a smart search bar is good, but appending smart navigational tools and extensions to your website can lower the headache of unsystematic and untidily searching through your website.
A type of audience knows what they are looking for but is absolutely unaware of the product’s attributes. For example, I wanted to purchase a guitar once. That was my first experience. I was only sure that I wanted a guitar without knowing its specifics. Categorical bifurcation helped me to conclude that there were 10 types of guitars, all unique in their styles and patterns.
The navigation section was agile, robust, powerful, and user-friendly. I just had to hover my mouse over flyout menus that said “GUITAR,” and it diversified into different types of guitar. These flyout menus stashed a great amount of time, making page reloading an obsolete process. There are various methods by which you can drill down the product discovery time. It depends on your creativity and of course your bank deposits.
Raise the ante in the field of filters
Something which has reduced the product discovery time drastically is the usage of filters.
- Filters narrow down the search result leading to stockpiling the time of users.
- By adding filter extensions, you can also manage a cumbersome store with ease, deflecting your remaining time in some other constructive works like managing relationships with the customers and promoting your brand.
As of now, we have worked on optimizing the homepage and navigation. What’s the next step? The next step is to allow users to filter the products. You can authorize them to filter the products by the following methods:
Use Attributes to Filter, Make Them as Selling Weapons: Make sure that you associate a maximum number of attributes to the products. Ensure that all the attributes (for example length, color, dimensions, brand name, etc) are filterable and can be sorted as per the user’s requirement. Any day, the fluid and the seamless shopping experience are better than a static offering. Filters like layered navigation and price slider (price as an attribute) allow users to filter items by required attributes and customizable options.
Use Product Finders for Complex Industrial Backgrounds: Tagging maximum attributes to your products is easier said than done. Just think about the matrix table if there are 100s of classified products each with 10s of attributes. Hence, identifying the attributes of your products plays an important role in product finding.
Considering an example of the automobile industry, you will have to identify a different set of properties and introduce it on your website. One easy way to simplify product search for an automobile eCommerce is by adding a Year-Make-Model (Part Finder) Module.
For example: Work on product finding by adding simple drop-down components based on primary facets like model number, model date, date of manufacturing, etc.
Optimize site search
Google would have evoked a sound of GOOGLE and not GOOOOOOGLE if there were no smart and optimized search bar. Similarly, your site wants an optimized site search which could minimize the product discovery time. Let’s check out what it takes to make an optimized site search:
- Distinguished Placement, Easy Visibility, And a neatly-Designed search bar are the keys to smart search.
- Making the search bar visible on all the pages, from check-in to check-out.
- Granting power to the users to search within the results pages.
- An autocomplete search bar is a must.
- A “No Search Result” can repel your customers.
- Affixing synonym tools to avoid no results.
- A bar that allows Multi-Linguistic Search.
A brief guide for personalizing an automobile eCommerce store
Design and Customize your Website
Customize your theme without using any codes. If you want to make major modifications, the M-connects custom engine is the right choice.
Import Catalogue with Ease
Sell all the stock units by importing the catalog via CSV. You don’t have to enter anything manually. M-connect is known to support a large chunk of catalogs than any other e-builders.
Narrow Product Search with Multi-Facet Search
Sell automotive parts online by letting your customers skim through the inbuilt faceted search. These faceted attributes are customizable and suffice your needs.
The final call
Since you have ideas on improving the chances of product visibility and discoverability on your online store, don’t wait and run to implement. Work on these areas and improve your chances of brand acceptability.
