February 22 nd -25 th, 2011 Exploring On-site Search with eTail, BabyAge.com and MarketingSherpa.
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February 22 nd -25 th , 2011 www.etail2011.com Exploring On-site Search with eTail, BabyAge.com and MarketingSherpa
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Transcript of February 22 nd -25 th, 2011 Exploring On-site Search with eTail, BabyAge.com and MarketingSherpa.
February 22nd-25th, 2011
www.etail2011.com
Exploring On-site Search with eTail, BabyAge.com and
MarketingSherpa
February 22nd-25th, 2011
www.etail2011.com
Join the conversation on Twitter
#EtailEvents
February 22nd-25th, 2011
www.etail2011.com
Consumer Website Tactics Usage and Efficacy
Sources: MarketingSherpa 2007 & 2009 Ecommerce Benchmark Report
Optimizing/customizing internal search results
• 43% of consumers go to a website’s internal search box to look for a product or a category
• Most popular consumer navigation tool
• Yet, 52% of marketers rated their internal search as a 'D' or an 'F'
• Customers who use the search box on ecommerce sites convert at nearly three times the rate of general browsers.
February 22nd-25th, 2011
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To present its thoughts, implementation process and opinions about Site Search
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Company OverviewBabyAge.com, Inc. born in 1999, is a retailer and manufacturer of Infant and Juvenile Products. BabyAge achieved over 100% growth every year in its first 6 years and has built an outstanding state of the art physical and technical infrastructure.
The infant and juvenile market is extremely fragmented. The largest retailer, Babies R Us, captured sales of approximately $4 billion last year. The next largest competitor, in our estimate, is approximately $250 million in annual sales. BabyAge is uniquely positioned to capitalize on further consolidation of this extremely fragmented infant and juvenile vertical market.
The business, including its physical, technical and human infrastructure has been designed to accommodate exponential growth. BabyAge controls a 50,000 sq ft facility, and has integrated a full wireless pick, pack and ship operation utilizing its proprietary software technologies. BabyAge can double its current run rate with the existing physical infrastructure.
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Efficiency: Distribution, Logistics and Process
The business, including its physical, technical and human infrastructure has been designed to accommodate exponential growth. The BabyAge facility, and has integrated a full wireless pick, pack and ship operation utilizing its proprietary software technologies. Our distribution facility is a physical manifestation that demonstrates the veracity by which we attack process and implement technology.
BabyAge always chooses to use technology (when applicable) to address most business impediments.
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Customer Base
FriendsOther Relatives
GrandparentsParents and Expectant Parents
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Site Search Issues• Site Search has been a top performing page, but we
knew it could be better.
• We constantly refined our own search code which generated a larger than expected overhead for our technical infrastructure.
• We tried a popular 3rd party search engine for a year, and struck out.
• The BabyAge internally developed search tool had the following issues:
• Slow load times (3 to 4 seconds)• Limited synonym or misspelling capabilities• Required a substantial technical investment to further
expand (hardware and software).
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Why Google Commerce Search (GCS)?• I had been following the Google Mini and the Google Search
Appliance for years and these solutions were not “commerce enough” for our intended use.
• A recent article lead me back to evaluate the GSC.
• A hosted/cloud solution would address both technical and capex issues.
• Quick and easy integration with excellent resources.
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• Potential opportunity with better Google Products results.
• “Lets call a Duck a Duck”: Who knows search better than Google?
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BabyAge Site Search Implementation:6 days from first contact (July 22 to July 27)
• Day 1: First conversation, initial contract discussions.
• Day 2: Received sampled code and had an initial implementation in a development environment by days end.
• Day 3 & 4: Weekend, Developers began to finalize implementation.
• Day 5: Facet refinement and style applied, a short list of implementation questions answered.
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•Day 6: Finalized contract, and had a one hour technical implementation call. Final testing.
•Launched at the end of Day 6.
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Spelling Correction
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Custom Facets
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Cowmooflage
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Google Commerce Search “Could Be Better”:
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• Use of Google Commerce Search Control Panel (GCSCP):• Only uses one login.• Full access to all functionality (missing roles and
permissions):• Example 1: Merchants need to login into GCSCP to
build promotions or boost individual search results.• Example 2: Merchants have to set up synonyms
manually in the GCSCP.• Example 3: Merchants need to set promotions in
GCSCP.
• Reporting is limited (although reporting in Google Analytics is seamless).
• Merchandising tools and functionality:• Are effective but not exhaustive.
• API:• Not all the functionality that exists in the GCSCP is
included in API.• GCS plans many new features which will require API
updates.• We would rather work directly with their API to allow our
merchants to work from our internal developed merchandising tools.
February 22nd-25th, 2011
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BabyAge Site Search by the Numbers:
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• GCS was launched on July 27, 2010. To quantify the results, we analyzed 8/1/09 – 12/31/09 vs.. 8/1/2010 – 12/31/2010.
• High Level Site Search Results:• Search page views up by 44.4% (on overall lower
traffic)• Site Conversion up by 24.1% (not all search related)
• Google Product Results:• Google Products revenue increased by 80.4%.• Google Products conversion increased by 73.3%
Last slide
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MarketingSherpa
Creative Practices
• Search box optimization• Search results as home page redesign catalyst• Accessibility of popular items• Organize, organize, organize• Search result test ideas
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Case Study #1: Search box optimization
Case Study ID: #CS839Location: MarketingSherpa Members LibraryMarketer: Black Forest Décor
Background: Mail order catalog and Internet business specializing in home decor and lighting products for homes, cabins and lodges
Goal: Optimize their onsite search box.
Primary research question: Do we need a bigger box?
Approach: Simple tweaks
Research Notes:
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Case Study: Before
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Case Study: After
Increased search box
size by 72%
Moved search box to center of
page
Tweaked copy near
search box
Added color to search
box
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Case Study: Before
Case Study: After
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Results
“The significant increase in raw searches was another benefit because it also gave us more options for keyword terms to consider for our SEM campaigns, and that part of the redesign didn’t take a whole lot of work.”
– Jason Dupus, President, Black Forest Décor
84% Increase in average revenue per customer using search
20% lift in conversions for people using onsite search
34% increase in website conversion rate
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Case Study #2: Search results as home page redesign catalyst
Separated navigation blocks by type of use
User-friendly terminology -- “Borrowing” instead of “Loans,” “Branches” vs. “Locations”
Results: Visitors finding what they want more quickly and easily• 1.2 searches per average session vs. 1.5• “Careers” – searches down 80%, traffic up 25%
February 22nd-25th, 2011
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Case Study #3: Accessibility of popular items
Most-viewed products arranged alphabetically
Top 21 product categories
Results• Revenue per visitor using the search box has increased $13.52 on average, up from the $4.99 per visi
Deliver search results based on popularity
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Organize,
Channels for the four to five groups that represent 80% of traffic
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Organize, organize
Refines searches for broad terms
Breaks down the list of results by topic
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Organize, organize, organize
Bad match between search term and data retrieved
No context for the results
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Search result test ideasSome options to test:•Last in, first out – to move older inventory (for those who maintain stock).•Top sellers – products which historically sell best in a given category.•Hot products – those which are currently moving at the best clip. These can change quickly based on unpredictable factors, such as articles in the press or social media waves, so this choice is best applied by companies with the technical capacity to automate the process.•Best margin products – an obvious appeal here, but the total conversion and sales should be considered. Often, the best margins belong to products that don’t sell as quickly as those at the other end of the spectrum.•Top-rated products – have been endorsed by site visitors through a review or rating function. The implied quality and trust of the ‘cloud’ can ease the selling process and minimize abandonment.•Associated sales – varies by the nature of the product and manufacturer. An electronics site may find that one MP3 player generates more purchases of headphones, sleeves, chargers and the like than another one does.
February 22nd-25th, 2011
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Consumer MarketingCase Studies
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MarketingSherpa.com/newsletters
February 22nd-25th, 2011
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Questions?Don’t hesitate to enter your questions into the Questions section of
your GoToWebinar control panel.
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www.theetailblog.com
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See you at eTail West, Feb. 22-25, 2011 at JW Marriott Desert Springs, Palm Desert, CA!
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to receive 20% OFF!
