What Retailers Need to Consider When Choosing On-Site Search

What’s keeping you from the benefits of a more sophisticated on-site search solution? We’ll walk you through the key considerations to keep in mind, as you move towards getting up and running with a new provider.

You’ll learn about:

• Determining which solution (and price point) will bring the broadest range of benefits.
• The effort needed to get started (and how much time your provider will save you in the long run!)
• How to future proof your choice of technology – crucial in today’s economy.

Ready to benefit from improved on-site search, but unsure what to look for in your provider? Here are a few key factors to keep in mind …

The Search for a Solution

The benefits of on-site search are well established — and to meet modern consumer expectations and boost conversion, a sophisticated solution is crucial.

But with so many options available, how should you go about researching and choosing the perfect fit for your e-commerce enterprise?

In this article we’ll explore some of the factors you should weigh up when booking your demo calls.

Double Duty: How Hard Will Your On-Site Search Work For You?

It may be that you haven’t utilized a sophisticated on-site search solution before. You might even be wondering if the need to improve your on-site search is truly pressing. If so, you’ll want hard evidence that your chosen product is going to deliver tangible benefits.

On-site search has earned its reputation as an essential element of modern online retail. Klevu’s powerful automation, machine-learning and proven ROI make it a strong contender for any retailer looking to capitalize on the potential and profitability of on-site search.

Exploring feature lists is a great starting point, but you should look at a range of other factors too.

Weigh up price points versus capabilities. You may lean towards dipping your toe in the water with a budget provider, but ultimately you’ll want a partner who can keep pace with your business, scaling effortlessly alongside you.

When adding to your stack, it’s essential that everyone will play nicely together. Investigate the integrations and tech partners that each option works alongside. How established within your platform’s ecosystem are they, and what do their partnerships look like?

Your on-site search shouldn’t just improve your customers’ shopping experience, but empower you to make smarter business decisions based on search data, too. Explore what analytics are provided, and consider how this could be applied to drive more sales.

Everyone needs a helping hand at times, so be sure to ask about the level of support you can expect as you perfect your on-site search set up. Klevu’s team are ready and waiting to take your questions.

Thinking Ahead: How Future Proof and Portable is Your Selection?

In the modern e-commerce world, re-platforming is often a necessity. You may be considering a move in the near to mid-future, or even be in the process of re-platforming right now. Make sure your choice of on-site search partner will be by your side for the long haul.

Klevu integrates seamlessly with all platforms, so you never have to worry about losing the benefits your store gains. Everything that is learned about your customer base can be safely transferred to your new platform and put to use instantly. And a consistent on-site search experience is a great way to keep your re-platformed store feeling familiar and relevant to loyal customers.

You should also ask questions about each on-site search provider’s development roadmap — what have they got on the horizon? E-commerce doesn’t stand still, so your tech partners should be continuously innovating to offer their customers an ever-improving experience.

While it’s important to ensure that a new technology will fit into your existing budgeting plans, you should also be looking at long term ROI. For thousands of happy customers, Klevu more than pays for itself in boosted conversion and upped AOV.

Easy Does It: How Much Time Do You Have to Invest?

In these challenging times, you may feel like you already have too many other projects on the go and that “yet another” integration will place excessive demands on a team at full capacity.

It’s important to decide what your expectations are in terms of the effort required to install, set up and maintain your solution. You’ll need to weigh “build your own” solutions (which offer a high degree of customization, but at a heavy development cost) against “plug and play” products, which are ready to get to work straight away.

By selecting a trustworthy, plug and play solution like Klevu, you get the best of both worlds: UX that feels intuitive right out of the box, and a product that’s up and running reliably with minimal input.

You should be looking for a solution that’s quick to implement, and which frees up bandwidth as soon as it’s installed.

In many cases, installing and configuring Klevu takes less than an hour, and can be managed simply from your platform’s app store. Even platforms that typically require more developer involvement (hello, Magento!) enjoy a slick set up process, with themes preserved at the tick of a box.

Once installed, Klevu’s automation is a huge time saver. As you embrace machine learning and wave goodbye to manual merchandising, you’ll see your team’s bandwidth released, freeing up precious resources and time.

The self-learning element of Klevu never sleeps, with the algorithm continuously learning to deliver a polished performance that only gets better over time. There’s no manual effort required and it leaves you plenty of time to focus on the other elements of your customer experience.

So, Which Solution is Right for You?

Ultimately, there’s no “one size fits all” when it comes to on-site search, but some factors are universally important and demand careful consideration.

• Pick a timesaving solution that gives you superpowers, while automating the heavy lifting.
• Go with a partner that makes it easy to decode your search data, and that’s dedicated to ensuring you have all the tools you need to optimize conversion.
• Choose a technology that’s forward-thinking, continually innovating and reflective of shifts in modern shoppers’ behavior.
• Settle on a solution that’s a breeze to install, and ready to rock any new platform you care to throw at it.

Conclusion

To find out if Klevu could be the perfect fit for your e-commerce store book a demo today.