Site Search

The state of e-commerce search: If you asked about it a year ago, the consensus was that it’s pretty stale. Looking for an item? You’d need to keep it brief when typing in the search bar (no complete sentences, just a handful of keywords — adopting a form of “caveperson speak” ), hit “enter,” and…

In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, search is essential for large enterprises. Early search engines worked as keyword retrieval engines but have since evolved into semantic search engines as customer searches have become broader and less focused on exact words. Retailers continuously personalize their search engines based on customer preferences and engagement patterns. Now, the…

Once the purview of science fiction, artificial intelligence (AI) has now permeated our everyday lives — from the home devices that recommend songs for our playlists, to the apps we use to monitor commuter traffic, to the chatbots that pop up to ask if we need any help. Unbeknownst to many consumers, AI has become…

Instacart‘s partnership with OpenAI was a significant first step in showing how generative artificial intelligence will fundamentally change the digital shelf and retail media. Amazon.com also has several generative AI-powered initiatives, including AI-generated review highlights and Project Nile, a GenAI search concierge reportedly set to launch in January. If the feature fulfills its potential, it…

If you asked nearly 500 online shoppers how they would classify their experience finding products on their favorite retail website and nearly three in four said it was “easy,” you’d think that most websites were doing a pretty good job, right? Think again. While 70 percent of those shoppers characterized searching for products online as…

Even in its earliest form, commerce has always been centered around conversation. The evolution to e-commerce seemed to de-center that conversational element, though. Without a person to speak with, conversation was relegated to a single place within the online shopping experience: the search bar. As the only direct insight into what consumers really want, the…

With social commerce on the rise — estimates have sales through social platforms growing from $27 billion in 2020 to nearly $80 billion by 2025 — consumer expectations of online shopping experiences are changing, particularly with respect to website design and user experience. However, as brands adapt their sites to this changing behavior, one key…

A retailer’s ability to create a seamless and relevant experience for their customers ultimately can be the difference between gaining loyalty or falling behind competitors. Today’s customers are looking for faster connections to the items they’re looking for and want personalization at every step along the way. This is why the pressure to nail online…

Understanding what customers wanted was pretty simple in a physical store. They could tell a store associate, “I need a coat for a ski trip,” or simply point to an item to say, “I need something like that.” With the introduction of online shopping, the e-commerce search bar became the store associate. A customer simply…

Amid economic turbulence, many retailers are revamping their marketing strategies to try and bring in more customers. However, increasing advertising spend is not the end-all-be-all solution to boosting their bottom lines. Instead, they can increase their revenue by more effectively capitalizing on the customer interactions they already have on their e-commerce platforms and outperforming competitors.…