It’s a rapidly changing situation, but it’s safe to say that the global Coronavirus Pandemic has defined 2020.  Nobody could have foreseen the dramatic changes to their way of life people have experienced across the world.  Every non-essential store has been directly impacted by the pandemic and stores are only now gradually starting to reopen.  These events have resulted in unprecedented changes to consumer behavior and most transactions now moving online.

Customers have been forced from their daily routines, which included visiting a brick-and-mortar store.  They have been buying what they need online.  Data from a new Capgemini Research Institute report shows that 59% of consumers worldwide had high levels of interaction with physical stores before COVID-19, but now only 24% expect to return to that level.  This is a tectonic shift in consumer shopping habits and is here to stay.  Shoppers will certainly return to brick-and-mortar stores over time, but the more intuitive and happy eCommerce shoppers are, the more likely they are to continue to use eCommerce channels.  Unless companies can quickly adapt to changing circumstances, Amazon will be the new habit for those who couldn’t buy elsewhere.  The next challenge for e-retailers is to provide a superior shopping experience, on par with Amazon.

Search on eCommerce sites has always been important.  After all, searching is shopping in an eCommerce context.  With so many more people currently using eCommerce, it is even more important than usual that if your business can provide what a shopper is looking for, you get it in front of them as soon as possible.  If a shopper uses your search box, they have an idea of what they’re looking for, so you need to make sure they find it, fast.  These shoppers don’t want to waste time repeating searches or navigating through your site.  Your search box is your best Salesperson, especially in this season.

In this blog series, we will be exploring how your business can move, grow, and thrive online.  If there were ever a time to make sure that your customers can buy from you wherever they are, using any device (phone, PC, or tablet), it is surely now.

We will be exploring in more detail the following elements of good search over the coming months:

AI Natural Language Search

70% of eCommerce search implementations are unable to return relevant results, requiring users to search using the exact same jargon as the site[1]

Yes, that’s right, nearly three-quarters of eCommerce site searches will only return the right products if the customers happen to use the right language.  That’s a lot of lost revenue when those customers become frustrated and abandon the site.

We will explore how an AI/Natural Language search solution will ensure that your customers can find what they’re looking for, utilizing intelligent linguistic algorithms, synonym recognition, part number expansion, and more.

Instant Search

Presenting customers with the most relevant search, product, and category suggestions is essential.  But it is easy to get Instant Search, or Autocomplete, so wrong that it actually has a negative impact on your shoppers.

36% of autocomplete implementations on eCommerce websites do more harm than good[2]

Although basic autocomplete suggestions can be found on 82% of eCommerce sites, most sites do not take the opportunity to capitalize on merchandising while users are searching.

Advanced Search-As-You-Type (SAYT) returns correct results as you’re typing in the search box, refining as you continue to enhance, à la Google.  We will explore how to maximize the SAYT experience for your users.

Business Rules

We will demonstrate how you, the business user, can be in control of the products that are presented to your customers.  For example, using simple natural language rules to promote your own brand, to promote another brand during a campaign, or to ‘bury’ products which are low inventory.

Mobile

In a mobile environment, particularly with the proliferation of voice search, we have no idea how a user is going to search.  People don’t speak in keywords, they speak in sentences.

If people have a negative experience on mobile,

they’re 62% less likely to purchase from you in the future[3]

We’ll show you how to make sure you’re not putting off your customers with a poor user experience compared to your desktop site.

Personalization

Personalization is a valuable and effective part of the shopping experience.  But personalization must always be just that – a part of the shopping experience, not the shopping experience.  Personalization is at its best when it is used in the context of the right set of products to choose from – the most relevant products.  We’ll explore how to make personalization more powerful through great search.

No Results Pages

46% of eCommerce sites have a ‘No Results Page’ implementation that is essentially a

dead-end for users, offering no more than a generic set of search tips[4]

Generating a generic ‘Sorry, no results matched your search’ message could be disastrous.  But what if you could define and control products, categories, and messaging to display and therefore retain otherwise lost customers?

Conversational Commerce

With the research showing the pattern for Artificial Intelligence to be the biggest influence on eCommerce over the coming years, it is time to make sure that your search system will be able to keep up.

Whether using text or voice input, your customers will be progressively accustomed to chat-based interactions and will expect this format when buying online.  We will be showing how by adopting an intuitive AI-based search system that can cope with the demands of Conversational Commerce, you will be able to fast-track your customers to the right products every time.

[1] https://baymard.com/blog/ecommerce-search-report-and-benchmark

[2] https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/08/the-current-state-of-e-commerce-search/

[3] https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-gb/advertising-channels/mobile/few-tips-speed-your-mobile-site-and-tools-test-it/

[4]  https://baymard.com/ecommerce-search/benchmark/page-types/no-search-results-page

The post COVID-19 eCom Blog Series: Why your Search Box is your best Salesperson appeared first on EasyAsk.

The EasyAsk team recently visited the Windy City to be a part of IRCE at RetailX. This year’s event merged three shows into one, with the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE) holding its 15^th annual event. RetailX attracted 20,000 attendees and more than 1,200 exhibiting brands, with EasyAsk proud to be counted among them.

We were able to impress visitors to the EasyAsk booth by demonstrating how outstanding EasyAsk’s Search and Navigation solution is. In case you missed the show, here is what one of the EasyAsk team could have shown you:

The North Face use EasyAsk to power their search so it’s a great example of some of the functionality. This voice search contains references to gender, price and color, as well as redundant words, such as ‘I’m looking for’. EasyAsk has the ability to cope with all of this information and returns the following results:

The EasyAsk engine has understood that ‘wife’ is a synonym for ‘womens’ and brings back only red, waterproof, ladies jackets priced less than $200. Although each of the 11 results are available in different colors, the thumbnail picture presented in the results is always in the red tone.

Contrast this successful search to the same search using Amazon.com:

Amazon’s engine cannot cope with the complexities of this query and the top suggested searches are for ‘I’m red waterproof’ and ‘I’m looking waterproof’.

It is clear that EasyAsk’s understanding of natural language is far superior to that of the eCommerce giant, Amazon. We think this is why the IRCE attendees were so impressed…

It’s worth taking a closer look when it comes to search and merchandising solutions. We’d love to show you further how EasyAsk out-performs Amazon and competes with Google. We can help you help your customers to find the right products, first time.

More information about IRCE can be found at www.irce.com

Take a closer look at EasyAsk’s search and merchandising solutions at www.easyask.com

The post IRCE @ RetailX 2019: How EasyAsk impressed prospective customers appeared first on EasyAsk.

What is Conversational Commerce?

The term ‘Conversational Commerce’ is used to describe the connection between Sellers and Buyers through messaging and chat applications. Many people now like to use chat systems to accomplish different tasks, but until fairly recently, this kind of interaction has predominantly been used for accessing support, such as customer services. But what if online retailers could use Conversational Commerce to provide a better, more personalized user experience for their shoppers?

Gartner research shows that by 2020:

• 30% of digital commerce revenue growth will be attributable to artificial intelligence technologies, such as those that power conversational commerce.

• 5% of all digital commerce transactions will come from a smart machine, such as those that power conversational commerce.

As people become more accustomed to interacting in a conversational way, they will be increasingly likely to want to use the same conversational mode when finding products.

Mirroring the Store Experience

When a customer walks into a physical store, the sales associate can ask a series of questions to narrow down the choice and focus in on the right products for the customer. In a human context, the sales associate has the necessary knowledge about the products to filter down to a few products.

This is what retailers should be trying to achieve online with Conversational Commerce.

When shopping online, a Conversational Commerce system should intelligently suggest appropriate ways of limiting a set of products. You need to make sure that your system has the intelligence to ask your customer the right questions.

Intelligent Questions and Responses

Let’s compare the in-store experience to one that could be achieved via Conversational Commerce:

Store Sales Associate                                                             Conversational AI-powered Search Engine

Just like with the in-store experience, the Conversational Commerce engine asks questions in a logical order and uses the responses to intelligently suggest attributes to refine the search further.

However your customers wish to interact with you, they should have a similar experience. But the Conversational Commerce experience shown above is only possible with the support of powerful, intuitive technology. This kind of advanced interaction requires an AI-based engine that can understand what the next set of attributes (prompts for the user) should be.

Are You Ready?

With the research showing the pattern for Artificial Intelligence to be the biggest influence on eCommerce over the coming years, it is time to make sure that your search system will be able to keep up. Whether using text or voice input, your customers will be progressively accustomed to chat-based interactions and will expect this format when buying online. By adopting an intuitive AI-based search system that can cope with the demands of Conversational Commerce, you will be able to fast-track your customers to the right products every time.

The post What is Conversational Commerce and what does it mean for eCommerce? appeared first on EasyAsk.

Search is essential in eCommerce – it is the gateway. Search is how consumers express what they want and if they don’t find what they want, they can’t buy it. People who choose to search have a far better idea of what they are looking for than those who browse, and are therefore far more likely to make a purchase. This means that understanding the intent of the shopper, however it is worded, is essential to conversion in eCommerce.

This is increasingly important with the proliferation of voice and the adoption of Natural Language searching by the general public. Home Voice Assistants, such as Alexa and Google Home, which were initially used for music, have gone a lot further and are getting smarter. According to new data from Loup Ventures, all Voice Assistants tested had improved in terms of questions answered correctly, with Siri making the most improvement.

From Keywords to Natural Language

Do people generally use Natural Language Search? Most might say, ‘no, not really’. But the truth is that everyone uses AI/NL search everyday, provided you have a computer or Smartphone. Do you ever search on the Internet?   You’re using Google or Bing or maybe Yahoo. All are AI/NL search engines and are incredibly smart. In 2011, Google was hit by a torpedo with the words ‘SIRI’ on it. Google immediately acquired an AI/NL search company and threw out years of keyword search technology: instantly obsolete.

Now people are becoming used to using Natural Language to talk to their smart home devices, but how do they interact with onsite search?

It’s a huge shame, but unfortunately people have become accustomed to the fact that eCommerce Search Engines can’t usually handle queries with more than one or two words, as most of them use obsolete keyword search. Even when using voice search, they assume that they need to think carefully about what the Search Engine is likely to understand, search, then probably rephrase.

But thanks to Home Voice Assistants, when users pick up their phones to use voice search, they’re increasingly likely to speak using Natural Language as opposed to keywords. When people speak, they naturally throw in extra words so an intuitive Natural Language Engine is needed to understand these longer-tail queries.

The beauty of having a true Natural Language Engine is that the customer can be understood as if they were talking to a Sales Associate. By leveraging Natural Language processing, the burden is on the Search Engine, not on the person talking.

If a customer walked into a North Face store, they might say to a sales associate, “I’m looking for a new waterproof jacket for my wife please.” Using these same words in a voice search on thenorthface.com brings back the following results:

The Search Engine has returned 18 highly relevant results.

Similarly, if a customer walked into a Timberland store, they might ask the Sales Associate, “Do you have any ladies field boots please?” In a voice search on timberland.com, exactly the right product is returned immediately:

Both Timberland and The North Face use EasyAsk to power their search. Their online customers can use voice search to describe exactly what they’re looking for as if they were in a store. These major brands have experienced dramatic revenue boosts between 37-70%.

EasyAsk’s search engine understands these types of queries. Will your Search Engine fail as more people search in this way, or will you be ready for the future because your Search Engine understands how people speak? Using a Natural Language Search Engine allows even small businesses to compete with the search quality of Amazon. You don’t need repetitive shopping behavior data to deliver fantastic results. Natural Language levels the playing field.

Encouraging your users to use voice search (perhaps by adding a microphone icon in the search bar) will mean that they provide more information about what they’re looking for. This in turn will mean that your users will see exactly the right results on the first page. Less time spent finding what they’re looking for results in a higher chance of conversion and higher revenue for your business.

The norm for voice interactions is changing. The future starts now.

“EasyAsk understands exactly what your customers are looking for. Delivering the right results, the first time. Everytime.”

Craig Bassin, CEO EasyAsk

The post Using AI-based Natural Language to improve eCommerce appeared first on EasyAsk.

And the implications for eCommerce

Automation of the home environment through Voice

It’s all about the Voice

Increasing numbers of people are using voice, thanks to the growing popularity of home voice assistants such as Alexa. We’re all aware of their invasion of our homes over recent years. They carry out a range of tasks for us daily, but they don’t always get it right. A bit of browsing using the hashtag ‘alexafail’ brings back some fun results:

Whether the voice assistants get it right or wrong, their popularity has boosted Voice technology into the mainstream. But it hasn’t always been about Alexa or Siri. Let’s take a look at how Voice technology has developed over the years with a brief timeline:

How does Voice affect eCommerce?

This proliferation of voice has a knock-on effect for eCommerce, with a study by OC & C Strategy Consultants forecasting a 1,999% increase in voice shopping, reaching $40 billion by 2022. This explosion in revenue will be primarily Mobile Voice UX on Smartphones.

Much of this predicted $40 billion will be attributed to Amazon as people use their devices more for shopping. Having said this, the ability to handle the same voice functionalities becomes even more important for other retailers, as users are increasingly used to voice shopping.

By 2021, mobile eCommerce sales are expected to account for 54% of total eCommerce sales.

Recent statistics even show that for certain brands, more than 75% of transactions are happening from mobile devices.

While more users are using mobile than desktop, conversion rates are dramatically lower for mobile, highlighting inconsistencies between user experience for desktop and mobile. The principle reasons for this m-commerce ‘gap’ are ease of use and product findability. The move towards using voice will allow users to get around that, as it’s easier to do than typing.

Voice recognition does not necessarily provide understanding.

Voice capabilities have been around for a long time, but the ability for the search engine to understand the context of the phrase, the intent of the shopper, was missing.  Now that users are more used to using voice with home assistants like Alexa, voice shopping will increase exponentially.

Businesses who are voice-enabled will see a dramatic increase in conversion rates.

In order to take advantage of these changes in how shoppers are choosing to buy online, you need technology that will understand the way people speak and be able to respond appropriately.

Understanding Language and Taking Action

Imagine that Joe Bloggs speaks to his fridge:

“I need a large glass of milk”

The technology installed in the fridge may be able to understand the request but can’t actually pour Joe that large glass of milk. This demonstrates perfectly a site that enables voice input but doesn’t have AI-based Natural Language Processing in order to intuitively deal with voice requests.

More and more users are expecting to be able to have a conversation when buying online. Using conversational search is therefore going to become more popular. Unfortunately, eCommerce search systems generally aren’t conversational.

EasyAsk’s solutions are on the cutting edge of understanding voice input and conversational search, providing the technology necessary to keep up with the proliferation of Voice.

“With all the fervor around voice-activated applications and machine intelligence, EasyAsk can help end-user organizations and vendors put an Apple Siri- or IBM Watson-like front end on…search applications.”

Gartner Cool Vendor: Analytics

Look out for future blog posts, where we will explore in more detail:

• Using AI-based Natural Language processing to improve eCommerce product search

• What is Conversational Search and what does it mean for eCommerce?

The post The Proliferation of Voice appeared first on EasyAsk.

The North Face have unveiled FUTURELIGHT, a new fabric for outerwear.  Developed with nano-spinning technology, this revolutionary fabric promises to be more breathable & waterproof than anything else.

EasyAsk is proud to provide The North Face’s search and merchandizing solution. To find out why companies like the The North Face choose EasyAsk to power their site, visit easyask.com For more information, visit The North Face’s Futurelight pages.

The post The North Face unveil new outdoor fabric at CES 2019 appeared first on EasyAsk.

The Price is Right

Pricing is a critical component of a B2B eCommerce site. There’s nothing more disastrous than a customer seeing the wrong price for a product. The emphasis should be on accuracy and processing speed.

It is common for B2B prices to be individualized based on factors such as contract, purchasing frequency, and volume. Sometimes bulk prices are displayed, grouped according to the number bought.

There are 2 main pricing situations that your search system will need to cater for. We will explore them and discover how best they can be handled:

1.    Price Groups

Rather than allocating individual prices for every customer, some businesses have levels or groups of prices, e.g. Level ‘A’ to ‘E’. Depending on the group level allocated to the customer, they’ll see one of a number of prices. In these situations, if the customer is identified, the search system can index all prices and decide whether to pass back, for example, the Level ‘A’, Level ‘B’ price. This situation works well when there are up to about 10 price levels.

2.    Dynamic Pricing

In this situation, every customer has negotiated prices, based on volume or contract etc. and the search system can’t know the price in advance. There are several ways in which a search system can handle dynamic pricing:

The search system indexes a standard price, and a message is displayed alongside the product on the search results page along the lines of:

“This is the standard price. For your pricing, view the product details.”

When the customer accesses the product details screen, the price for that particular customer is calculated and displayed. The advantage of this method is that price attribute filters, such as price sliders or selectors, can be displayed on the search results page, giving users the option to filter results based on the standard prices.

For each page of results, the ecommerce system calculates and retrieves the prices for the products that are going to be displayed on that page. Most sites only show one page at a time, approximately 10-12 products. Once the search system has passed back the product IDs, it can calculate the prices based on pricing rules, which can then be shown on the product results page. The search system uses a pricing engine to pass back appropriate prices. The disadvantage of this method is that any price attributes on the search results page become invalid.

An advanced, flexible search system can call a pricing engine as part of its process. This means that it can retrieve exact pricing before the attributes are calculated, passing back the correct pricing for each customer. This method allows for totally dynamic pricing. For every product in the results, a price is needed, which does mean that page load time can be affected. For on-premise B2B customers, this overhead would be reduced because the pricing engine will be running on the same internal network, or even the same server that the search system is running on.

Multiple Options

When displaying search results, there is sometimes the need for the price to be more than a single number. Sometimes a set of prices according to volume is required. The search system will need to be able to pass all prices back, perhaps displaying them in a table showing quantity vs price. Does your search system have the ability to pass back multiple prices?

Flexibility is the Answer

Every B2B business has differing needs, and it is essential that search systems are flexible to reflect this. EasyAsk can index multiple prices, calling out to a pricing engine if required, and pass back pricing structures in the results, as opposed to just a simple price. It may be that a business has a set of thresholds for discounts, or individualized pricing based on customer ID. EasyAsk adapts to all circumstances. This isn’t the case for all search systems.

Why Choose EasyAsk?

EasyAsk offers the only site search and merchandising tool designed exclusively for the rigors and challenges of B2B eCommerce. EasyAsk can be configured for any platform, either commercial or built in-house.

EasyAsk has long served the B2B customer segment and over 200 B2B distributors have chosen us to power their B2B eCommerce sites, including: Aramark, Demco, Kaman Industries, Tacoma Screw, and Crown Packaging.

The post B2B Series Challenge 4: Dynamic Pricing appeared first on EasyAsk.

According to Forrester, B2B eCommerce in the U.S. will hit $1.2 trillion by 2021, seeing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.4% over the next four years. It is therefore essential that B2B businesses optimize the experience for their customers online. B2B sites have typically been known as less usable, but it is time for them to catch up with B2C and make it really easy for customers to do business. B2B eCommerce has unique complexities, which present unique challenges and therefore require a unique set of best practices. We will explore these challenges in our B2B blog series and offer advice and solutions to ensure that your B2B site delivers a superior experience.

The complex world of part numbers

B2B shoppers are much more likely to search using specific product numbers. B2B product numbers can inherently be more complex and therefore be easily mistyped or forgotten. B2B product numbers often take the following forms:

• Groups of numbers, letters and other characters, such as hyphens and slashes
• Long numbers with some kind of structure, e.g. 123 4567 89

If your customers can’t find parts or part numbers on your eCommerce site, they will be calling your customer services, which is expensive to you and inconvenient for them. Worse still, they may take their business to your competitors.

Complex product numbers affect many businesses, but some more than others. Take print cartridges for example. It is important for customers to find the exact cartridges that are compatible with their printer. We used a print cartridge site to search for cartridges for a Kyocera Ecosys printer:

As you can see, the printer model numbers are made up of very similar combinations of letters and numbers. Scrolling through the list revealed 3 times this number of results.

A mechanic who needs a car part for a job the next day is probably not going to be the person typing the part number into a search box. Someone in the office will be asked to order the part, and when they can’t find the part due a slight error in the part number, they have to get on the phone to the supplier. This means it costs the car parts vendor more to service the customer.

The challenge for B2B eCommerce sites is clear, but what can be implemented to avoid the need for calls to a customer service line or using a competitor’s site?

EasyAsk’s ‘Begins Expander’

A ‘Begins Expander’ is EasyAsk functionality that attempts to predict the most common inaccuracies a ‘searcher’ will make when attempting a product number search using EasyAsk’s advanced autocomplete functionality. A Begins Expander can be set up for any field, but is most relevant for a part or product number field. It can be configured to start or finish on any number of characters and it will index the part number as the start parameter, then plus 1 character, then plus 2 characters, and so on until the end parameter. For example, if the product code is 1234567 with the parameters 3 and 7, the Begins Expander would index:

123

1234

12345

123456

1234567

This is an extremely effective technique as it is incredibly helpful to a searcher that doesn’t remember the entire product code, they can just start to type the beginning of the code and EasyAsk’s Search As You Type (SAYT)/autocomplete will show all possible product codes.

                         enasco.com begins to suggest product numbers after 2 characters are typed

EasyAsk’s ‘Part Number Expander’

A ‘Part Number Expander’ is especially useful for complex part numbers that include a combination of letters, numbers and other characters. A user might forget whether characters were separated by a hyphen or a slash, or might omit letters on the end. The Part Number Expander takes each part number and creates all the different versions of terms and inserts them into the searchable index so that if any of them are searched for, they will match to the product. The code is broken up into parts and the separators are substituted in all combinations. For example, if the part number is

123-HC/1345AB

the Part Number Expander would index:

123-HC-1345AB                                                                        123

123/HC/1345AB                                                                       123-HC

123/HC-1345AB                                                                        HC

123 HC 1345AB                                                                          1345

AB

amongst many other combinations.

If a customer types a part number that is slightly different (for example, using spaces instead of hyphens) the correct part will still be found.

Ecklerscorvette.com demonstrates how the Part Number Expander can avoid no results for customers:

The part number for this disc brake set is 25-261256-1. If a customer replaces the hyphens with spaces, the exact product is still returned.

We’ve got you covered

The 2 capabilities above are just a part of the EasyAsk experience. There is no effort to use them; no extra coding is needed because EasyAsk does it automatically. When your data is read the part numbers are broken up based on rules that are built internally. EasyAsk will scan the part or product numbers, and wherever they change from or to alphabetic or numeric, they will be treated as a separate part.

EasyAsk making all the difference

An EasyAsk customer recently encountered problems with product number variations and saw outstanding results when they implemented EasyAsk’s software:

EasyAsk was approached by a library and schools supplier who was a printed catalog business before launching online. Their web system only used the internal product codes, which were just numbers, whereas in the catalogs, each number had a 2-character prefix with a hyphen. So, if the internal product code was 1234, in the catalog it could be rx-1234, kb-1234, depending on the different catalogs that were issued throughout the year.

The company found that a teacher or librarian would look in the catalog, find the product they required, and then when they tried to find the product online, the search failed every time. Because the printed catalog didn’t match what was in the database, the user wouldn’t be able to find what they wanted, and so would call the helpdesk who would take the order over the phone.

When the company implemented EasyAsk software, they provided EasyAsk with their data, plus a list of catalog prefix and suffix codes for those printed catalogs that were in circulation. As part of the build process, EasyAsk indexed product numbers with and without prefixes and suffixes, and with and without hyphens. From the moment that the EasyAsk system went live, customers were able to find the products using the catalog codes and calls to the call center were reduced by half.

EasyAsk made a huge difference in this case, can your website do this?

B2B Experts

EasyAsk offers the only merchandising tool designed exclusively for the rigors and challenges of B2B eCommerce. EasyAsk can be configured for any platform, either commercial or built in-house.

EasyAsk has long served the B2B customer segment and over 200 B2B distributors have chosen us to power their B2B eCommerce sites, including: HD Supply, Aramark, Alphabroder, Demco, Kaman Industries, Tacoma Screw, and Crown Packaging.

The post B2B Series Challenge 2: Complex Part or Product Numbers appeared first on EasyAsk.

According to Forrester, B2B eCommerce in the U.S. will hit $1.2 trillion by 2021, seeing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.4% over the next four years. It is therefore essential that businesses optimize the eCommerce experience for their customers. B2B sites have typically been known as less usable, but it is time for them to catch up with B2C and make it really easy for customers to do business. B2B eCommerce has unique complexities, which present unique challenges and therefore require a unique set of best practices. We will explore these challenges in our B2B blog series and offer advice and solutions to ensure that your B2B site delivers a superior experience.

Fast-track your Customers

B2B buyers typically know exactly what they want. Being able to find it quickly and without unnecessary clicks or searches is key. Your B2B buyers need to search and navigate your site easily so that they can find what they are looking for and get on with their day. Don’t forget that your B2B buyers are also B2C customers of other companies, and it’s likely that they are used to experiencing good product findability.

We can break product findability down into two main areas: Navigation and Search.

Navigation

B2B products can be complex, with a huge number of attributes, products and ways to buy. The manageability of navigation filters is important so that your business can quickly create new filters as products are changed or added. Make these filters visually attractive and easy to use, for example by creating sliders for numeric options.

Remember to adjust the number of attributes that are displayed according to how far down the navigation tree the buyer is. At a broad level of products, it would slow down the buyer to show the attributes for every single product. Limit this to broader attributes, such as brand and color. Depending on the user interface, we suggest showing 5 to 6 attributes. As the buyer progresses in their navigation, it becomes more important to show the detailed attributes.

EasyAsk’s search solution allows complete business user control over navigation, including:

• Category Management – The ability to restructure categories to better suit the needs of the buyer.
• Dynamic Attributes – The ability to create attribute groupings based on numeric data. For example, dynamic price groupings.
• Multi-Select Attributes – EasyAsk allows attributes to be multi-selectable or single select.

All of this functionality is under the control of the business user, not the IT department, which could take days or even weeks to implement. EasyAsk keeps your B2B site agile and current.

Search

Your B2B site search needs to be accurate and to understand the terms that your business uses. It should also allow any non-standard terms to be defined. The higher the number of products in your catalog, the greater the importance of Natural Language Processing (NLP). NLP is the ability to understand the different ways that people might describe the same product. Understanding the terminology of your users and the ability of your search engine to intuitively and instantly map that to the correct products is extremely important in B2B. Analytics are invaluable in showing how your users are interacting with your site, but are you able to implement any resulting changes rapidly and easily?

Does your site search implicitly understand prices, sizes, lengths and other weights and measures, allowing customers to search using alternative forms of input? Your site should enable your customers to buy how they want to, not how your search system dictates they should.

Of course, users may well be searching using complex part or product numbers rather than words on B2B sites. This can be an issue for regular site search engines and we will cover this challenge in our next blog post.

Search As You Type (SAYT), aka autocomplete/instant search, is a really useful tool for B2B buyers on your site. As a user is typing, the pop up can show the products that are most likely to be sought, for example recently searched or purchased products. It’s also a good idea to display the last searches that the user made even before SAYT kicks in. B2B buyers are often buying the same products repeatedly.

With all search results pages, it is important that your search engine only displays products that your customer is entitled to buy. We will explore customer-specific catalogs later on in this blog series.

The Power to Perform

Although B2B buyers interact in differing ways to B2C shoppers with your search and navigation, it’s equally, if not more important that your search system performs well when faced with the unique demands of B2B eCommerce. You need a powerful system to cope with that.

EasyAsk offers the only merchandising tool designed exclusively for the rigors and challenges of B2B eCommerce. EasyAsk can be configured for any platform, either commercial or built in-house.

EasyAsk has long served the B2B customer segment and over 200 B2B distributors have chosen us to power their B2B eCommerce sites, including: HD Supply, Aramark, Alphabroder, Demco, Kaman Industries, Tacoma Screw, and Crown Packaging.

The post B2B Series Challenge 1: Product Findability appeared first on EasyAsk.

B2B eCommerce: Benefits

B2B eCommerce has many benefits for any company looking to streamline their procedures, reduce costs and increase sales.

The rise in popularity of purchasing online means that the doors are open for your business to the national or international marketplace. Your business needs to be online, where the customers are. Your B2B customers are also B2C customers of someone else, and they are used to the B2C experience. They expect functionality and UX that mimics Amazon and the like. Use this to your advantage and take tips from B2C, such as increasing order value by offering cross-sells or up-sells.

B2B commerce traditionally happens through sales reps, catalogs and call centers. These routes to purchase are expensive compared with eCommerce. Providing a great experience to B2B customers online helps your business move away from spending time and money on processes that can be fully automated on an eCommerce site. The product information can still be extensive and accurate, with specification sheets, manuals, and diagrams being easy to view and download.

When a B2C customer searches for something on an eCommerce site, they will usually see a combination of what they’ve searched for and what the business wants them to see. B2B customers, on the other hand, will need to see what they’ve searched for, but also what they usually buy. In B2B, customers are buyers, not shoppers; they’re much less likely to be browsing. They’re likely to be repeat buyers and want the quickest route to the products they’re looking for. They may even just want to click a button to reorder last week’s purchase. For this reason, personalization is key in the B2B domain. Using historical buying and browsing data, it is possible to create a personalized buying experience. B2B eCommerce can create a streamlined ordering process for customers who know exactly what they want.

B2B eCommerce: Challenges

B2B products have a different set of characteristics to B2C products. These differences can present the following challenges that we will explore in more detail over the coming weeks:

Product ‘Findability’

A B2B company may have hundreds of thousands or even millions of products that are typically complex with lots of attributes and variants. It is therefore vital that your B2B site search solution is able to cope with these complexities and shorten the path to purchase.

We will explore how to use dynamic filters and advanced search capabilities to make sure that your customers can find what they’re looking for among the many products. We will also share how to make sure that your customers are only viewing products and prices that are relevant to them.

Complex part or catalog numbers

Many organizations struggle with multiple versions and formats of catalog numbers resulting in failed searches and lost revenue. We will discuss how to ensure that however a user searches – they find the correct product.

Customer-specific catalogs

B2B buyers expect catalogs to be customized based on negotiated product assortments, warehouse locations, and pricing. The last thing that a customer wants to see on your site is products that are not available to them. Personalization can significantly affect B2B online revenue.

Dynamic Pricing

Customized pricing is a challenge unique to B2B businesses. Prices are individualized based on factors such as contract, purchasing frequency, and volume. We will explore the ways in which complex B2B pricing can be handled in the context of search.

Omni-channel B2B

B2B customers will experience your company through different channels – call centers, eCommerce site, sales representatives. All of these channels should have the same information and your business should be able to have a single view of all customer activity.

With over 60% of B2B customer research happening on mobile devices, the ability to understand more verbose, natural language queries is paramount.

Managing the Relationship

There will always be B2B customers who simply want to reorder. A good eCommerce system allows you to maintain a list of regular order items and to use analytics to spot trends. Online B2B means that you have a closer view of customer activity, so that if there are any issues, or the customer simply hasn’t logged in for a while, you can make contact.

The Global Market

If your company intends to do business outside of the U.S. there are implications in terms of language, currency, and regulations. The EU regulations may be different for your products, for example, product or product labeling may need to be modified. Using a search solution that intuitively understands multiple languages and currencies is imperative in the global market.

Customer Acquisition

Although some techniques are transferable from B2C commerce, often B2B companies have a specific buyer group, meaning that their initial customer contact will be made through channels such as trade shows or sales representatives. Once customers are aware of your business, however, they are likely to try to find your company online to continue their research. Good content and S.E.O. is therefore just as important as for B2C sellers.

Are You Ready?

There are huge benefits in putting in place a strategy to drive B2B customers to your eCommerce site. But is your site capable of maintaining the relationship and even driving more revenue through excellent functionality? When asked to cite the top features or functions they would most like from suppliers in the selling process, most business buyers chose enhanced search functionality on their website (60%).

EasyAsk offers the only merchandising tool designed exclusively for the rigors and challenges of B2B eCommerce. EasyAsk can be configured for any platform, either commercial or built in-house.

EasyAsk has long served the B2B customer segment and over 200 B2B distributors have chosen us to power their B2B eCommerce sites, including: Aramark, Alphabroder, Demco, Kaman Industries, Tacoma Screw, and Crown Packaging.

The post B2B Series Benefits and Challenges appeared first on EasyAsk.