4 Technical Hacks To Enhance Product Findability in Online Site

This article enumerates some of the key techniques that can be used in eCommerce sites for easing product findability to the potential visitors.

Usability research studies were conducted on product findability experience of the users for exploring how visitors navigate, search and choose the products they want by proper navigation and categorisation. Studies showed that visitors repeatedly leave the sites as they could not find products that they need.  Product findability is the key to conversions of any eCommerce sites. Product findability is the way e-retailers helps the customers to connect to the right products in the right time. When done appropriately, it makes the shopping experience more engaging and reduces the attrition rates of visitors.

As eCommerce merchants are realising product findability as a vital part of customer shopping experiences, Magento developers have devised some effective techniques to enhance product findability on eCommerce sites.

Creating  sub-categories of parent categories

Grouping subcategories under the parent categories in drop-down menus are necessary to make product search convenient for the users. Drop-down categories that are clickable have proven to help visitors to get to their desirable products quickly, spurring up conversions.

Putting same subcategories under multiple parent categories if required

Based on the product ranges offered, retailers can end up using subcategories in more than one main categories such as Containers can be displayed under main category ‘Households’ as well as “Kitchen Products”. This simply increases the chances of the products to be discovered by the users quickly than ever considering the fact that different customers perceive different opinions and utilities of the same product.

Displaying ‘Recently viewed Items’

Users face complexities in revisiting the previously visited products as they have to rely on Back button of the browser or re-navigate through the pages to reach the same product pages. However, they mostly need to look at the previously viewed items to either repurchase or compare them with their new items before purchasing. Thus, e-retailers are recommended to list the ‘Recently viewed items’ to refine the search by the visitors and prevent them to plow through the different categories again.

Linking contextual images to the products displayed

Studies on online shopping pattern revealed that shoppers tend to get frustrated when they could see a product but could navigate to its page.  Images draw most of the attention of the users and mostly in their initial attempts to search for a product, they scan quite thoroughly all the pages that can take them to the products they are looking for. Thus, any contextual images should be always linked directly to the products that are shown even though the images are used for complementing the appearance of any other related product categories.  

Concluding Thought

Clearly, for online eCommerce sites, if the visitors can’t find what they want, they can’t buy it. Specifically, when visitors accessing the eCommerce sites are increasing day-by-day through search engines and links on social platforms, it has become critical to make their experience comfortable.  These tips are some useful recommendations that can be applied to any Magento or other platforms eCommerce sites to help the visitors reach for the products they need easily and quickly.

Jonathan Paul is a techie and experienced Magento developer in Melbourne, working at PHPProgrammers, a leading eCommerce and web development company in Australia who likes to share his views and inherent knowledge on eCommerce development.