What is the number one issue that prevents an online sale from occurring? The inability of a shopper to find the product he or she wants. Though many people will casually browse your online store to see the items you carry, many of your buyers already know what they want. These buyers want to go to your online store, find the product that they need, and check out as quickly as possible. In a world where time is money, it is this type of efficiency that fuels the growth of e-commerce.

If you want to increase your online sales, you could probably benefit from making your site easier to navigate. Studies have shown that the faster you can allow your customers to get into your site, find what they are looking for, complete the purchase, and then move on, the more likely they will be to complete the purchase. You need to focus on the buyers rather than the window shoppers.

There are two primary methods by which a buyer will find the products they want to buy from your store. The first is by navigating through your store’s hierarchical menus of categories and sub-categories a.k.a. drilling down. The second is using an online store’s built-in search feature.

When you are setting up your store’s hierarchical menus of categories and sub-categories, you should try to think like a consumer. If you put your products where your customers will find them quickly, they will be more likely to complete the sale. This might mean simply putting products in more than one category. Good e-commerce software allows you to put your products in an unlimited number of product categories, sub-categories and even sub-sub-categories. Remember, the goal for any website is to make the site as easy to use and navigate as possible. With an online store, you’ll want to take that one step further. Make it as easy as possible for a user to find what they want, add it to their cart, and check out. Get in, get it, get out. Make it simple.

Even more important than creating an easy to use drill-down menu is allowing your customers to simply type what they want and let the site’s built-in search function do the rest. A good search tool is one of the keys to unlocking the door to online success. It keeps it simple. If you go to Amazon.com and want to buy the book, “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,” how are you going to find it? The quickest and most common way will most certainly be to use the site’s search tool. If you just type “Men are From Mars,” the search will find the book for you. Its easy, isn’t it?

We’ve all been to the McDonald’s drive-thru window. Why? Because its fast and efficient. The same is true in the online world. The search function is to an online store what the drive-thru window is to McDonald’s. It captures those orders that might be otherwise lost by people in a hurry. Consumers are fickle and always in a hurry. If you make your site so that it caters not only to the casual window shoppers but to those people who know what they want and want it fast, the buyers, you’ll be in a great position to make the most out of all of your site’s visitors. So, as an online merchant, you’ll want to do what you can to make it easier for your customers to quickly buy your products and get on with their day.

Powerful e-commerce software should have a built-in search function. It will not just search item titles but every word or number associated with that product, such as long/detailed item descriptions , SKU numbers, category names, brand names, etc. It will also allow you to put your search tool anywhere you want, not just on the e-commerce part of your site, like on your homepage or even a partner or affiliate’s site. It makes sense to allow your buyers to search from anywhere you want, doesn’t it? Its your site, but remember, it is your buyers that make it tick.

*** Note: If you use Nexternal’s e-commerce software, click here to see the code you’ll need to copy to add a search tool anywhere you wish.

As mentioned in the article above, many of your buyers know exactly what they want and will use the search tool to find it. Are these buyers finding what you want them to find, or are they coming up empty? One way to tell is to analyze your search statistics. If your e-commerce software keeps track of the terms that people are searching, then you are in luck. Taking a close look at this data can help you fine-tune your store in many ways.

Suppose you sell fitness products. You might categorize your products by disciplines such as Yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, etc. When you look at your search statistics, you might see that many people are typing in “clothes.” Although you carry a variety of exercise clothes, no products are returned from the search. The reason this might occur is because the word “clothes” has not been associated with the relevant items. You might consider adding “clothes” into the descriptions of your products that are relevant so that they appear when such a search is conducted.

Another way to use search statistics is to help determine your most sought after products and order those at the top of your category pages. For example, let’s suppose you sell shoes. You look at your search statistics and the most searched on terms is “Nike.” If Nike is in a “sneakers” category, your Nikes might not appear until a later page because the starting letter “N” is not at the beginning of the alphabet. Why not order your Nikes at the top of sneakers category since many of your customers are looking for these products? If the product is hot, you want to display it and make it as easy as possible to find.

Fine tuning your store using search statistics data does take some time, but remember, it is your buyers, not your browsers that are often using your search. You might even discover that your online shopper base is looking for a product line that you have been considering carrying.

Many companies, whether selling directly to consumers (B2C) or to other businesses (B2B), have special groups of customers. These special groups might consist of a club, or a segment of your customer base that generates a significant amount of your revenues, or simply one business as opposed to another business. With Nexternal’s e-commerce software, you now have the ability to set and assign an unlimited number of customer types. Better yet, you can set different prices per product to the different customer types. You can limit access to your B2B site to certain customers who have established wholesale accounts. You can even allocate your top selling products so that they are only available to your top customers. These features allow those special customers to feel extra special while at the same time enabling you to strategically price your products! Please be sure to check the updates emails sent regularly to all administrative users of Nexternal Solution's e-commerce software or check the updates section of your Order Management for a full list of the updates we have added for you.

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