The choice of the proper site search tool can have a significant impact on the sales of your online retail store. Customers do not remain at your store long if they have trouble locating a product quickly; they will leave and purchase the product from another retail source. Today’s customers have come to expect an Amazon-type shopping experience, including quick response times to their searches, the ability to handle misspelled searches, the ability to use smart filters to narrow searches, and the ability to provide personalized product recommendations.

As a result, many online retailers are comparing ExpertRec, Algolia, and Searchspring before they make a decision on which tool to use. Each of these tools meets different business needs and different technical needs and has different price points.

In this article, we will explore 7 important factors every retailer should consider before making their decision on which search tool to use, and also provide an explanation of why many growing retailers are turning towards ExpertRec.

1. Customers Are Looking for an Amazon-Like Shopping Experience.

When consumers make purchases online, they want fast and accurate results. They want their search engine to correct misspellings, offer product suggestions, and give them an easy way to filter products.

Any retailers offering poor search outcomes will most likely lead to customers abandoning the website shortly after arriving. This means that many people who do not use a retailer’s search will therefore not convert.

Increasing product discovery through the creation of modern AI-based search capabilities allows for a much deeper understanding of the customer intention behind their searches versus simply matching keyword inputs to keyword outputs, therefore increasing conversion ratios.

2. Not Every Retailer Needs a Developer-Heavy Search Platform

Retailers with limited technical capacity can take advantage of enterprise-level search platforms like Algolia; however, it will require a substantial amount of technical skill from both the retailer itself and can include high ongoing costs for maintenance and scalability. Many smaller retailers don’t have the financial resources to employ a full-time developer, which may deter them from making an investment in developing a custom search solution.

ExpertRec offers enterprise-level capabilities without requiring extensive code writing (i.e., developing code). With just a few simple clicks, retailers can quickly create advanced search, voice search, personalized recommendations, and many more features. This enables retailers to focus on selling rather than being bogged down with development issues.

3. Shopify Merchants Need Fast and Simple Integrations

The speed of implementation is important for people managing a Shopify shop. A long deployment cycle could slow down an upgrade that would lead to increased revenue.

Algolia and Searchspring offer an integration with Shopify, while Expertrec provides a much simpler method of doing this. Merchants can get their intelligent search experiences running quickly without having to go through extensive customization or write any code.

Due to this ease of integration, fewer resources on the part of a merchant will help to level the playing field against larger e-commerce companies while still retaining control over their search experience.

4. Enterprise Features Are Not Always Necessary

A large number of eCommerce website using major SearchSpring’s ability to offer sophisticated merchandising and personalization features. The extensive product catalog for many businesses can significantly benefit from its added functionality and effectiveness.

Since many smaller retailers do not need to deal with all of the high-level complexities associated with an enterprise-level system, normal retailers require primarily intelligent search, efficient filter creation, and seamless recommendation of products.

ExpertRec offers those same features at a much lower cost for fast-growing retail businesses while reducing the burden of required client management based on enterprise-level architectures.

5. Better Product Discovery Leads to Higher Conversions

E-commerce can make it difficult for customers to locate the product they are looking for quickly.

ExpertRec’s intelligent autocompletion, typo tolerance, intelligent filtering capability, and AI-assisted recommendations solve this problem by reducing friction during each step of the shopping journey, thus simplifying customers’ decision-making process.

When customers can find products faster, the likelihood of conversion will increase.

6. Merchandising Should Be Simple, Not Technical

Merchants usually want their best-selling products to be featured first, as well as any seasonal collection products in their search results. There are many existing solutions within the marketplace that have complex technical requirements when managing the changes to those rankings and promotions, making it difficult for merchants to effectively manage their own search results.

ExpertRec gives retailers a way to control the ranking and promotion of their products easily, as opposed to requiring the support of a developer. Marketing departments can therefore independently optimise product visibility, which promotes a more agile merchandising process and ultimately creates faster turnaround times for their campaigns.

7. The Right Search Platform Should Grow With Your Business

When making a choice about which search engine solution to use, choose a search engine solution that will continue to support your business for years to come. The search engine solution that you use now will also provide continuous service as you grow your own product catalog and customer base into the future.

Algolia also provides much greater flexibility to technically advanced organizations than Searchspring (which has developed an enterprise-level merchandising solution designed for the largest and most successful brands in online retail and eCommerce). Additionally, ExpertRec is able to balance functionality, application performance, and ease of use.

For evolving retailers requiring powerful, advanced machine learning search capabilities in a manner that does not require technical support, ExpertRec provides a high-quality, cost-effective, and expandable search solution.

Final Thoughts: Which Site Search Solution Is Best for Online Retailers?

The choice of a company will be determined by its needs. For example, if you are a larger development team seeking full flexibility, then Algolia may be the best search solution; however, Searchspring could be more appropriate if your organisation focuses primarily on providing advanced merchandising workflow capabilities.

On the other hand, ExpertRec would be ideal for a retailer wishing to create an improved user interaction experience for consumers by better assisting with their ability to discover products (enhanced through an increase in conversion rates) and an overall better ability to perform an action and complete an order through searching using artificial intelligence, with a low level of technical difficulty.

Do you want to enhance the shopping experience of your customers while helping them quickly identify products that will suit their needs?

Contact ExpertRec for information if you would like to schedule a demo and find out how to generate additional revenue for your e-retail business by providing your customers with more effective, higher-quality site-search functionality.