When someone searches for something on your website, there’s a good chance they know exactly what they want and are ready to buy. They might be less likely than someone casually browsing through your website to complete an order; that means you have a lot of revenue that’s being lost by people leaving your website before completing their search experience and then abandoning, or not coming back to your business again.

Market research shows that there is a significant amount of business lost every day due to abandons as a result of searches being performed. According to Algolia, a provider of search and discovery APIs, site visitors who use site search can convert up to 50% more than a site’s average conversion rates.

Conversely, many e-Commerce sites experience extremely high abandon rates once a consumer performs a search on the site. Constructor, a provider of customized site search solutions for e-Commerce businesses, provided insight into this by reporting that 75% of consumers would abandon the site after performing a search that results in them not successfully completing their search.

What is a Search Abandonment Cost Calculator?

This calculator is used to help quantify how much money your company could lose each month due to users leaving after performing a search on your site. It takes the idea of “search” only being a UX element and makes it also a business element.

Any business can understand how much of an impact their revenue is affected by providing just three pieces of information into the calculator.

By inputting just three fields, businesses can formulate a real estimate of revenue loss:

Exiting Search Rate
The percentage of people who exit/leave the site after performing a site search.

Monthly Search Users
The total number of site visitors who do site searches in a specified month.

Average Order Value
The average dollar value of all purchased completed transactions.

Why this calculator matters

The problem of search abandonment goes beyond reporting; it is a visibility problem. Although businesses can view their aggregate traffic, conversion rates and bounce-rate data, they may not know that they are missing potential revenue generated by poor search performance. A calculator converts technical search data into terms that leadership teams value: dollars.

It’s essential to understand that visitors, who actively search on your site, are typically higher-intent, than those who simply browse and shop. According to studies, searchers convert at a higher rate and spend more than non-searchers. Algolia reported that searchers convert 80% more often than other visitors and spend 2.6x more than average site visitors. Because of this connection, the cost of each abandoned search session is significantly higher than the average visitor’s exit cost.

Turn search exits into revenue opportunities

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A practical formula

Businesses can calculate lost sales from abandoned searches in a simple format as follows:

Lost Revenue Per Month = Number of Monthly Searches X Search Exit Rate X Average Order Value

Alternatively, businesses can take their calculations to the next level by calculating Recoverable Revenue:

Recoverable Revenue = Lost Revenue Per Month X Recovery Improvement Percentage

Adjust Payroll Recovery Improvement % based on typical levels of realistic recovery. A modest recovery range still shows large recoverable revenue potential if monthly searches are high.

Where Expertrec fits in

Expertrec is positioned to fit into this scenario very well. An example of this would be a calculator that does more than provide a single number, it opens the door to action. By calculating the lost revenue due to poor search results, the next question is how can that revenue be recouped? Introducing Expertrec.com will be the solution to reducing search abandonment by improving the search experience itself. Improving the search experience includes providing more relevant results, better understanding user intent, reducing the number of dead-end searches, and providing customers the ability to find products quicker. In other words, the calculator provides the cost of the problem while Expertrec provides the solution to the problem.

A way to explain it is: Every time someone exits a search, that is a missed sales opportunity and Expertrec keeps that opportunity alive.

Another good approach for the article: When a user searches, they are telling you what they are looking for; the cost begins when your site does not respond well enough.

Making the business case clearer

By utilizing a Search Abandonment Cost Calculator, ecommerce teams, marketers and founders can see search as an opportunity to generate revenue versus only as background functionality. This enables them to realize the importance of search in protecting consumers in high intent buying journeys.

Baymard’s UX research supports this notion of how poor UX leads to search abandonment and lost revenue, with search being a major UX touchpoint for ecommerce.

The message is clear: If a business is currently having the right type of consumer coming to its site use search, but not converting, then there is no need to focus on driving more traffic. Businesses need to provide a better search experience.

Conclusion

The Search Abandonment Cost Calculator is an insightful tool because it demonstrates to many teams how real the monthly costs are associated with searches that exited. The calculator shows that businesses can estimate lost revenue based on their combinations of the Search Exit Rate, Monthly Search Users, and Average Order Value – in other words, how much businesses are losing in potential revenue and how much of that can be recovered.

For brands who want to do something with those insights, Expertrec.com will represent the logical next step. It supports the turning of search from a point of abandonment to a point of conversion.

Ultimately the question should no longer be, “Does search matter?” but rather, “How much lost revenue is a company missing each month because they aren’t getting search right?