Better Searching Means Better Sales
GiftSuite ecommerce software includes our advanced Smart Search system for an intuitive and powerful search facility that will help you sell more. The search field is displayed in the upper right corner of each catalog page as seen here:
Smart Search can be configured to present automatic search term suggestions which it has learned over time from your customers' search habits. Using both a TypeAhead feature within the form field and a drop-down list of additional suggestions, Smart Search can present relevant terms to your customers as they type.
TypeAhead
Type-Ahead guesses the word your customer is typing and fills in the rest of the form field for them automatically as they type characters. This does not limit what your customers can type in any way, but it does help speed their shopping along as well as helping to prevent typing mistakes by showing correct spelling of even your most difficult-to-spell product and category names.
Auto-Suggest
Auto-Suggest provides a list of suggestions based upon what your customer has typed into the form field. As the shopper continues to type characters into the field, the list of suggestions continues to update, narrowing the list of suggestions at each keystroke. Auto-Suggest does not limit what your customers can enter into the search field, but will continue to offer suggestions as they type.
The Real Power of Smart Search
The most impressive feature of Smart Search is that it learns from your customers' searching behavior. The powerful Smart Search predictive engine can present relevant suggestions to your customers as they type characters into the form field. Over time, the Smart Search predictive model will accumulate a large list of search terms and its predictive accuracy will increase.
Relevance vs Alphabetical
To illustrate the difference between alphabetical sorting and relevance sorting, consider the two images below. The customer has typed only the letter "v" into the form field. On the left, the suggestions are sorted alphabetically and on the right, by relevance. The Smart Search system has automatically "typed ahead" and filled in the rest of the word (highlighted in blue) for its best guess as to the word or phrase the customer is typing. In either case, if the word in the form field is correct, the shopper can merely click the "Go" button or press the enter key to display search results.
As the shopper continues to type letters into the search field, the "typed ahead" word AND the list of automatic suggestions will continue to update at each keystroke. As the site owner, you determine whether automatic suggestions are displayed alphabetically or by relevance. You can even change the order any time you like.
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Suggestions Sorted Alphabetically
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Suggestions Sorted by Relevance
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Configurable Search Results Pages
The results pages can be configured to display any number of rows and columns of items. On the left, a list of matching categories allows your customers to jump directly to a category. A list of links facilitate easy browsing of the search results pages. Below each item image is the item name and optionally, the item SKU and/or price.
Here is a sample search results page:
The bottom line is that GiftSuite ecommerce software uses advanced search to help your customers find what they want to buy quickly and easily and that translates into more sales.
