It’s the holidays! And holiday shoppers are on a mad gift-buying spree. Is your website or app prepared to deliver accurate search results, show the most relevant products, and provide a seamless shopping experience?
In this post, you’ll learn the 3 important steps that instantly guarantee a Christmas-ready website or app. So your high-intent shoppers convert and buy more.
Get to know your holiday shoppers
According to the NRF, consumers plan to spend $1,048 on average this holiday season. Where do they plan to spend it on? Decorations, candy, gifts, and of course, purchases for themselves and their families.
You need to ensure your website or app is in top shape because your customers plan to shop online. In fact, not only do they plan to shop online (56%), but they also look for inspiration online (45%).
For young holiday shoppers, social media is a strong source of inspiration. These are your millennial and Gen Z shoppers who go to Facebook, Twitter, and visual-based platforms Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat for purchase ideas.
According to Google, “51% of last-minute shoppers said they weren’t certain where they wanted to buy, or they had multiple retailers in mind, when they started shopping.” But regardless of their shopping behavior, your customers are:
- They research before they buy;
- They wish you would do a better job of sharing inventory information; and
- They want their shopping done as quickly as possible.
Sounds like your customers? You can address these demands on your website or app. The following are the 3 steps how.
1. Simplify product search and discovery for holiday shoppers
Your customers are already in a rush. When they can’t think of the correct keywords to search for on your website or app, the results will disappoint them. As a result, you’ll lose their interest and potential sales.
According to Salesforce Research and Harris Poll, 78% of consumers consider easy product search capabilities one of the most important factors for online shopping.
Instead of a typical word search, your customers can search for your products using an image with visual search. Not only do you provide visually similar results. But you also showcase all available products in your inventory that are relevant for your shoppers.
2. Improve results for seasonal keywords
Young consumers plan to gift clothing (70%), personal care (38%), and jewelry (31%). But a lot of them are not certain where they want to buy. Your shoppers just go online and search. This is where your SEO-optimized website or app comes in.
With visual search, you can improve search engine ranking and discoverability. How does it work? It turns your product images into a metadata-rich beacon.
Plus! You can also tag your image-library automatically using a lexicon of 15,000 tags. As a result, your product catalog is always in-season and culturally adaptable. Especially during the holidays.
Intuitive navigation is another important factor for online shoppers (75%). Once you get customers into your website or app, what happens next? You delight them with seamless navigation and effective search engines. Thanks to visual search.
3. Curate targeted collections and recommendations
For 69% of consumers, a website’s visuals play a key role in enhancing their online shopping experience. As an eCommerce player, you probably already have a lot of product images on your website or app.
Take it a step further. Create engaging content that contextualizes and promotes your products. This holiday season, curate gift guides for him or her, Christmas shopping lists, and more. Holiday shoppers love product recommendations because they make shopping faster and easier.
Take it another step further. Incorporate social media images. According to Rakuten, “Millennial and Gen Z consumers are much more likely than other generations (45%) to browse and purchase holiday gifts on social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.”
In other words, visual information makes the customer experience better. This is what shoppers expect from you. To match your customers’ expectations, you have visual search. From delivering intelligent product recommendations to featuring social media content on your product pages. All is possible with visual search.
Plan and execute
To sum it all up, getting your website or app Christmas-ready takes a bit of planning. But implementation is easy. Syte’s visual search solutions can be up and running within days, not months. So you still have time before the holiday shopping season ends.
Once you have visual search features on your website or app, then it’s time to get the best use out of it. How? By following and then optimizing the three steps above. Again, these are:
- Simplify product search and discovery;
- Improve search results for season keywords; and
- Curate targeted collections and recommendations.
Syte uses the most accurate visual search technology. It is repeatedly benchmarked as the best. Improve your web navigation, product search, and user experience with Syte. Test Drive Syte today.