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Offline stores can make use of product displays to get customers closer to a purchase decision. Things like putting promoted products at eye level or in-store kaizen (continuously improving the product arrangement by changing the display) have been put into practice for a long long time.
However, as more and more businesses are turning online, especially at the unstable time, can we still utilize merchandising?
The answer is Yes and No.
Of course, conventional merchandising no longer works for e-retailers, but the core concept of presenting suitable items to align with strategic planning is just as effective online as it is in brick and mortar stores. That’s why Boost introduces the new advanced feature of Merchandising for internal search on eCommerce sites powered by Shopify.
As the conversion rate of on-site searchers more than doubled that of conventional visitors, the return page for a search is a golden opportunity for digital merchandising. With this upgraded feature, you are able to adjust the ranking for specific items, promote groups of products sharing a similar attribute on the search result page.
Let’s go deeper into the new functionality of Boost!
BIG UPDATE AS OF APRIL 2023: Merchandising feature of B oost Product Filter & Search (Boost AI Search & Discovery now) has been revamped!
What's News With Boost Merchandising 2.0?
In the grand release in April 2023, Boost team has centralized all of our marvelous product display tools including Product Ranking, Rule-based Merchandising, Product Visibility into one Merchandising feature. We also add many more settings for merchants to customize the display as you want.
Where can you apply Merchandising rules in Boost AI Search & Discovery?
Our previous version of Merchandising is automatically applied to the search result pages. If users want to do merchandising on collection pages, for example, they will need to contact our support team to get it done. That's not very intuitive.
As a result, in the latest version of Merchandising, the Boost app extends its capabilities to not only search result pages or collection pages but you can also create universal (aka site-wide) merchandising rules. When you set up the same strategies for both all searches and all collections, they will work across the entire store.
A global merchandising rule can be created by setting up the same strategies for all searches and all collections.
What kind of Merchandising rules can you create with the Boost app?
In addition to extending the applicable placement of merchandising, Boost team also introduces new merchandising strategies in the 2.0 version. Take a look at the comparison table below for more information.
|
Strategies |
Merchandising 2.0 |
Merchandising 1.0 |
||
|
Name |
Applicable to |
Name |
Applicable to |
|
|
Pin specific products on the top 5 positions |
Pin rule |
Search result pages, Instant search widget, Collection pages, Site-wide |
Product ranking |
Search result pages |
|
Promote rankings of products based on attributes |
Boost rule |
Search result pages, Instant search widget, Collection pages, Site-wide |
Rule-based merchandising (High priority) |
Search result pages |
|
Lower rankings of products based on attributes |
Demote rule |
Search result pages, Instant search widget, Collection pages, Site-wide |
Rule-based merchandising (Low priority) |
Search result pages |
|
Hide products |
Hide rule |
Search result pages, Instant search widget, Collection pages, Site-wide |
Product visibility |
Search result pages, Instant search widget, Collection pages |
|
Show only products that match specific filter values |
Filter rule |
Search result pages, Instant search widget, Site-wide |
N/A |
N/A |
Preview mode on Boost Merchandising 2.0
A powerful update in the latest Merchandising version is the Preview. When you enter a search query or a collection, the Preview shows how the result looks like by default. Then, after a merchandising strategy is added, it will also change the result accordingly. This is of great help for you to visualize how your shoppers will see the product listing pages when you apply merchandising rules.
How Boost Merchandising 1.0 works
Our Merchandising involves two sub-feature: Product Ranking and Rule-based Merchandising. Combined with Analytics, Synonyms, and Stop words, these are the updates of Boost Product Filter & Search for June 2020.
To make it simple, Product Ranking helps you configure the order of SINGLE merchandise while Rule-based Merchandising targets a BUNCH of products with preset conditions. Both let you fine-tune the search result page to match with your promotion strategy. Also, Rule-based Merchandising can change the product display of certain collections in your e-store.
Product Ranking
In Product Ranking, you will see a search box to find a particular item using product title or product ID.
Easy to navigate the item to apply Product Ranking using search
There are 5 options to rank a product:
- No ranking: default setting, products shown as it is
- Always prioritized: products always appear first in the results for ALL searched terms
- Matched search: products always appear first when it’s included in the results
- Keyword search: products always appear first in the results for ONLY searched terms that you assign
- At the bottom: products always appear last when it’s included in the results
You can also set the time limit for the ranking to go with the marketing campaign for the items.
Rule-based Merchandising
Rule-based Merchandising enables you to prioritize products based on either of Product title, Product type, Product vendor, Product price, Product inventory, Product tag, Date added, Date published.
With each attribute, you can add suitable conductors and specify values for the merchandising rules. It is super easy and straightforward to set up a promotion for a group of products using Rule-based Merchandising.
For example, there are two-piece and one-piece bikinis in your Swimsuit collection and you want your customers to see the one-piece bikinis first when they search for bikinis. You can add a rule for all products that have the word “one-piece” in the title.
Then, the result will be like this:
Why to Use Merchandising Feature of Boost
Control the product presentation as YOU want
To be honest, over 80% of the eCommerce sites are using the default site search with a multitude of drawbacks such as missing key features like auto-complete, instant suggestions…
If your e-store is backed by Shopify, we have a full guide on how to optimize conversion rate via navigation & site search.
Furthermore, digital shop owners usually have little control over the order of products, which depends greatly on algorithms and coding. This is such a considerable disadvantage of online stores compared to brick and mortar shops, where you can arrange your offers whatever way you like.
The Ecommerce Merchandising feature of Boost enables digital shop owners to alter the visibility of merchandise on search result pages and collections without lifting a finger to modify the back-end code.
We have step-by-step in-app instructions to guide you through the set-up. Additionally, you can visit our Help Center to read the full guideline for Merchandising as well as many other useful functionalities of Boost. If you are still unclear, our Customer Success team is always willing to help you via chat or email. Also, we can add extra customization to our eCommerce Merchandising tool with a surcharge upon request.
Leverage Promotion and Sales Campaigns
Like in a pop-up store, you show sales items right behind the front door, this feature allows you to display promoted products at the most eye-catching positions.
Learn 6 merchandising hacks top eCommerce sites are using in their sales campaigns.
With Boost’s Merchandising, you can integrate marketing campaigns to site search to achieve the business objectives. For example, you are carrying out a promotion for new arrivals, you can create a merchandising rule from “Date published” so that "just-in" products are featured on the top.
The easy drag-and-drop setting of Rule-based Merchandising really comes in handy when there are several sales campaigns at the same time. The higher position, the more priority. When a product assigned with both Product Ranking and Rule-based Merchandising, it will follow the priority of Product Ranking.
With Product Ranking, you can also set the effective date range for the ranking to align with the promotion timing. When you leave the date setting by default, the ranking will be effective forever.
Boost Sales through High-margin Items
Since up to one-third of digital shoppers land on the search box when they enter an eCommerce website, a refined search result page can scale up your revenue. Moreover, online searchers tend to click to the first 5 results returned. These positions pose huge potential for you to place the best selling items or highly profitable products to increase the chances of sales.
Product Ranking will help you do this with ease.
Our suggestion is to look at the Analytics dashboard to get a grasp of what your customers are hunting for the most. You will find the top searched terms, top filter values used by digital shoppers.
Have a closer look at the Analytics feature of Boost.
From those interactions of your audience with internal search and product filtering, you can define the trending items to be promoted on result pages using “Matched search” or “Keyword search”. This tactic will certainly drive more sales for your digital stores
“Always prioritized” should be implemented only when you have a universal product or a promotion campaign because it may lead your on-site searchers to think that the results aren’t relevant. The option of “At the bottom” can be assigned to unattractive or less profitable items that appear on top of the result page by default.
Start Merchandising Your Digital Store Now!
A well-developed merchandising strategy can nudge customers in the right direction for buying. So, don’t miss out on the search result page on your website to optimize merchandising for eCommerce.
If you haven’t installed Boost AI Search & Discovery, start our 14-day free trial with full access to all features including Merchandising. As to our current clients, we appreciate our feedback via email or in-app live chat.
Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter to stay top of the industry. See you soon!
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☑️ Learn about the technology behind Boost AI: Inside AI Search Feature Of Boost AI Search & Discovery
