Here we go again! As a new year approaches, it's crucial to stay ahead by understanding the eCommerce trends that will dominate 2024.
But let's not forget the essence of driving sales: meeting your visitors' expectations when it comes to product search and recommendations. After all, a stellar product alone isn't enough to move inventory.
To elevate your eCommerce store for more sales in the new year, you require insights into market trends, customers' on-site product search behavior, and their preferences for product recommendations.
By then, you can align your strategies with customer expectations and unlock the full potential of your business.
So, let’s take a look at these product search and recommendation trends in 2024 to prepare your store for another successful year!
Site search and product search trends to watch
Search relevance is king!
In this fast-paced era of technological advancements and evolving consumer preferences, merchants continually grapple with the challenge of staying relevant to their target audience.
Site search has become an indispensable tool for driving higher conversions on eCommerce websites. In today's competitive landscape, it's no longer a question of whether you have a site search function but rather how effectively it is performing.
The success of your business hinges on the ability of your site search to deliver relevant and accurate results, guiding your customers to the products or information they seek.
Key numbers about site search in 2023:
- The search bar is the go-to destination for 69% of shoppers
- 82% of online businesses believe that the site search experience can be enhanced by providing more relevant results
- and a compelling 79% of consumers surveyed expressed their likelihood to purchase a product that they had specifically searched for in the search results
It’s easy to see that in 2024, you will still need to pay attention to optimizing search relevance if you want to see that conversion rate go up.
Elevate your site search to new heights with Boost AI Search & Discovery - the ultimate tool to fine-tune your search relevance. With Boost, you have all aspects of site search relevance covered:
- NLP-backed search engine to better respond to long-tail queries
- Semantic search to maximize the accuracy and relevance of search results
- Enhanced typo tolerance
- Understanding search with high complexity
- And many more
Don't settle for mediocre search results when you can supercharge your site search with Boost! Try for free now and witness the difference it makes!
No more “No results found”
If you are still sleeping on the “Sorry, no results found” message, it’s time to wake up.
Because your shoppers now are probably tired of this dead-end search journey.
An astounding 80% of consumers have reported exiting a portal due to a poor search experience.
And “No results found” is a poor search experience.
Don't let a zero-result page cost you a valuable customer.
To help you get rid of the “No results found” page, Boost offers powerful features like synonyms and autocorrect to prevent unmatched search frustrating experiences.
By adding synonyms for search terms that yield no results and enhancing search accuracy, you can bridge the terminology gap and even correct misspellings.
For instance, if your shopper searches for "bodycon blakc dress," while your site offers a "fitting black dress," our intelligent system will recognize and address this discrepancy, ensuring users find what they need.
There are also plenty of ways to make a No results search a more pleasant and smoother shopping experience for your shoppers. Check this one out:
👉 Get more tips and best practices for optimizing No Results Found page:
Best Practices for Instant Search Box - What to Do With ‘No Search Results’
The age of intelligent search continues
Searchable is not enough - now it is the reign of Intelligent search, or AI-powered search.
The year 2023 marked a significant turning point with the emergence of AI-powered search. This transformative technology revolutionized the way online stores and users interacted with search functionalities.
The evolution of AI technologies in product search goes beyond basic keyword matching. It transforms how site searches interpret and respond to user queries. With advancements in AI, search features like Boost’s AI search can deliver a more nuanced and insightful product discoverability journey for your site’s shoppers.
Intelligent search in 2024 will not stop at delivering relevant results; it goes further to crafting a search experience that precisely aligns with the user's unique needs and context.
Beyond relevance, your on-site search bar needs to intelligently present products, services, or content that users may not have initially sought but find incredibly relevant or captivating.
This aspect of discovery enhances the user experience, encouraging deeper exploration and engagement on your eCommerce site. By introducing users to new and relevant content that resonates with their interests and needs, AI-driven search keeps them engaged for longer periods.
Users remain captivated not only because they find what they are looking for but also because they encounter valuable content that expands their horizons.
Smart merchants in 2024 will:
- Implement an AI-powered search solution: Evaluate and integrate an AI-powered search solution into your website. Look for a reputable provider like Boost AI Search & Discovery that offers advanced features such as natural language processing, machine learning, and semantic understanding. (Did I mention that the first 14 days are absolutely free?)
- Optimize search relevance: Fine-tune your AI search system by optimizing search relevance. Analyze search data and user behavior to identify patterns and trends.
- Monitor and analyze user search behaviors: Actively gather and analyze user search patterns on the AI search experience. Implement feedback mechanisms such as user surveys, heatmaps, or session recordings to understand user satisfaction, pain points, and areas for improvement.
Product recommendation trends in 2024
Customers want personalized product recommendations
In today's competitive landscape, where 71% of consumers expect personalized shopping experiences, it's evident that a customer-focused strategy is essential for success.
Personalization plays a pivotal role, especially when it comes to retaining customers, as evidenced by the fact that 78% of consumers are more inclined to make repeat purchases from brands that offer personalized experiences. Also, a significant 24% of consumers believe that merchants should leverage AI to create more personalized recommendations.
By prioritizing personalization, you can forge stronger connections with your shoppers, enhance loyalty, and create a differentiated shopping journey that keeps them coming back for more.
When customers provide consent to share their data, they anticipate a valuable return:
- Hyper-personalized and curated experiences that cater to their preferences
- Product recommendations they'll adore based on their past purchases, behavior, and engagement across multiple channels
Did you know?
Boost provides you with 9 different (and highly engaging, customer-focused) product recommendations:
- Frequently Bought Together
- Related Items (AI-powered)
- Recently Purchased
- Bestsellers
- Hand-picked Products
- Recently Viewed
- Most Viewed
- Newest Arrivals
- Trending Products
👉 Try for Free now to see how Boost’s product recommendation feature works for you!
or,
👉 Read more on our recommendation system
AI-fueled upselling and cross-selling
AI excels at predicting shopping habits by analyzing browsing and shopping history. Unlike human brains, which would struggle to personalize a website for each individual visitor, AI rises to the challenge effortlessly.
By harnessing the power of AI, you can analyze and understand customers' behaviors comprehensively. This valuable insight enables you to deliver highly customized product upselling and cross-selling, driving conversions and increasing average order value (AOV).
AI is the key to the personalized product recommendations your customers want.
How does AI assist your upselling and cross-selling strategy?
With customer engagement on your website, the AI engine springs into action. It collects and analyzes data like past purchases, viewed products, and time spent on various pages.
This data creates individual customer profiles, allowing the engine to provide personalized product suggestions. These tailored ideas can be displayed on product pages, in the shopping cart, or through post-purchase messages.
The AI-powered upselling and cross-selling engines excel at learning and adapting. As they gather more data, their predictions become more accurate and personalized, resulting in enhanced upselling and cross-selling capabilities, ultimately boosting sales performance.
With Boost’s AI in recommendations, even if your store doesn’t have the data for the AI model to learn (yet), our fallback models can help!
While the process for AI-powered recommendations might take some time, there's no need to keep your recommendation widgets idle. Embrace a secondary algorithm to keep them lively and engaging.
![](https://boostcommerce.net/cdn/shop/files/Img_14_1_1344x.png?v=1698225329">https://boostcommerce.net/cdn/shop/files/Img_14_1_1344x.png?v=1698225329)
As your AI-enhanced models gather sufficient data, they will later seamlessly integrate and automatically enhance the recommendation experience, driving your store’s conversions and customer satisfaction to new heights.
Back to you
Every road to your success starts with your customers. Embrace the upcoming eCommerce trends of 2024 and delve into the world of product search and recommendation trends.
By understanding and catering to your customer's needs, you can create a seamless and delightful shopping experience that sets you apart from the competition. Start paving the way to your new year of success today!
