Algolia Search for eCommerce: Challenges & Solutions

Search for eCommerce is especially important, as it helps to navigate a website and find the products needed. Search implementation from scratch is a complex process. It requires hundreds of development hours and thousands of dollars.

In this article, we are going to talk about the importance of the search for eCommerce. You will learn how you can use it to improve user experience, and which tools allow you to save on the development costs.

Let’s dive right in!

Importance of Robust eCommerce Search Engines

Are you struggling to make more sales?

There is a high possibility that the reason for low conversions hides in the on-site search. If visitors can’t find products, their buying decision is redefined. They will leave a store without purchasing.

How can customers make a purchase if they can’t find the products they are searching for?

The answer is they can’t.

That’s why on-site search should be considered as a must-have element for any eCommerce website. Researches make it clear that search for eCommerce influences conversion:

• 30% of website visitors use the site search and they are more likely to buy
• Search suggestions are also important as 25% of users click on them
• The availability of site search improves conversion rate to 4.63% as compares to the average rate of 2.77%

You should have a lot of knowledge and put in a lot of effort to build an effective on-site search for eCommerce. Otherwise, it can provide a negative effect and send customers away from your store.

Create Great User Experience with Algolia Search

Today, there is no need to hire developers who will spend hundreds of hours working on an on-site search. You can install a search for eCommerce with the help of out-of-the-box solutions.

Algolia is a powerful eCommerce search engine that will bring a robust search to your online store. High level of customization, full-text, personalized, and faceted search are just a few advantages. Algolia delivers accurate results in under 100ms anywhere in the world.

Below, we overview the main strong points of Algolia. We further explain how its features can help eCommerce websites get better results from on-site search.

Main Features of Algolia Search for eCommerce

Algolia is a robust system with a lot of delivered out-of-the-box. They are easily configured and can be integrated into any already implemented search system. All features do not require any development, significantly reducing the time of implementation and its cost.

Here is an overview of the most important features for eCommerce stores.

• Multi-language support

Algolia is a suitable solution for eCommerce business working with an international audience. The platform supports both left-to-right and right-to-left scripts. In the nutshell, it means that you can add new languages to the website without any additional coding. Algolia won’t limit you in your expansion efforts.

• Typo-tolerance

This is a canonical feature that every search engine should have. Customers get disappointed if you fail to provide relevant products because of misspelled words typed in the search bar. The problem is especially pressing for users of mobile devices, who often make typos.

Algolia improves the shopping experience by providing typo-tolerance support. Merchants can further customize it to define how tolerant it should treat misspellings.

• Results highlighting

Algolia automatically highlights results that are the most relevant to the user’s query. Together with typo-tolerance, such highlights work even if users misspell words. Relevant answers can be shown in the form of snippets, providing even more information about products.

• Facets

The use of facets allows users to easily refine their search results and navigate the product catalog

• Synonyms

A flexible and adjustable system of synonyms allows refining the experience even further. By setting up synonym pairs based on the needs of your data, you can show even more relevant search results. For example, it is possible to set jacket to be equal to coat, etc.

• Language processing settings

Algolia allows you to dive deeper into the language grammar matters. You can specify your own rules for handling plurals, stop words, optional words, and prefixes.

• Geo-based search results

This feature is especially useful for stores with a strong offline presence. By enabling geo-awareness, you can help users find information about products that they can pick up at the nearest location. For further convenience, it is possible to constrain the search to a region or radius.

• Sorting strategies

To fine-tune search results, you can set up multiple product sorting strategies. You can allow users to sort by lowest price, availability, etc.

• Distinct feature

In its nature, the distinct feature allows to de-duplicate search results. For example, if you are selling a T-shirt in five colors, it should appear only once in results with color variations specified somewhere else. This way, you can show more products in search results instead of showing product variations.

• Personalization

With AI-enabled personalization, customers get more relevant results. These are shown based on their gender, age, and other statistics that the platform carefully collects.

Algolia is truly a powerhouse on the market of search engines. The platform provides a robust set of configurable features.  These allow creating a unified shopping experience and provide customers with relevant results. Implementation of Algolia positively influences conversion and revenue.

Benefits of Algolia Search Engine

Implementation of the Algolia search engine brings alone a lot of benefits. The platform offers features designed for store owners. Here are the main advantages that Algolia provides.

• Speed

Algolia delivers search results within 100ms, making all behind-the-scenes work invisible for end-users. To guarantee an optimal shopping experience, Algolia prioritizes search requests over indexing operations.

• Relevance of results

The platform sets results relevance as its primary task. Using a tie-breaking algorithm and a variety of criteria, Algolia ensures that results match search queries.

• Transparency

Transparency in Algolia’s algorithms allows companies to configure it to their needs. There are no secret algorithms and complication formulas. Thus, the configuration process does not require some special knowledge.

• Analytics

Algolia search engine collects data about user activity, helping you to track click rates, conversions, perform A/B testing. Based on the received insight, you can fine-tune on-site eCommerce search for more relevant search results.

• Query suggestion

After every keystroke, search input is sent to the Query Suggestions index. The system returns relevant query suggestions. This way, customers can find products faster, as they don’t need to type the whole product name.

• Voice search

The importance of voice search is predicted to grow in the foreseeable future. With IoT right around the corner, eCommerce needs to implement it right away. With Algolia, it is possible to add a voice search to a website without extensive coding.

Turn Site Search into a Powerful Tool with Algolia

On-site eCommerce search is an integral part of eCommerce websites. That’s why you should carefully approach its implementation carefully so that it won’t disrupt conversion rates.

Algolia is an out-of-the-box solution for businesses working in different industries. Compatibility with a number of platforms, including Magento 1 and Magento 2, turns it into a great Magento site search. The Algolia realtime search helps to create an efficient, flexible, and insightful search for websites.