Workstand Blog

Earlier this year we redesigned our site search functionality to make it 44% faster and more accurate. We've recently released an additional search enhancement plus several other exciting new features.

Auto-suggestion search makes shopping faster

We commonly look to the Google Retail UX Playbook for guidance when enhancing the shopping experience on your website. Based on these standards we’ve chosen to further enhance SmartEtailing site search with an auto-suggestion type ahead feature.

Go to your SmartEtailing website and start typing a product name into your search. After typing two characters you will see your website suggest search results that guide you to the most relevant products. Click on a suggestion, and you will go straight to the appropriate item detail page.

These suggestions are powered by the same logic driving the new search page results. We are constantly tuning the performance of those results, including spelling corrections, based on user feedback.

Another tip from Google is to always show something for search results. With our latest release, when a consumer searches on your site, even if there are no results, the searcher will get a friendly message with a display of featured items, previously viewed items, and an easy-to-use catalog navigator. The goal is to keep consumers shopping and minimize site bounces (exits).

We’ve already seen major gains in site search usage based on our most recent enhancements. There were 200% more searches on SmartEtailing websites in July compared to the same period in 2018. That’s an overall site traffic increase of roughly 16% during the same period. This improvement is a likely contributor to sales across the platform being up 22% and conversion rate improving by 4.5%.

Brand list sorted by your product quantity

We want to help you sell the brands and products you support so we’ve updated how brands display on catalog list view pages to help.

With this new feature, when a consumer visits a category catalog page they will see a list of six brands in the filters section on the left, sorted by the quantity of products that you have available. If the consumer wants to see more brands and clicks “Show More Brands” then the original list of most popular brands stays unchanged at the top of the list, while the remaining brands are displayed in alphabetical order.

A good way for you to preview this is to go to a category like “Cycling Gloves” on your website. You will see that the top six brands shown in the filters section is sorted in descending order by the number of products available. This was a popular request from retailers, especially for bikes. Previously the list of brands was always alphabetical and therefore large bike companies like Specialized or Trek were displaying near the bottom of the brand list.

Enhanced mobile friendly order confirmation emails

Ecommerce orders are growing rapidly across the SmartEtailing network. Year to date online orders are up 26% over 2018. We’ve completed an enhancement to improve the order confirmation that both you and your customers receive. The new emails have a much cleaner look and are designed with a mobile-first mindset. The information in the emails have been cleaned up and reformatted making emails easier to use. Aesthetically, they are as nice or nicer than the benchmark online sellers we monitor.

We’ve included thumbnail images of the purchased product that link, along with the product name, to the associated product detail page on your website. This makes it easy for your customers to take a second look at the product they are excited to have bought from you. Nurturing post-purchase customer satisfaction will improve repeat purchases and positive referrals.

SmartEtailing Traffic Analytics update

We’ve enhanced our analytics functionality to make accessing reporting easier than ever, with a direct integration into your Report Manager. You no longer have to click multiple links and open analytics in a new tab. The dashboard is cleaner, easier to refine, and much faster.

Summary

SmartEtailing is constantly improving the existing application and innovating new features. Our team is dedicated to making your SmartEtailing website as powerful as other major online retailers. Stay tuned for more exciting updates!