All modern Ecommerce implementations rely on search to display products. Search is used to render Category pages and shows customer query results. It also plays a crucial role in merchandising.
The term Searchandising is a combination of the words search and merchandising. In digital commerce, it describes the way to use the site’s search engine to promote products when users search for specific keywords or phrases.
Boosting and Burying
Boosting and Burying allow businesses to adapt their search engine relevance to meet their specific needs and goals and are used to promote some products by boosting their search ranking so they appear at the top of the list or bury them at the bottom of the results.
Merchandisers help to achieve business goals by regularly boosting and burying products to serve customers and drive KPIs.
One way to use boosting is to promote profitable products that you want to sell quickly. For example, if a particular dress is seeing increased sales because of a viral social media post, boosting it in searches can further improve results.
You can also use searchandising to manage your inventory. For instance, if you have a lot of unpopular high-inventory products, you can boost them in searches to make room for new models. On the other hand, if you have a popular product with low stock, you can bury it in searches until you have more available.
Slotting
Another Searchandising technique is called Slotting.
Some slots on categories pages can be reserved for a specific purpose, such as promoting products from important suppliers. If a retailer sells own-brand products, merchandisers can manually slot these products at the top of search results.
Modern Ecommerce systems and search engines allow merchandisers to define parameterized Searchandising rules to find the right balance between satisfying customer needs and achieving business goals.
Advanced Searchandising tools even allow you to schedule a specific time for a new product to become available in searches. This can be helpful for coordinating product launches and other promotions. Learn more about Searchandising and how to make it work for your businesses.
It’s not enough to provide users with just relevant results; you have to provide them with relevant results that you want them to buy!
