Google is offering a new solution for e-commerce brands interested in improving their site’s search capabilities.
With the release of Retail Search, Google Cloud is making it possible for online retailers to provide Google-quality search results on their own websites. This means it will be faster and easier for customers to find the products they are looking for on your site, making them more likely to complete thor transaction instead of abandoning your site.
How Poor Search Experiences Hurt Online Retailers
According to a 2021 survey from The Harris Poll and Google Cloud, at least 94% of American consumers have abandoned a shopping session because of poor quality or irrelevant search results and 76% of shoppers said that an unsuccessful search led to a lost sale for a retail website.
Based on this, the report estimates retailers lose $300 billion each year solely because of this phenomenon known as search abandonment.
Understanding Intent To Deliver Better Search Results
The biggest hurdle to delivering successful search results has always been understanding search intent.
Most basic search engines struggle to identify user intent and deliver the most relevant search results quickly. Google’s systems, however, are constantly being updated with the specific goal of better understanding user intent and delivering the best results quickly.
With Retail Search, retailers can now deliver that same quality search experience on their own site.
Customizable For Your Needs
Retail Search is fully customizable to suit the needs of almost any e-commerce site.
As the announcement says:
“Our site search solution builds upon decades of Google’s experience and innovation in search indexing, retrieval, and ranking. Retailers can make product discovery even easier for shoppers, while optimizing for their business goals with advanced capabilities.”
These capabilities include:
- Advanced query understanding that produces better results from even the broadest queries, including non-product searches.
- Semantic search to effectively match product attributes with website content for fast, relevant product discovery.
- Optimized results that leverage user interaction and ranking models to meet specific business goals.
- State-of-the-art security and privacy practices that ensure retailer data is isolated with strong access controls and is only used to deliver relevant search results on their own properties.
For more information, read the full announcement here or visit Google’s Discovery Solutions for Retail.
