• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, October 10, 2016

According to the study and report of more than 1,000 American shoppers by RichRelevance, while site search is critically important to shoppers, the study suggests that many retailers have not evolved site search to meet the demands of an omnichannel world. Frustrated web and mobile shoppers are likely to go elsewhere when retailers don’t get it right.

Diane Kegley, CMO of RichRelevance, says that “… site search is tremendously important to shoppers, but under-delivers when it comes to all the channels where consumers shop today… there have not been major advances in site search in a decade… “

The Study of American shoppers reports that:

Search Is Critical to Shoppers

• 83% of Americans say that the search box is extremely important or important when shopping on a retailer’s web or mobile site
• 5% say site search is not at all important, compared to 56% who say that the search box is extremely important
• 76% of shoppers always or often use the search box when shopping on a retailer’s site, compared to 7% who say they rarely or never use the search box
• 73% of Americans are likely to leave a retail site that doesn’t provide good search results, and 37% say they are not at all likely to return

Gift Giving Raises The Stakes

• 37% of Americans state site search is ‘more important’ when shopping for gifts than otherwise
• 48% of all shoppers rank the ability to ‘easily search and find products’ as the single most important thing when shopping for gifts on a retailer’s site
• 26% of the vote shows that product ratings and reviews are the second most popular features
• Curated gift ideas, a traditional holiday staple, are far less important to shoppers with only 5% of respondents ranking these as most important when gift shopping

Room for Omnichannel Improvement

• 35% of U.S. shoppers are generally unsatisfied with the search results they receive on a mobile device
• 38% say they get worse search results when shopping on their mobile device than laptop or desktop
• 28% of consumers cite ‘irrelevant product results’ as the #1 frustration with site search
• 36% would like to see search results personalized based on their previous shopping behavior

RichRelevance specializes in omnichannel personalization, used by multinational companies to deliver relevant customer experiences across web, mobile and in store. The survey of 1,006 U.S. shoppers was conducted online in September 2016.

For additional information from Rich Relevance please visit here.