Faceted Search: The heart of your online store
What is faceted search?
Imagine having to go through the entire inventory to find something that you want, it is logically not possible. The person searching for a particular item might just leave the website within a few minutes, this is the reason faceted search is used.
So basically what is Facet? It is a technique where the information is extracted according to the faceted classification system. In layman language, it is much more than the usual search, it provides a list of subcategories and options, which ensures ease for user to drill down to the required items and not the ones he's not interested in.
In this form of search, in addition to standard search results, we get an additional filter option. It is a list of subcategories for certain categories, for example, you are buying a T-shirt, and for the price, you will get a price range. Same as above for color you will get different colors to choose from and it goes on for the material of the T-shirt, style, length and so on. Faceted search provides a list of useful subcategories and it never drills down in the category for which no results are available. These results have proven its use in eCommerce websites where the user can easily find what he/she is looking for rather than just adding keywords manually to find a specific item.
This Technique is also known as:
- Faceted Navigation
- Drill Down Search
- Multi-facet filters
- Facet browsing
How it is useful for buyers and attracts more sales?
Faceted Navigation filters and helps the customers to perform a search action on catalog and search pages using a set of pre-defined filtering method. It can be anything like product's features, specification, categories, discounts, price range, material, color, print etc.
It helps the visitors to find the exact product they are looking to buy very quickly by applying their choice of filtering with multiple filters to find the products that match with search criteria.
For eCommerce sites with a large number of products, this is a must have feature. This also enables you to offer a visibility into the merchandise you sell online and greatly help them increase the conversion rate. If a customer will be able to filter what they are looking for in seconds, most probably they will not be going to leave.
The main advantages and uses of facet navigation are:
- Ease of finding the requirement specific item.
- Ease of shuffling through a large number of products.
- The item customer wants to buy is easily searched and so are the items which closely match the specific product.
- The items are well organized into categories and sub-categories.
- The visibility of customer specific merchandise is increased.
- A personalized search is created for each customer.
How EasyStoreHosting faceted search is different than others:
EasyStoreHosting provides you with the most convenient ways to categorize and sub-categorize your items. With its faceted navigation, the customers will never get stuck or lost in the whirlwind of items they don't even want to buy. Ajax check box filter gives customers a power to create his/her own personalized search, like each individual is different so will be the requirement and consequently the categories, sub-categories, options they search for.
Secondly, EasyStoreHosting is different from others because all filters do is analyzing a set of objects and eliminate any that don’t match selected criteria. Although in faceted search, it helps to use filters for many different attributes of the particular product in a set. EasyStoreHosting also uses the autocomplete feature which helps in optimizing your eCommerce website search. This is helpful in speeding up the search process. Autocomplete feature guides users to the most popular choices for their searched term. EasyStoreHosting also succeeds in delivering Google like refresh functionality which no-one provides.
The recipe to create a successful online store is narrowing down the search for the customers to create an ease and convenience of shopping online, which being the main reason customers flock towards buying products at eCommerce websites.
