Product Discovery Tools and Techniques for Retailers

Everyone knows that Product Discovery plays a crucial role in boosting sales on an e-commerce platform. How well it works can make or break a customer’s shopping experience so improving it is essential. In today’s fast-changing market where digital integration is growing, retailers need to stay one step ahead. They can do this by using the right tools and methods to simplify the product discovery process. To develop a solid product roadmap, it’s important to focus on customers and make good use of user research.

What is Product Discovery?

Product discovery, as its name implies, is how buyers find what they want to buy often starting with a basic product range. It begins at the search bar and continues throughout the shopping trip taking into account past browsing and purchases. This can happen in two ways: casual browsing, which needs something to spark a buyer’s interest, or direct search where the buyer knows what they want. No matter how it starts, the goal is to show customers the right products at the right time through smart product placement.

Why Should You Care?
It’s worth our attention because it makes buying easier. It’s also important because it has the ability to

·       Boosting sales and order size: When you show customers products they like, it helps them decide what to buy. This can lead to unexpected purchases and better matches for what they’re looking for. The result? Bigger carts more sales, and more money coming in.

·       Keeping customers happy and coming back: If people can find what they want on your site without hassle, they’ll have a good time shopping. This means they’re more likely to come back when they need to buy something else.

·       Making shopping a breeze: When you make it easier for folks to find products, you’re showing them what they need. This speeds up shopping and makes it smoother, which turns it into a fun experience rather than a chore.

Must-try Techniques for Retailers

Retailers can boost product discovery on their online stores in many ways. But remember, your strategy should fit your specific goals situation, and what you’ve got to work with. Here are some ideas to think about if they match what you’re trying to do:

Better Search

Search is often the first thing shoppers use, and regular keywords don’t always match how people look for things. So, it’s key to make sure search shows the most fitting results it can. Adding meaning-based and autocomplete features to text searches can help people shop faster and find what they want.

Also, using machine learning to add visual search lets shoppers find products by uploading pictures from social media inspirations. A new thing in retail is multi-search, which combines the best parts of text and visual search to give relevant product results.

Smooth Website Navigation

An online store should make it easy for shoppers to find what they want. It’s key to often check and get rid of anything that might slow down shopping.

On top of that, get rid of dead ends when people are looking for products. Remove error pages or out-of-stock items and instead show other product ideas to redirect people. Good filtering and visual mapping can make navigation even better.

Personalization

A captivating and inspiring shopping experience benefits from personalization at various points of contact. This includes personalized product suggestions driven by collaborative filtering, content-based filtering, or a mixed approach that uses customer information. Custom emails also play a role. A tailored shopping journey enables quicker product discovery leading to high customer contentment.

Take an omnichannel approach

Many shoppers now turn to social media platforms to start their product search. These platforms offer many chances such as built-in features to sell products or team-ups with influencers to showcase items.

Social media excels at creating social proof through testimonials and reviews. Other potential channels to explore include online marketplaces, communities, and digital publications.

Relevant Organization and Tagging

Correct product tags play a key role in helping customers find products. Clear well-defined categories also help make navigation easier. Customers expect detailed filters to narrow down their product searches, so it’s key to keep these features in good shape. Try to optimize product tags to match items with search words and create appealing changing product collections to show suitable yet enticing items. Business rules can help to automate and improve this process.

Tools you shouldn’t miss out on

Product discovery tools make it simple to put the methods mentioned above into practice. Whether you use them alone or as part of a system here are some must-haves to think about:

1.       Enhanced search: When you add semantic text and visual search features to your website, customers can find what they want using everyday language or by uploading a picture. A top-notch tool for this is ViSenze’s Multi-Search. It uses AI and LLM to give spot-on relevant results in just seconds. This search engine spots different product features and can handle text and image searches at the same time.

2.       Personalized Recommendations: ViSenze’s AI Recommendations is a tool that can personalize a retail website. This ecommerce product recommendation engine uses AI to show the right products in the right places based on what customers need. It combines product images and customer behavior in 6 different recommendation engines to help customers find products.

3.       Operational tools: GenAI Product Tagging is a tool that can automate the process of assigning product tags. This automation helps avoid high operating costs and errors that can happen when tagging products.

A well-tuned product discovery process is crucial to improve the shopping experience and boost sales in the cutthroat ecommerce world. Using tools to make improvements helps shoppers find what they want and lays the groundwork for future success.To succeed, businesses should develop products in an agile way, focus on understanding customers and making great products, and keep improving based on what customers say. You should check out the ViSenze AI Commerce Multi-Search and Discovery platform to see the amazing results for yourself!