Introducing SKU Select: More Relevant Product Images for Search

Customers' online shopping expectations for personalized, relevant experiences haven't stopped increasing. While merchants have been investing in personalization for the last 10+ years, they still struggle to apply it in a way that provides real value to the customer. However, when they get it right, it pays off —Bloomreach data shows that 82% of a B2C shopper's experience is spent on search and browsing (76% for B2B).

Product discovery defines customer experience in commerce, and searchers convert 3x more than browsers. You definitely want your customers to be happy with their search experience because, at the end of the day, the search bar is likely the primary way they engage with your brand.

Search Relevance: Going Beyond the Basics

What does a “good” search experience look like? At Bloomreach, we like to think of it as finding the right product at the right time for your specific need. It sounds simple, but getting the details right takes work.

Your search and filter queries need to return the most relevant product, taking into consideration the nuances of what a customer is looking for in terms of size, quantity, material, color, or any other product attributes in your catalog. Otherwise, you're leaving money on the table because customers will have difficulty finding what they want and will leave your site without converting.

One key element of the search results page that you may be overlooking is the thumbnail of the product image (the “hero” image). Do you use a default product image for each SKU on your search results page, regardless of the query? Or when customers search, for example, “XXL purple leggings,” do they see images of models wearing the XXL size? If they see a default image with a different size or color, they might assume what they want isn't available and click away.

The State of Commerce Experience report from Forrester shows that 37% of people were confused by missing relevant product imagery during an online shopping experience. For many online sellers, showing a relevant image in response to specific customer searches will boost conversions and take the search experience to the next level.

Good news: Bloomreach now enables you to do this with a new feature called SKU Select.

Introducing SKU Select for Bloomreach Search

With SKU Select, you can customize the SKU selection to make sure that the right product variant is identified and returned on search and filter queries - or let Bloomreach do it for you, automatically! 

Bloomreach now offers the option to define a “hero” or default SKU per product via the product feed. With Bloomreach you could always do color-based Hero SKU selection, but with SKU Select, you can choose from any attribute for your hero SKU.

You can also rely on Bloomreach's intelligent index to power the SKU selection for you. Our query-based relevancy automatically takes care of returning the right product image based on what customers search for. You can also let SKU selection be powered by Bloomreach's bestseller algorithm to optimize for conversion, highlighting the product variant that sells the most for more generic searches.

SKU Select also works with filters, ensuring the right product variant is identified and returned as customers search by filters for specific attributes they care about - leading to higher conversion rates, more revenue, and better customer satisfaction.

Learn More

If you're already a Bloomreach Search customer, check out the documentation to see how it can help your ecommerce plans for 2021.

Still evaluating Bloomreach? Reach out to schedule a personalized demo with our team and see how much your business can grow.