There is only one blazing and bothering topic today – COVID-19. The pandemic has affected people from myriad aspects – social distancing, limited social interactions, and even more restricted physical movement, among many others. With such a gargantuan change in contrast to our natural behavior, businesses have also faced unprecedented challenges and changes – again underlining the symbiotic relationship between customers and businesses.

Ecommerce is one of the business segments that has faced unprecedented changes, with traffic shooting to Black Friday levels and on-ground delivery restrictions. We did a deep dive into the State of ecommerce during COVID-19 to understand how shoppers reacted to the pandemic and how prepared ecommerce businesses are for these changing times. And as a matter of fact, many ecommerce businesses have taken this time to strengthen infrastructure to prepare for the future.

Let's take a quick quiz:

• Are you working on strategies to come out of this crisis better and stronger?

• Seeing the sudden changes with the advent of this pandemic, are you planning a risk mitigation strategy by taking some of your business online?

• Are you a large enterprise planning to go live with more categories of products for your shoppers to buy easily?

• Or are you one of those who have finally convinced yourselves against re-platforming and fixing the search now?

• Are you a small or medium-sized business heavily impacted by the COVID – 19 shutdowns?

If the answer is YES to any of the above questions, you are thinking in the right direction, putting your best foot forward as a business. Because the time is now!

Among these strategies, ecommerce businesses are deciding to implement a robust, specialized Product Discovery solution for their businesses.

Because they anticipate a massive influx of online shoppers in the times to come, and the need for a seamless on-site shopping experience is unsaid. From finding the relevant product faster to being able to pick and choose from their choicest brands and add more products to the cart on their way to the purchase journey – retail stores are looking forward to making the most of this surge in online shopping behavior.

And that is what a product discovery solution is built to do! Or at least supposed to do. The key objective of a good product discovery solution is to help shoppers find what they are looking for in an easy and hassle-free manner. Because 3 seconds of failed search attempt and Boom! The shopper is gone, and you have left money on the table.

In today's competitive landscape, where there is no dearth of options for shoppers to buy from, any loose end will cost you lots of money. You need to ensure that the search results are contextual and relevant. No search query ends up showing zero search results. Your online store needs to understand that when someone is looking for bread, they might as well mean to search for a bun, and if they are buying a bun, they might as well need butter to go along.

This can happen only when your search solution understands the shoppers' needs and preferences well and is built to offer 1:1 personalization to your shoppers across the buying journey.

Simply put, a good product discovery solution pushes the right product in front of the right user based on clickstream data, past shopping behavior, and preferences reducing clicks to purchase and hence, boosting overall website conversions.

In short, an efficient product discovery will:

32. Help your shoppers find the relevant products

33. Create a contextual shopping experience

34. Rank the products which the shoppers are more likely to buy higher

35. Personalize the shopping experience based shopper's profile

36. Recommend suitable suggestions to shoppers across the shopping journey

Product discovery solutions have consistently demonstrated a positive uptick in conversions and a direct impact on revenue for multiple clients across the verticals. ( Unbxd has seen this direct co-relation first hand, having implemented product discovery solutions for multiple businesses across the globe)

Once implemented, Product Discovery becomes integral to your website and digital footprint; getting it correct is highly crucial from the get-go. Getting live with the right solution generally takes 6-8 weeks to go live from identifying the right partner, depending upon your business requirements.

This is perfect timing, as the complete restrictions related to COVID – 19 are expected to be lifted only after 2-4 months. This way, you will be geared up for the demand surge your business will likely witness in the coming months.

Along with its partners, Unbxd also sees unprecedented traffic from its customers across the globe. In a post COVID – 19 world, Unbxd expects a drastic change in shopping patterns, which is already driving multiple customers to prioritize their digital commerce strategy.

Unbxd is already experiencing a surge in queries and requests for demos as companies start derisking offline businesses with online modes of selling.

Product discovery is crucial today to provide users with an easy experience as users get more options. In addition, higher conversion from visitors to your website is key as customers will go to another platform if they are still looking for what they are looking for easily and quickly on your online store. Shoppers have got nothing to risk, but you have!

And seeing the shoppers frisking away from your online store is the last thing you would want to witness. What you need to see is the shopper coming back to you more often for purchases and online shopping. That would be a true testament to you providing them with a seamless online shopping and search experience. Are you game for it?

So, if you have not yet included improvising the on-site search experience as a part of your digital commerce strategy, you might want to re-think! Your shoppers deserve to find the products they are most likely to buy quickly and with as much ease. Unbxd is among the best search platforms. Get in touch with us, and our experts will help you with product discovery for your ecommerce store.