Today’s shoppers have a problem: too much choice and too little time. The combination of lower barriers to entry for vendors and large retailers’ historic belief that more choice means more topline sales is leading to many shoppers being inundated with options – and as the online marketplace becomes ever more crowded, an overwhelming volume of product isn’t benefiting anyone. Nobody comes out a winner in a vast eCommerce landscape that leaves shoppers missing out on an enjoyable, rewarding experience because they can’t wade through an infinite number of possibilities.
It’s not uncommon for a large retailer to have tens of thousands of products listed across 40-50 pages and plans in place to add significantly more. Yet the reality is that most of these items are never seen by customers. Why? Because they are hidden within what we call “Dark Aisles” – whole sections of eCommerce websites that become completely invisible to searchers and browsers. With so much noise out there, only the most popular, in-demand and trending products stand a chance of grabbing a shopper’s limited time and attention, leaving retailers with whole swathes of stock that never see the light of day.
Only 20-30% of products are ever viewed by customers
There are three major reasons why products that could be highly relevant to shoppers are currently missed. Firstly, they’re not described in the way a customer is actually looking for: a search for a flash drive should always bring up a USB stick, yet it’s incredible how often that doesn’t happen. Secondly, a lack of attribution: a product that isn’t correctly tagged won’t appear where the customer is actually searching – again, to give an example, a shampoo that fails to appear in the women’s bathing section. And the third reason, which really is a byproduct of both, is that there’s simply too much choice and customers give up because it takes too long to find what they’re hunting for. Only the most tenacious of online shoppers these days will pour through page after page of search results: if you don’t have what they need quickly, your competitor is only ever one click or swipe away.
Retailers can no longer afford to assume that shoppers will ‘Doom Scroll’ thousands of products until they find what they need. It’s a tough market out there with a lot of competition. And that’s exactly why an intent-led commerce approach is increasingly being embraced by retailers that recognise consumers’ shopping habits have changed and who want to ensure that their products can be found in the right place at the right time.
The whole purpose behind intent-led commerce couldn’t be simpler: it’s about getting customers what they want, when they want it, with as little effort, clicks and agro as possible. It’s about doing away with aimless scrolling by understanding customer intent, optimising search terms and creating filter systems that match the way shoppers actually want to shop. And it’s about successfully and seamlessly presenting customers with the 20 or so products that they’re actually looking for amidst the noise of tens and thousands of other available options. Do that, and you immediately make the issue of range size – and e-commerce’s dark aisles – obsolete.
Striking the right balance with product ‘range exposure’
The problem of dark aisles can, and is, being addressed head on by retailers who are taking an intent-led approach by focusing on improving “range exposure” – understanding that if too much product is exposed, shoppers will be overwhelmed by choice, but if too little is shown, customers feel like they are missing out. Intent-led retailers get that the biggest issue facing shoppers is product overwhelm, and make it their mission to cut down the available options with as little effort as possible for the customer.
While expanding a store’s product catalogue is often seen as a strategy to boost top-line sales, in our experience it can often have the opposite effect and prove highly detrimental by making the site difficult to navigate and overwhelming for the customer. It is the ‘paradox of choice’ playing out within the retail space – the more choices a customer is presented with, the harder it will be for them to make a decision.
Without adopting an intent-led approach, it can be all too easy for retailers to fall into the trap of having to resort to outdated, short-term tactics like discounting undiscovered and unsold products as a means of hitting sales forecasts. Yet retailers who shift to an intent-led approach can win over customers old and new by presenting them with the products they want and need with the minimum of effort.
Intent-led commerce means that correctly tagged products are presented to customers who have high intent to discover and buy those particular products – and because the desire is there, pricing becomes far less of a hurdle to overcome.
Retailers can now shed light on dark aisles
Richer, more detailed product descriptions and information, search and filtering options are the foundation of this approach. Technology like machine learning and AI gives retailers the opportunity to enrich product descriptions at scale with more intent-based information, based on customer search behaviour, natural language, pattern recognition, and other attributes. Tech enables retailers to apply this information to every product in their range, and automatically keep it up to date. Rather than “set and forget”, product descriptions and information can respond to how seasons, trends, search patterns or range changes, meaning products are always findable.
Working out what customers are trying to buy, and then curating navigation and building an experience with clear intention at heart does more than eliminate the problem of dark aisles. Do it right and having a huge product range actually becomes a great asset once more.
By shifting to an intent-led commerce model, online retailers can shed light on dark aisles, make their full product and category ranges easier for their customers to shop. By embracing an intent-led commerce approach, retailers can become much less reliant on pushing offers and discounting products to meet sales targets and can instead do a far better job of showing the right products to customers at the right stage of their journey – and that’s a scenario in which everyone’s a winner.
Warren Cowan, Founder & CEO at FoundIt!
