Humans are flawed — we make mistakes. We forget to pick up milk on the way home from work or we accidentally lock our keys in the car when we’re in a hurry to pick up milk. And, try as we might to get through life with as few mistakes as possible, it’s in our nature to make them often.

No matter how many products your ecommerce site has, site search remains an integral function in helping to push conversions and solicit convenience to customers. But, depending on the depth of your inventory, your site search might prove to be an asset in different capacities. A site with 10 products is going to have different needs than a site that has 1000 products with dozens of variations each, for example.

The term “Advanced Machine Learning” site search sounds like something you might hear in a science fiction movie. Don’t let the fictitious-sounding name fool you, however: this technology is readily accessible to Magento ecommerce merchants and investing in it could just be the best decision you make for your store’s site search function!

Merchandising banners work.  They bring to our attention stuff that we were not aware of; and are a necessity for vendors to get the word out. The immediacy of advertisement images beats many other communications channels, including newsletters, social media and other traditional media. Even though it is a great asset many vendors neglect them and create half-baked banners just to fill in the space and say they have them.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all consumers performed online product searches exactly the same way? Instead of guessing about search terms, ecommerce providers could simply identify a standard set of search variables and automatically connect the right shoppers to the right products every single time.

Everyone has their own likes and dislikes, preferences and eccentricities — it’s part of what makes us unique! When it comes to shopping for products — especially online — these preferences can be very refined and often, finding exactly the product we want in a sea of options becomes nearly impossible. This is why so many online shoppers turn to on-site search functions to help them.

e-Commerce managers know that there are a variety of tricks out there for drawing people deeper and deeper into their online stores. From splash pages and banners, to recommendation features and popups, it’s easy enough to grab people’s attention when they’re on your site and show them things they might like.

But what about when it comes to showing them what they need?

What’s the conversion rate for your e-commerce website? According to the e-commerce industry giant Magento, the average across all online retailers is usually only about three to five percent. In fact, few retailers find themselves ever achieving higher than eight to nine percent (outside of the site search segment), even during peak sales periods.

The secret to being successful in sales is to know who you’re selling to. Being able to tailor a unique sales pitch, speak in the right tone and accentuate the right selling points can be the difference between closing a deal and losing a lead. e-Commerce managers know this better than anyone.

Retail environments are constantly changing and innovating based on emerging trends, cultivated data and customer feedback — the strive to understand your customers and meet their demands is an ongoing one. Understanding the customer means meeting their needs with ease, which can mean anything from higher checkout totals, to more frequent return purchases, to word of mouth advertising that brings in new customers.