Fall-through search feature nabs lost sales at Backcountry`s niche sites
Search that fails to turn up what a consumer is looking for on a site can be useful --if it yields data that can be mined to inform site merchandising decisions going forward. But a failed search that forwards the consumer to another site within the same company that does have exactly what the searcher wants is even better, or so Backcountry.com is seeing in early results from a new type of search, fall-through search, built by WebSideStory to capitalize on Backcountry’s growing family of specialized niche sites.
The feature, which delivers searchers to other Backcountry sites when they’ve searched for an item Backcountry.com doesn`t carry but its niche sites do, was built by the analytics provider at the company’s request. Customers who arrive at niche ski site Tramdock.com via fall-through search off Backcountry.com convert at a rate 63% higher than customers who arrive at the site by other means, and their average sale is 14% higher. Those who reach niche snowboard site Dogfunk.com convert at a rate 24% higher and their average sale is 7% higher.
By bringing in visitors via fall-through search from its niche sites, flagship site Backcountry.com has decreased its overall conversion rate by 24%. However, the average sale among searchers that fall through from the niche sites who do wind up buying on Backcountry is 20% higher than for those who reach Backcountry by other means.
“We had people searching Backcountry.com for brand name terms like Columbia and Volcom and they got zero results, which is about the worse thing you can give a customer, particularly considering we carried the products in our other stores,” says Dustin Robertson, Backcountry.com’s vice president of marketing. “But now, for example, if you search for Volcom on Backcountry.com you are directed to DogFunk.com, the snowboard shop that does carry Volcom. And, by giving our customers a better experience we increase conversion.”
Backcountry.com’s president, John Bresee, will speak at the Internet Retailer 2006 Conference in June in Chicago, on the topic “Micro-Segmentation: The Internet Goes Where Stores and Catalogs Can`t.”
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