Fast, accurate results are still No. 1, PacSun says

With the online retailing market as competitive as it is, retailers’ first focus when it comes to site search should be accuracy and speed, Stacy Clark, director of e-commerce for Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., tells InternetRetailer.com. “Customers come to the Internet for convenience and speed,” she says. “We want to do our part to deliver that.”

PacSun, No. 218 in Internet Retailer’s Top 300 Guide to online retailers, recently installed the new version of site search technology from site search technology developer Atomz Corp. It allows retailers to present products to customers in various ways, sorting such criteria, in PacSun’s case, as color, size, price, etc. “It helps get customers to products more quickly,” Clark says.

Fast and accurate search is important to PacSun, No. 218 in Internet Retailer’s Top 300 Guide to the largest e-retailers. 30% of customers start their shopping trips at the site with search, Clark says. “This takes search to the next level and allows customers to drill down,” she says.

While the installation is new enough that PacSun doesn’t have any metrics on whether it has resulted in increased sales, Clark says that internal usability studies showed that the technology is easy for customers to use and resulted in greater accuracy. PacSun upgraded from a previous version of Atomz technology.