We recently looked at the numbers to identify quick ways to improve a customer's conversion rates. We saw that three times as many visitors were making purchases if they used the search bar than if they didn't. Some of this can probably be associated to the fact that visitors who already know what they want are more likely to do a direct search for it. However, we hypothisized it was also the difference between having exactly what a customer wanted right inside the door vs making them find it in the aisle. The more work to find the product they want, the less likely they are to stick around long enough to find it. Thus we decided to to change around the header to encourage visitors to use the search bar.
Before:
After:
We moved the search into the prime front and center position on the page, moved the phone number to the top so the search bar could as large as possible, and gave it some nice "Search, Find it Faster" default background text.
We compared the before and after results and found an overall 2.5% increased conversion rate. Not bad! In the future we'll be moving search over to Sphinx and let you know what kind of results we get.
The Numbers:
Prior 14 days
8.35% use the search bar
6.02% search bar conversion
2.0% none search bar conversion
After - last 7 days
10.29% use the search bar
5.82% search bar conversion
2.0% none search bar conversion
Totals:
2.33567 per 100 visitors before
2.393078 per 100 visitors after
2.45788% increased conversion rate