"Sort by Rating" option drives conversions for Golfsmith

Summary

Golfsmith recently upgraded their Endeca functionality and introduced a “Sort by Rating” option on search & navigation results pages, giving their shoppers a new way to find and research products, in addition to sort options based on price, best sellers, and brand.

Results

We measured the performance of the “Sort by Rating” option compared to site search & navigation usage, overall, on a cross-session basis.

Note: As other case studies have shown, cross-session may be the best basis for measuring the impact of reviews, since reviews are highly sought out by shoppers that are planning/researching a purchase online.

Compared to searchers in general, searchers that used “Sort by Rating” demonstrated:

• 20% higher conversion
• 10% higher average order value
• Resulting in 34% higher sales per unique visitor

For those browsers that use Endeca-powered Guided Navigation® options and not just the text search box, the results are even more impressive. “Sort by Rating” browsers vs. overall browsers demonstrated:

• 176% higher conversion
• 36% higher average order value
• Resulting in 319% higher sales per unique visitor

Additional Note: Between the Searchers and Browsers control groups (not mutually exclusive), Searchers had a higher conversion rate (5.9% vs. 3.2%, or 84% higher). This is not surprising, given the very focused and self-directed nature (an articulated need) of searching vs. browsing. Average order values were approximately the same between the two groups, which also makes sense.

Conclusion

• Top Rated Products category had a 49% higher conversion rate compared to the same products within their respective site categories.
• By adding a search and Guided Navigation path based on customer ratings & reviews of products, retailers shift the focus of many of their shoppers away from just price, popularity and promotional offers and towards the helpfulness, passion, and persuasiveness of word of mouth from the retailer’s advocates.
• The authenticity and transparency of real customer opinions on products drives higher conversion rates and average order values and, therefore, higher revenue per user of the site search and Guided Navigation function.

Smart retailers know that when you find a new, high performing path on your site, you should drive more visitors down that path. This integration between Bazaarvoice and Endeca creates that path and additionally provides a solution for customer "top rated product" landing pages that can be leveraged by internal and external (to the site) marketing programs, such as SEM and affiliate campaigns.

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