Search That Works
Including misspellings, synonyms and how customers actually name things.
Ecommerce UX Design
Ecommerce UX Design Because Most Lost Sales Are Discovery Failures
Checkout gets most of the attention and accounts for a minority of lost sales. Far more people leave because they could not find the right product, could not narrow a large category, or searched and got nothing. Ecommerce UX design starts with discovery — search, filtering and navigation — because that is where the volume is.
We Start Where the Volume Is
Checkout optimisation improves a small share of sessions. Discovery affects nearly all of them.
Filters That Match Intent
The attributes people choose by, not the ones in the product database.
Zero Results Handled
A dead end is a lost sale and it is entirely designable.
Category Navigation
Large catalogues narrowed without twelve clicks.
Cross-Session
Most purchases involve several visits, and most sites forget everything between them.
Ecommerce UX, Explained
Where Are Sales Actually Lost?
Four points, and only the last is checkout.
Discuss Your Store →- 1
Search Returns Nothing
The customer used a different word from your product data.
- 2
The Category Is Too Big
Four hundred items and no useful way to narrow them.
- 3
The Product Page Falls Short
A question went unanswered — see product page design.
- 4
Checkout
Real, and smaller than the three above combined.
What Ecommerce UX Work Covers
Discovery first, then the path from finding to buying.
Being found in the first place is covered by ecommerce SEO.
How We Improve Ecommerce UX
Start with the search log. It is the most direct record of what customers wanted and did not get.
Read the Search Log
What people typed and what came back.
Map Discovery Paths
How people get from arrival to a product.
Fix Search and Filters
Synonyms, spelling and the attributes that matter.
Design the Dead Ends
Zero results and empty filters given somewhere to go.
Test With Shoppers
Real purchase attempts, watched.
Discovery
Why the Search Log Is the Best Evidence You Have
It is a list of things customers wanted, in their own words, with a record of whether they got them.
What does the zero-results list tell you?
Three different things, and they need different responses. Products you do not stock — useful demand data. Products you do stock under a different name — a synonym problem. And misspellings, which are trivially fixable.
Most stores never look at it, so all three go unaddressed indefinitely while the same searches fail every week.
It is the highest-return data in ecommerce: specific, already collected, and directly actionable without any research being commissioned.
Why do filters so often not help?
Because they are generated from the product database rather than from how people choose. A clothing filter offering fourteen material types and no "suitable for" grouping reflects the data model, not the shopper.
Filter order matters too. The attribute most people narrow by should be first and open; the specialist ones can be collapsed below.
The test is whether someone can get from four hundred items to a shortlist in two interactions. Most large-category filter panels fail it while offering more options than anyone uses.
Questions,answered.
Ecommerce UX design covers how shoppers find and choose products — search, filtering, category navigation and the path to purchase — as well as the basket and checkout.
Usually not. Checkout affects the minority of sessions that reached it. Discovery — search, filters, navigation — affects nearly all of them, and that is where the larger loss sits.
Start with the zero-results log. It separates into products you do not stock, products named differently in your data, and misspellings — three problems with three straightforward responses.
Enough to reach a shortlist in about two interactions, ordered by how people actually narrow. Generating one filter per database attribute produces a long panel that helps nobody.
Alternatives, a corrected spelling suggestion, and popular items from the closest category. A dead end is a lost sale and it is entirely designable.
Still deciding if ecommerce ux design is right for you?
Talk to UsThey Told You What They Wanted
Ecommerce research usually means commissioning something: user testing, surveys, a heatmap tool, a consultant with a heuristic checklist.
Meanwhile the site search log contains thousands of statements of intent, typed by real customers in their own words, each one paired with a record of whether the site could answer it.
The zero-results list in particular is a queue of specific, fixable failures — and on most stores nobody has opened it since the search was installed.
Free Store Review
Find Out What Shoppers Cannot Find
Send us your store and access to your search log. We will tell you which searches fail and where discovery breaks down.
Claim Your Free Marketing Audit
Enhance Your Brand Potential At No Cost!
- Expect a response within 24 hours
- NDA available upon request
- Dedicated product specialists