Don't Cheat on E-Commerce Search

[mandy]

As e-commerce sites get more sophisticated about search, the temptation to manipulate the results is overwhelming. Giving in to such temptation is a really bad idea.

Trust and credibility—often associated with a brand—are arguably the most powerful assets of any e-commerce site.

...site-specific internal search engines can do so much more. Therein lies the problem.

This week, a search database vendor was describing all of the wonderful things their clients could do for their searches, such as integrating it with inventory so that overstocked items get pushed to the top of search results.

That same philosophy could identify products with lower margins and bury them at the bottom—or exclude them entirely from search results.

full article: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1900166,00.asp

[vitalfinds]

That guy needs to brush up on his writing skills.

[accentnepal]

[quote author=mandy link=topic=1709.msg6015#msg6015 date=1134480506]
.....  integrating (search) with inventory so that overstocked items get pushed to the top of search results.[/quote]

Since those items are usualy discounted you are doing the customer a favor. Also stale inventory drives up the cost of doing business and thus the cost to the customer.

That same philosophy could identify products with lower margins and bury them at the bottom ...

Why do I even carry that low margin carp?

It could be married with cookie identification so that customers who bought one obviously overpriced product could be pitched on other items appropriate for those with too much money on their hands.

Read that: "Items that the customer would also want." If it was obviously overpriced they would not have bought it, obviously.

Such capabilities are mouth-wateringly attractive to some marketers. The entire purpose of this column is to beg them to resist temptation ...

Points to an author who clearly has not done much selling:
1. Always encourage the selling of what you have too much of. Often the customer does not care if it is a red or a blue widget. If you have 7 red and only one blue it helps everybody if you save the blue for the guy who needs it to match his sofa.

2. I am in business to make a profit. Low margin means I do not get paid much for my work. (Fast selling items with low margins make it up in volume.) The customer does not care what my profit is, he cares what he pays. If I stock a lot of low margin, slow selling stuff I go out of business, then the customer has to go to the higher priced guy.

3. The guy with too much money on his hands is looking to spend it somewhere - often to feel better. Shopping is an anti-depressant. Might as well be me, I will give him good quality and a fair price.

[bargainbloodhound]

That same philosophy could identify products with lower margins and bury them at the bottom—or exclude them entirely from search results.

If he was talking about the internal search engine on a shopping comparison site like Shopzilla or Yahoo Shopping then this practice could definitely destroy customer trust (but there are definite reasons why a shopping comparison site might do this: $$)...but since he seems to be talking about the site-specific internal search engines on individual merchants' sites: there is really no reason why an individual merchant would do this if they have low margin items in inventory...merchants need to move all of their inventory off the shelves.

It could be married with cookie identification so that customers who bought one obviously overpriced product could be pitched on other items appropriate for those with too much money on their hands.

Ummm, sounds like cross selling/related items/upselling (or whatever you want to call it) which is a common feature of all but the very lowest end ecommerce software.