7 Signs of a Broken Site Search

Build vs Buy a Site Search Solution – Part II In the last blog, we talked about various factors that need to be considered in terms of the market scenario, existing vendors in the market and identifying our own needs/gaps before making the decision of Build vs Buy. In this blog post, we will be taking a deeper look into what it takes to build the Site Search solution from scratch. This should act as a reality check for all eCommerce businesses before they take a final call.

Building a Site Search solution end-to-end is no cakewalk. There are multiple components that need to be working in tandem with each other for the site search to function seamlessly.

First and foremost, you would need a search platform to be built and ready. It could take you 2 years of time (approx) before you build, test the platform, make it stable and ready to use. Even if you use SOLR as the foundational pillar, you will need resources to upgrade as and when the SOLR platform evolves.

Plus SOLR doesn’t come with all the site search features built internally, those features will have to be made over the top of the platform and custom-tweaked per your business requirements. This would require fulltime developers. The main challenges however are: 1. Long gestation period to make the Site Search go live 2. Investment of time, capital and manpower in non-core competency (product) 3. Inability to evolve the solution with changing technology and business needs 4. Opportunity Cost involved for the time your search solution is not live Once you have the search tech stack up and running, you would be needing data servers to host and manage the data (TBs of it). This would be an ongoing expense and as your system evolves, the need and expense for the servers will both keep rising.

Data alone is not enough. You need to convert this data into meaningful information and useful business insights that can make your search solution efficient. It would need AI and ML models and algorithms in place that can automate the most complex part of the site search solution – which is humanizing your search solution.

The ability to show contextual relevant search results to the shoppers (or products shoppers are most likely to buy) is built over a period of time. It is an intelligence that is gathered and put to use on the go. It would need resources in terms of developers, analysts to build and manage this system.

The seamless running of this system is key to ensure that your Site Search is just working fine.

Great that you have AI and ML models ready to power your site search solution but to put these into use – your eCommerce site needs to have the site search features available and integrated. These features are listed below.

You will be required to build all these features so that your AI and ML models can play the role they are built for.

Some other allied tasks would include: 1. Product catalog upload to this system 2. Feed indexing

3. Setting up the analytics so that data points can be gathered across the shopping journey 4. Tracking user flow 5. Testing analytics integration 6. Validation and testing of the overall system These tasks (1-6) will also be helpful in making a choice between various competing vendors offering you the Site Search solution. (in case you are opting for the buy option) Other key modules: 1. Merchandising capabilities 2. Analytics and Reporting 3. Dashboard/Console for a 360-degree view into the business For your site search system to function flawlessly, you would also want that it is capable of performing all of the above along with basic search functionalities.

From boosting or burying products, creating a landing page for promotion or holiday campaigns, to sorting – merchandising gives you a plethora of opportunities and ways to move your inventory. While shoppers come, search and buy the products from your eCommerce store, you want to be absolutely sure about search queries that worked, products that are fastselling, trending searches or recently made searches.

Analytics and reporting let your eCommerce managers be at the top of all these details. These basic functionalities play a key role in bringing out the best from your Site Search solution. Because unless your site search solution is helping you make informed business decisions, it is as good as nothing.

Now it is for you to decide if you want to build these functionalities on your own along with building the site search or prefer outsourcing to a vendor who can offer you all of it.

What I just did is list out all the tasks that need to be performed for your Site Search system to be up and running. Each and every task has an associated:

1. Cost involved – Some of the action items above are one-time expenditure while others are recurring expenses that will keep happening month-on-month 2. Time involved – You will have to check how much time does it take to build the site search system from scratch vs time it takes the vendor to go live with the product.

Last but not least comes the timeline for this project. Are you ready to wait for 2 years for the Site Search solution to be built in-house? Can your business wait and bear the opportunity cost associated with it? How quickly you want the solution to go live?

The answers to all these questions will help you make a decision between building this product in-house and outsourcing this to a vendor specialized in offering Site Search services to many eCommerce stores like you.

The decision is yours! In case you are looking to buy a Site Search solution for your eCommerce store, reach out to us here.

Source: https://unbxd.com/blog/build-vs-buy-a-sitesearch-solution-part-ii/