Blog

It's time to focus on site search and performance

By Olalla Salazar

eCommerce search has changed a lot in the last few years. Everyone´s experienced that feeling of frustration when using a search box to look for a specific product and not being able to find it, even when we know with certainty that the product exits in the catalogue. Fortunately, this feeling is becoming rarer these days. However, that doesn't mean that the problem has been completely resolved. Site search experience is much more than just avoiding the frustration a user feels when their expectations aren’t reached; it’s about achieving consistency, reliability and user happiness through the search box.

Let´s talk about Testing

By Jorge Gabriel

Frequently, and especially in social networks and technology forums, I come across essays on the principles of the methodology of testing. Among the different approaches, there are those who strongly defend manual testing against automatic tests, and then I also find many who throw away human testing to leave everything in the hands of the automated tests.

Scientists vs Dreamers in Product Management

By Angel Maldonado

Being data driven is considered a good thing, there is truth in it, but there is also truth in questioning it. There is danger in prioritising reason over unreason when it comes to exercising...

Why Findability is the only real metrics that matters and why we’ve evolved how we measure it

When you browse on an eCommerce site, you’re perhaps unaware of the amount of information you’re generating, and the same happens when you make a query on a search engine. All your activity, from the searches to the navigation to the add to cart, generates data which is extremely useful for online retailers. What’s more, this information often forms a basis for the decisions they take to improve their site and services.

“How to use customer obsession to build products that delight”

By Angel Maldonado

I had the personal pleasure to attend and host our first ProductTank meet-up in Barcelona last week with guest speaker Jeff Gothelf, author of Lean UX and Sense and Respond, and organised by Gino Micacchi. 

Summer Sales Outpace Black Friday

By Germán Heredia

The summer sales period can witness some of the busiest shopping days of the year for particular retailers, generating high traffic, high buying intent and a high emotional sentiment from consumers, and this year certainly didn’t disappoint.

THE FUTURE OF AI IS PEOPLE

By Angel Maldonado

Why AI has become a cherished part of digital and how creativity will dictate its future.

The Challenging Dimensions of Image Recognition (2º part)

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence have been gaining traction and popularity over the last few years, and beyond Google’s tech scene. As eCommerce continues to grow at such an electric pace, we see more and more features, from recommendations and search ranking to alert systems, that are driven by deep learning and artificial intelligence technologies.

Online book searches increase by more than 100% during fairs or on special dates

By Germán Heredia

Special Dates are distinct days or periods that demonstrate unique behaviours as customers exhibit different and singular characteristics

Searching for Seasonal Keywords within the Data Forest

By Germán Heredia

At EmpathyBroker one of the challenges we’ve taken on is to develop Data visualisation into one of our crown jewels. We’ve invested a lot of time and resource in this area and one visualisation that’s been particularly interesting is that of keywords. In fact, we started working on this due to a huge customer demand and a desire to understand the use of site search queries and terms.

Zara’s intelligent use of search data is transforming it’s online store and putting the customer back at the centre

By Borja Santaolalla

Zara.com opened its doors to a selection of media titles earlier this year for the first time ever, and the resulting articles generated a lot of attention within the fashion industry. I personally found it very interesting to see the role that search now plays within their digital agenda. In particular, the way search data is being used for a number of diverse purposes and within different departments beyond purely helping users to find products.

Really Understanding Zero Results Searches

By José Cabañeros

“What products are customers currently demanding that we don’t have?” This question is probably one of the most repeatedly asked by all eCommerce companies in order to understand demand and product replacement. The answer seems obvious “The products that people search for and can’t find!” But, this isn’t entirely true.

WORLD BOOK DAY SEARCH INSIGHTS

By Germán Heredia

As we´ve looked at previously with Black Friday and Valentine´s Day, special dates generate unique behaviours. For booksellers, World Book Day is their Black Friday with huge selling and revenue potential as consumers rediscover their love for reading and books. Established by UNESCO, it´s a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and reading around the world and the one-day festival is celebrated in over 100 countries, driving millions of buyers worldwide.

The role of search and browse when building a commerce product

By Angel Maldonado

Think of Buying as a dance; a fun movement of attempted balance between emotion and reason, between desire and need.

The Personal Data storm makes me wonder What is the future of User Profiling in Commerce?

By Angel Maldonado

GDPR and Facebook rebuke will change the way online players treat Personal Data Online players have already started to overhaul their Personal Data participatory systems and partnerships. Seeking to drastically reduce Personal Data usage beyond their strict needs as they try to appease Europeans and even Worldwide consumers while also re-establishing trust.

Search is redefining the ecommerce experience

By Borja Santaolalla

It’s not enough anymore to just design a great product. Nor is it to have the coolest store. I mean yes, it definitely helps, but in the end it all comes back to brands and emotions. Making people feel unique and special. Making people feel good and connected to a brand through experience.

The Challenging Dimensions of Image Recognition (part 1)

As consistent product data greases the wheels of eCommerce, the inconsistency that emerges from dealing with a large number of fashion items raises different challenges. How to organise and standardise the product data received from different retailers? Or, how to supply the missing information and ensure accuracy across distinctive catalogues?

SPECIAL DATES VALENTINE’S SEARCH INSIGHTS

By Germán Heredia

Romance was certainly in the air last week as many of us reached into our wallets to demonstrate our love. Valentine´s day has in fact become one of the busiest and most important days of the year for some eCommerce companies, driving millions of buyers worldwide.

Valentine’s Commerce Search?

By Angel Maldonado

Valentines drives hundreds of Millions of buyers who expose very unique Search & Discovery patterns. In our experience, Valentines buyers exhibit high commitment, knowing more about their desirable item, looking for shortcuts.

The Perfect Commerce Strategy

By Angel Maldonado

There are two ways of looking at the capacities that a Commerce Platform has to offer. One is technically, another experientially. Technically, a store is seen as a set of interconnected steps that serve a user in the so called Shopping Process. Experientially, a store is seen as a User Interfacing layer that serves a Human need to communicate.

2018's turning point GDPR

By Angel Maldonado

Understanding the significance of the GDPR directive triggers the notion of Data as a potential liability. The majority and the fastest growing sets of Data held by any online store or platform are in fact made of Personal Data.

Irresistible products aren’t reasoned into existence

By Angel Maldonado

We live in a world of Data, relying on metrics religiously, unquestionably and following their lead.

The Dream UI A Magic Moments maker

By Angel Maldonado

When using the real world as a source of inspiration, the digital world is capable of creating principal memories or awakening moments. Leaving aside VR and upcoming voice or gesture innovations, everyday devices are already filled with visuals that bring life to the otherwise flat screen. Rotations, motions and transitions emulate the physics of our world; a mimicking act of Design (-Mimesis, Plato-) that connects with the Human Being who seeks to realise the basic need of feeling.

MongoDB Europe ’17 arcade beers and data

By Edgar Herrero

After an hour trip on the ‘Tube’ in a cold wet London Wednesday morning from Shepherd’s Bush to the O2 Arena where this years MongoDB Europe edition was held, we got there wet and hungry… BUT, what we would see was just going to change our moods for good.

Expressive Design in Commerce

By Angel Maldonado

An online store is a communication system where the Sender of a Message (-and the receiver of a response-) is a Human Being. When People are confronted with products and offers in a device screen as opposed to confronted with other Human Beings, our unique capacity to articulate and understand emotions is blocked.

What is Digital Empathy and how can we evoke it

By Angel Maldonado

How can eCommerce tools connect with the Human Being behind the Data? Many words have been written on personalisation. There are plenty of software products around profiling through Data. However, these tools provide little and in many cases no service when it comes to connect to our emotional drive.

Presenting a new venture ImagineYourData.com

By Angel Maldonado

The future of search is not search but Empathy. I am both pleased and excited to share a new venture: ImagineYourData.com ; an open lab where our amazing Data, Insights...

Keywords network

We were interested to find which relations exist across different queries, with that in mind we considered just the queries containing more than one keyword, removed all stopwords (words that do not carry any relevant information such as with, me and I), and plotted a diagram with the most frequent keywords, and their connections.

Seasonal Keywords

This chart shows how the main keywords on search queries change over winter, spring, summer and autumn.

Desktop vs Mobile II

By Álvaro Díaz

As a further part of the comparison between the behaviour of users using Mobile and Desktop devices, we have analysed the distribution of Search traffic throughout the day.

Visualising Black Friday

By Angel Maldonado

We have all been exposed with excitement and concern to the challenges and opportunities that Sale campaigns pose to our stores and apps.

Desktop vs Mobile

By Álvaro Díaz

This chart represents a comparison over the last year of the Search traffic evolution between Desktop and Mobile devices, showing a notable increase in Mobile traffic during the last months.

Trends

We were interested to find how some end users queries behave through the whole year, and find out from the data if would emerge common patterns.

Why Conversion? Mmmm....

By Angel Maldonado

Here is a collection of marketing messages from Software Vendors within the eCommerce Search offering: SLI-Systems: " Convert shoppers into buyers " Findify: "Sell more... " Bloomreach: " ...more discoverable,...

My First Data visualisation with StatsAPI

This is my first post, where to start? after working roughly 2 weeks with the STATS API I would like to share my experience. As the way I see it, EmpathyBroker’s StatsAPI is aimed to process the data available in EmpathyBroker Search & Navigation eCommerce customers (queries, clicks, add2carts and all aspects of the search & navigation journey) and give insights, and shorten the distance between raw data and usable information.

Expressive Design in eCommerce

By Angel Maldonado

Being Empathetic to the emotional nature of customers is the single trigger that can be the catalyst to create loyalty. Whether you call them Users, Visits, Sessions, Customers, they are People, just like you and I, driven by desires and emotions, People who have an special emotional connection with family, friends and also with he things they take into ownership.

Empathy appoints Eduardo Sanchez as Executive Chairman

Empathy announced the appointment of Eduardo Sanchez as Executive Chairman. A seasoned software executive, he brings more than 25 years of experience on data, advanced analytics and cloud businesses.

A new professional environment

At EmpathyBroker we believe that understanding engineering and computer students is very important. They will be our partners in the future and we need to transmit the philosophy and values of our company, our way of working and our products and services.

Collaboration is King

All my greatest achievements in life have been due to a great team ethos and spirit of collaboration and helping each other so that we all achieve. This applies in all areas, including any sporting achievements, work recognition or matters of house & home such as recently going unbeaten in the local 7 aside league. As the saying goes ‘no man/woman is an island’. No martech is an island either.

Misconceptions in Site Search

Search isn’t sexy Search IS sexy. If you see search as a vital component of your ecommerce site, then it can be like lingerie. With your site already working efficiently and with it being appealing to the consumer, this added layer can be the difference to a higher conversion rate ;). If we look at Zara.com this is a fine example of how search can improve the way in which your site works for the consumer. Zara make search the focal point of their website and allow their customers to discover.