TABLE OF CONTENTS
Autocomplete is an ecommerce search suggestion solution that quickly suggests relevant recommendation to users as soon as they click in the search box. Its primary goal is to find out user intent and provide relevant keyword suggestions so users can easily navigate to the best possible Search Result Page. The secondary goal is finding out the product the users are searching for – which is more difficult to do in this scenario, because there are limited space in the autocomplete box to show products. In order for Autocomplete to be effective, it has to be fast. Prefixbox's Autocomplete works quicker than the blink of an eye. Our Autocomplete provides popular suggestions to users immediately when they click in the search box. As users begin typing, Autocomplete adjusts results instantly to provide relevant recommendations.
Read our guide: 10 Autocomplete Search Best Practices
Autocomplete is important, in fact it's the most widely used search feature and helps with conversion rate optimization. Prefixbox's Autocomplete recommends both keywords and products.
Keyword suggestions:
Product suggestions:
When users visit websites on a desktop, 50% click keyword suggestions, 5% click product recommendations and 45% just hit enter. Users depend on keywords to guide them to high quality results on the Search Results Page, so it's important to display accurate results quickly in order to augment user experience on your website.
Oftentimes, search boxes are implemented to show products only, instead of keywords, when customers start typing. However, simply displaying the product is not enough because the chance the right product is displayed is slim. Showing keywords is much more effective because it leads a potential customer to the Search Result Page with a wide range of UX options (filtering, sorting), which increases the chance of looking at multiple products, finding the right one and making a sale.
On mobile eCommerce websites – when the autocomplete box is optimized - 65% of search users select keywords. Usually, the search suggestions on mobile websites takes up half the screen while the keyboard takes up the rest, so it makes sense to show only keyword suggestions and no product suggestions in autocomplete in the mobile scenario. We usually set up different autocomplete search boxes for the mobile and desktop views. The additional benefit that the two scenarios then can be measured and optimized separately.
