🏆 What is the best (next) product finder for your online store?

Making a product finder is a piece of cake with Aiden. But, aside from all that convenience, you naturally want to make the decision aid that brings you the most. And that is sometimes quite difficult. Especially if you already have 2, 3 or 4 decision aids. So what is your 'best' next product finder?

In this article, we give you the tools to find your answer to this. Would you rather have a chat? Send us a message, then we would love to think along with you.

Step 1 - Set your goal

The same applies to you as to your customers. Before you can determine what your 'best' is, we need to look at your wishes and situation. Because ultimately, decision aids remain a middle and not it purpose.

So, what is your goal then?

• Do you want to increase your turnover?
• Want to lower your returns?
• Want to relieve customer service?
• Want to build better customer profiles?
• Do you want to grow further in a specific product category?

Of course, it's tempting to say “✅ all of the above”, but you're actually supposed to choose. After all, that ensures focus.

Step 2 - How will you measure it?

Within e-commerce, there are quite a few KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, that provide insight into the performance of your webshop. Think about:

• Number of visitors
• Revenue
• Number of orders
• Conversion rate
• Average order value
• Number of returns
• Number of customer service contacts

Lightspeed (in Dutch) and Shopify (in English), both have made nice lists of quite a few different KPIs.

Depending on your goal, some KPIs are more or less important. For the goal you have, choose two, three, or a maximum of four.

Step 3 - Plot the potential

To get new ones, high potential choosing help categories to discover, print out your top 10/top 20 categories on the chosen KPI (s).

Scoring on one KPI

For example, total turnover, total margin or total number of returns:

If you want to keep things super simple, the first choice aid you'll make is the one at the top (Hiking Boots), the second (Jackets) is number two, the third (Sleeping Bags) at number three. You get it.

The advantage of this approach is convenience. The disadvantage is that it can paint an incomplete picture. Because if we look at the profit by category, the hiking boots are not #1, but #3. If we look at the margin per product category, the hiking boots are even the last thing:

Possible indicators that aren't immediately obvious, but can help you discover valuable categories:

• % mobile traffic - the hypothesis is that it is more difficult to orient your mobile, so that a decision aid can make the search more accessible.
• Average order value - the hypothesis is that customers are looking for more security when buying more expensive: enter the decision aid.
• New customers vs. returning customers - Repeat buyers often know (er) what they want. Categories with a high percentage of new customers are ideal for decision aids.
• Inventory level - still a lot of products in stock? Make a decision aid to stimulate sales (of the right products) and reduce the risk of dead inventory that will eventually have to be depreciated.

Scoring on two KPIs

Looking at one KPI is pretty easy, but including two or more KPIs provides a more complete picture and can better capture the dynamics of e-commerce.

Below we have already made some combinations that we use more often and have helped us in the past.

Potential impact - You can with a choice aid high performers yet higher let them perform (e.g. by providing the categories with the highest turnover with decision aids), but you can also use decision aids to strengthen the product categories where you miss opportunities. To do this, compare your webshop's overall conversion rate against category conversions.

Reduction of returns - Look at both the total volume of returns and the return rate of your product categories for the right choice help. For example, a low volume in combination with a high return rate can be a possible future pain point if there are expansion plans for the product category.

Time is money - Look at the average number of pages viewed per category in combination with the time on site to discover real “doubt categories”. The hypothesis is that more pages and more time mean that the customer is unsure and investigates independently (which you can therefore make a lot more efficient with decision aids).

Happy customers - Do you measure whether customers are satisfied with their purchase? Contrast this against, for example, the shopping cart abandonment rate, or sales volume, to see if there is an opportunity to help customers choose better.

Mix & match especially your own KPIs to see what works best for you.

And, our last tip, look beyond your nose, but don't make your nose too long either. In other words: don't overthink it. A decision aid is made in no time so if you can't choose, you'll make several, right?

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