BizAims

For a company in the field of e-commerce it is important to know what is effective feature filtering and how to apply it in a website. It allows visitors to narrow their search and/or surf through the site by choosing several product features. Feature filtering can make a huge difference when applying to consumer experience.

Obviously most visitors on an electronic commerce website will save the search option for last. The majority of users prefer to surf the site using the internal links, this is due to the fact that such method saves time and needs less mental effort.

This is the part when feature filtering comes in handy. Apart from the common e-commerce navigation, where a visitor chooses from a list of links, effective feature filtering makes it possible for the user to get their own path to a certain product. This is available through combining features in a variety of ways as users search the range of goods.

The filtering on the website should be set right. This process is intricate and mistakes may occur. An important aspect is product description and the primary metadata. This is the field where a lot of electronic commerce websites are able to improve.

For example, in the most recent Online Retail User Experience Guide, it was discovered that Currys left out a whole range of high-price Dualit toasters when the user selected "2 slice toaster." This is presumably due to the fact that the description of the product stated "1 or 2 slice toasters."

Top of Effective Feature Filtering

1. Make sure that the metadata of the product is accurate – imprecise or missing information of the product will lead to missing products and unrelated search results.

2. Provide only relevant search results – you should only present products that are available for purchase and omit those that are out of stock.

3. Display product results that match filter options. Just like it was stated previously you should display only those products that are available in stock. In addition consider showing the number of products for every feature value that can be chosen next.

4. Say no to returning "no matching products" – you have to offer feedback after every new feature has been selected.

5. Allow users to choose products according to several criteria – thus you will certainly be free from "no matching products."

6. Display all the features that were selected so far – you should show the user the selections made.

7. Some product features should be available for change or removal – no changing selections are needed, as customers refine their search.

8. Consider displaying the customer's progress towards a purchase – you may show products that matched and after each selection products are reduced in numbers.