Nebraska Furniture Mart improves Web search
New search engine learns from users’ behavior
Brian Carroll -- Furniture Today, February 6, 2008
OMAHA, Neb. — Nebraska Furniture Mart reports improved Web site utility for its online customers after switching to Learning Search, a proprietary, hosted search technology, and away from an in-house developed search tool.
The Learning Search “analytic engine” from SLI Systems is so named because it can “learn” from user behavior by tracking the search terms people use on a retailer’s site and the items these users click. Nebraska Furniture adopted the new search technology in November and expects to pay about $1,200 per month for roughly 70,000 searches per month.
Learning Search appealed to Nebraska because, according to Jeff Douglas, the retailer’s Internet marketing manager, the system “required only a small amount of work on our end to get it up and running.” He said the system “continues to be completely hands-off for us.”
In addition to selling online, Nebraska Furniture Mart sells from three large stores — a 77-acre campus in Omaha, a 1 million-square-foot store and distribution center in Kansas City, Kan., and a location in Des Moines, Iowa.
In learning customer behavior, the new Learning Search tool promises to give Nebraska greater insight into what terms the store should be linking products to and including in product descriptions, and which products are the most popular for various keywords.
For example, if someone searches for “contemporary sofas,” Learning Search automatically ranks the items so that those with historically higher click-rates are listed at the top. The tool also shows how many products exist and in what categories, and gives visitors the option to sort the results by ascending or descending prices.
“Knowing what search terms are used on our site and what products generate interest is really useful to our marketing and merchandising efforts,” Douglas said. “For example, before we implemented Learning Search, we had no idea how popular the Microsoft Zune Player (an MP3 audio player) was among our customers. Without the search data we were missing out on a big opportunity to sell this product to our visitors as we hadn’t yet added it to the site.”
The hosted search option has proved markedly superior to NFM’s internally developed site search, according to Douglas, especially in the area of informing marketing efforts. Since adoption, complaints from customers who couldn’t find what they wanted are down and the amount of useful data about customer behavior is dramatically up. Learning Search is providing Nebraska with detailed information about the keywords that site visitors are using and the items they click on, helping Nebraska’s marketing team determine the items the store should stock up on or add to its inventory.
The new search has also shown the merchant which terms don’t generate good results, Douglas said. “It means we either need to add new products to our inventory or change the way our products are described so they match those search terms.”
In hosting the search, SLI sets up an initial data feed from a retailer’s Web site. This allows SLI to customize the search and report results, and it enables the retailer to focus on other marketing activities, said Shaun Ryan, SLI’s chief executive.
More than 250 sites use SLI Systems’ hosted search offerings, including Carolina Rustica, Smith & Hawken, NBC TV, Qantas Airlines and FTD.
Cupertino, Calif.-based SLI Systems develops learning-based search and navigation technology for corporate Internet sites, e-commerce destinations and consumer Internet portals.
Nebraska began selling furniture, electronics and appliances on its Web site at in 2006, mainly to take care of consumers in the five-state coverage area of its two giant stores in Omaha and Kansas City. Previously, consumers could shop NFM’s site but had to complete the order process by calling a phone sales representative or visiting the stores.
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