The existing path to product when I started in MicksGarage was very simple but, unfortunately, very ineffective. The customer searched and was then brought down one of two paths:
This was a relatively straightforward path. The customer executed a search and a mix of products from various categories. No filtering was possible because of the numerous product categories involved.
This path caused many issues for customers. Most technical products are made specifically for a car make and model. Some pro0ducts require a car to be identified right down to the BHP of the engine. The old path to product simply landed the customer on a page with a long list of car makes which the customer had to scroll and click, just to be brought to another long long list of car models from that brand which had be to parsed and clicked and so on. All these pages had the full product range loading at the bottom of the list which made for huge data sets and long load times.
After a long process of sketching, prototyping with InVision and consultation with staff and customers alike we arrived at a solution. The first part of the answer was adding suggested categories to the search as the customer typed - encouraging the selection of an existing category on which to apply the query. If the search string did not return a specific category we brought the customer to a Pre Search page where they chose a category from a filterable list. Then the path split once again between Technical and Non Technical products.
Now that the customer had chosen a specific category we could bring them to a product list page with filtering options. Load times were significantly reduced. Conversions were up and customer satisfaction increased.
If a technical product was chosen we could determine to what extent a vehicle had to be identified. MicksGarage features a Car Registration lookup which I tried to make more prominent on the homepage and throughout the site as this method of identifying a vehicle is faster and more reliable. For some product categories Make / Base Model / Model are enough to provide relevant results. Testing showed that asking customers for unnecessary information was sure to lower conversions.
Once the customer identified their vehicle they were shown a filterable product listings page. Their vehicle was also set in their cookies allowing them to browse further technical products without being asked to identify their vehicle again.