Lucidworks, a leader in AI-powered search, commissioned Retail TouchPoints for its inaugural ecommerce best practices survey to measure the key elements powering site performance. The survey establishes benchmark KPIs such as add-to-cart (ATC) percentage and click-through-rate (CTR), and outlines top concerns such as performance, product findability, and customer experience. It also demonstrates that retailers are adopting AI-powered tools at a relatively high rate, but still have room to improve on creating hyper-personalised experiences and understanding customer intent.
Site performance, product findability, personalised recommendations, and more, all impact whether a customer returns later, purchases, or abandons their search completely. These factors are especially critical during high volume shopping periods, including Black Friday, increasingly a European phenomenon, and the upcoming holiday season. Almost three-quarters (73%) of retailer respondents say downtime, degraded site performance, and poor customer experience, collectively, is their top worry during peak demand periods.