The Need for Granular Search
February 25, 2011
Companies that use taxonomies for their business to business (B2B) sites could be in big trouble. That is, if we can believe results of a survey conducted by e-commerce application provider Endeca.
As reported in “The Evolution of E-Commerce,” the survey showed that people who shop B2B sites now expect the same personalized experience that shoppers of B2C (business to consumer) sites expect. Neither wants to sort through generalized search results like those returned by taxonomies.
The solution? According to John Andrews with Endeca:
“Websites … need to make use of much more granular approaches to tagging content in order maximize the Web customer experience. That will require in many cases new content management systems that make managing the relationship between all those tags a lot simpler. The increased nuances of e-commerce is going to push more companies to embrace a SaaS model rather than try to build it themselves.”
We tend to agree that there are better ways of structuring an e-commerce site than using taxonomies. We also agree that it makes sense for most companies to outsource the development of a content management system rather than tackling this in-house.
We have no problem with Endeca, but we feel that some of their competitors, such as Mark Logic, should also be considered.
Companies that use taxonomies for their business to business (B2B) sites could be in big trouble. That is, if we can believe results of a survey conducted by e-commerce application provider Endeca.
As reported in “The Evolution of E-Commerce,” the survey showed that people who shop B2B sites now expect the same personalized experience that shoppers of B2C (business to consumer) sites expect. Neither wants to sort through generalized search results like those returned by taxonomies.
The solution? According to John Andrews with Endeca:
“Websites … need to make use of much more granular approaches to tagging content in order maximize the Web customer experience. That will require in many cases new content management systems that make managing the relationship between all those tags a lot simpler. The increased nuances of e-commerce is going to push more companies to embrace a SaaS model rather than try to build it themselves.”
We tend to agree that there are better ways of structuring an e-commerce site than using taxonomies. We also agree that it makes sense for most companies to outsource the development of a content management system rather than tackling this in-house.
We have no problem with Endeca, but we feel that some of their competitors, such as Mark Logic, should also be considered.
Robin Broyles, February 25, 2011
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2 Responses to “The Need for Granular Search”
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I think it has always been the case that tagging detailed information generates a better user experience if indeed your company knows what to do with the data. I don’t see why that would necessarily be incompatible with a taxonomy approach- just add more levels and relations!