Kaiser Willys Accelerates Its Search Experience with BigCommerce

SOLUTION

Implementing a custom search feature.

As part of Kaiser Willys’ efforts to enhance its search experience, it launched a Shop by Diagram feature. This lets customers quickly find a specific car part by viewing a visual diagram, helping them locate the item they need faster.

“Our customers want to find the parts they need quickly, and sometimes that’s difficult,” explained Goodman. “One thing our customers find really helpful is the Shop by Diagram functionality. You can see the diagram of the components of the part you're looking to replace, and it's just as simple as clicking on the visual area showing that part. From there, it's a very quick journey to the cart.”

BigCommerce’s composable framework enables Kaiser Willys to offer this custom feature designed by Glass Onion Marketing and implemented on BigCommerce by Wasserman Digital. Since offering browsers the Shop by Diagram feature, the brand has seen an instant improvement in customer satisfaction.

“One of the reasons we chose BigCommerce’s headless implementation was to enable this custom feature,” said Goodman. “It brings in a lot of conversions, and Wasserman has been instrumental in helping us get this feature up and running on our site.”

Strategically merchandising products.

Kaiser Willys understands that its website primarily attracts shoppers seeking specific products rather than casual browsers. Because of this, the brand has partnered with Klevu to further optimize its search functionality so shoppers can find what they need quickly and efficiently.

One of the features it’s launched is keyword-level visual merchandising, which displays the most relevant products based on a shopper’s search.

“One of the top features we’ve focused on is keyword-level visual merchandising. We’ve curated 300 rule sets, so it’s very extensive,” explained Goodman. “Our shoppers look for specific items, so having those keyword sets really helps us hone in on those search results.”

In addition to keyword visual merchandising, Klevu has enabled Kaiser Willys to launch a rule-based merchandising feature.

“We have rule-based merchandising that has been key in helping shoppers find parts that are post-1971 versus pre-1971. Presenting these parts has always been a challenge, and Klevu really helped us figure out a way to make them easier for customers to find,” remarked Goodman.

Driving customer engagement and insights.

In addition to launching a more streamlined search experience, BigCommerce’s partnership with Klevu has helped Kaiser Willys improve overall customer engagement and gain insights into consumer shopping behaviors.

With Klevu, Kaiser Willys includes promotional banners in the autocomplete suggestions of the search bar. This allows the brand to promote sale items and encourage shoppers to browse products they weren’t initially searching for.

“Something we use regularly is the promotion banner in the autocomplete. This is hugely important because we have new sales weekly, and this allows us to put those right in front of customers,” explained Goodman. “This makes them aware of deals and even pushes them toward a category they hadn’t initially considered.”

Kaiser Willys also takes advantage of Klevu’s dashboard to understand what customers search for and make data-driven adjustments to its business based on these insights.

“Klevu’s dashboard really gets down into the details when it comes to what people search for,” explained Goodman. “Sometimes, it will surprise you if you don’t pay attention to the data, and you can miss key things customers look for. This helps us better understand what our customers need.”