Improving Usability of Product Data at Macys.com

E-commerce websites contain lots of product information that is underutilized. I know this professionally because structured product data is our business. Macys.com, is a favorite shopping site of mine, and was the obvious place to go when I needed to get a blazer in a hurry for our trip to the IRWD conference.

Normally when I shop online, I have some familiarity with the product I'm buying. But in the case of blazers, I was clueless. I didn’t own a blazer and didn’t know any of the relevant attributes. All I knew is they needed to match the various slacks I own, and of course I wanted something with style.

Unfortunately, after searching for "Mens Blazer" and refining by Blazer > Mens, I became stuck. I was presented with a list of 134 blazers and limited options for navigation.

I could narrow results by Brand, Special Size, Mens Waist Size (which seems wrong for a jacket), and Color, but I wasn't ready to make decisions based on these attributes. I wanted to get a sense of the Materials, Styles, and Patterns that were available.

Being in the product data and attribute business, I knew this information was probably available to me, just not easily accessible and usable. To get at this unstructured information I would have to click on the product details for each item.

I found one blazer that looked pretty clean, and looked at the attributes:

- Material: Linen; cotton

- Style: Two button front; Flap pockets; Side vents

- Lapel: Notch

It has some features that I like. But are there any others like this one? What other kinds of materials do they have? Do I have to buy a blazer that is Dry Clean Only? What about patterns?

I had recently read a Smashing Magazine article about How Hard It Can Be to Shop at Macy’s. They were shopping for bed sheets, but experienced the same limited filter options. I could have left the site, but I was confident that Macy's had a good blazer, and I was determined to buy one. Macy’s faceted navigation was failing me, so I took matters into my own hands.

I grabbed all of their product data for blazers, and ran it through our system, to bring out all of the unemployed attributes and attribute values that were present. Look at the rich structure that was produced:

By adding important attributes to help filter results, I turned a potential hour long shopping session into a quick, focused buying session. I gained confidence that Macy’s had what I wanted, and spent time purchasing rather than exploring. I ended up going to the store to make sure the blazers looked good on me (decided to buy 2), but that is the subject of another post.

If Macy’s were to make these attributes available to everyone how much of an improvement in key shopping metrics (bounce rate, conversion rate) do you think they’d get? And how much would the clickstream of the attributes chosen by consumers to refine their search be worth to Macy’s in terms of tailoring their website to meet customers needs?