Now let’s imagine going into a physical retail store to buy a t-shirt.
You tell the store associate what you want to buy. They understand the words that you’re saying, but they don’t have any knowledge about the product or where it is in the store. Or worse, they send you to a completely different product department in the store.
This is what understanding user intent alone is like in e-commerce. It’s the digitized version of that employee who needs to be able to take the customer to their product.
The first part of the challenge is recognizing what the customer is looking for. The second part is being able to match this to appropriate products.
In our physical store example, this would be your store associate pointing you in the direction of the t-shirt department so you can browse the options.
If you gave them more information, for example that you want a black long sleeve cotton t-shirt, then they might take you to a particular product that they think matches the information you’ve provided.
Likewise, if you said men’s t-shirts or children’s t-shirts, the department that they sent you to or the products they recommended would change.
As human beings we are constantly making these calculations around intent and context and tailoring our responses accordingly.
This is where it can get tricky for e-commerce.