Audit Service

‘E-Commerce Search’ UX Audit

What are the 15 most important changes you can make to your e-commerce search design and logic?

On-site search is key to any e-commerce business – after all, in order to buy a product your customers must be able to find it first.

Based on the 100+ findings from our desktop & mobile E-Commerce Search research study we will conduct a full Search User Experience Audit of your e-commerce site (or prototype), outlining the 15 most important improvements you can make to your on-site search experience.

The audit will focus on the type of search queries the search engine supports, what and how product data is searched, the logic for auto-complete suggestions, how users are guided in case of partial matches, the ‘No results’ page, the layout and features of the search results page (including faceted search logic), etc. In short, the entire search experience.

An expert Baymard auditor will write a detailed 40-page report with the 15 suggestions for desktop & mobile search improvements, a comparison against 60 top US, European, and international e-commerce sites in your industry, and with best practice examples for each suggestion.


Office Depot Logo
Baymard has been a great resource in helping us improve the customer experience. We are continually applying these best practices to our sites.
Bryan Trogdon Director of User Experience at Office Depot

Who is this Search UX Audit intended for?

  • E-commerce sites that want to redesign their search experience, or change search vendor, and would like a detailed search experience analysis before commencing an expensive redesign project.
  • E-commerce sites that have already optimized their search experience (design and/or logic) and would like a set of fresh eyes to identify the last usability improvements.
  • E-commerce sites that would like to benchmark their search UX performance to see how they stack up against major competitors.
  • Agencies and designers that are working on an e-commerce project and want reassurance that they’re on the right track with their current search design.

Return on Investment

Even the smallest improvement in conversion rate for any site with significant sales will lead to a notable return on investment. For example, an improvement from 3.1% to 3.6% in conversion rate for a site with $50,000,000 annual sales will yield $8,060,000 extra sales every year.


Hallmark Cards, Inc. Logo
The walkthrough today was great. The report was very, very well done and loaded with great opportunities for us to improve our business. I wanted to again express my appreciation for working with us on such a condensed time frame last month. You and your team have been amazing partners to us and we very much appreciate the work, expertise and partnership.
Wendy Bonnstetter UX Director at Hallmark Cards, Inc.

How Will the Audit Be Delivered? What Will It Cost?

The cost of a desktop & mobile on-site Search UX Audit is $6,800 and includes:

  • A 40-50 page report with 15 suggestions for on-site search improvements to your site as well as implementation examples.
  • Each of the 15 suggestions is typically detailed across 2-3 pages: 1 page with explanation of the identified usability issue and suggested change, and 1-2 pages with implementation examples from other leading e-commerce sites
  • Two UX scorecards (desktop + mobile) with 100+ search UX assessment parameters, with performance comparison against 50 top US and European e-commerce sites.
  • A 1-hour video conference with you and your team to go over the results and discuss changes.

Talk to UX auditor Laura about your goals and discuss Baymard’s UX research methodology.

Audit Price

$6,800

per audit

  • Refund Policy: In the event that we’re unable to provide 15 improvements we’ll still complete the audit and leave it up to you if you want a refund.

  • Confidential: All client-specific audits and UX scorecards are strictly confidential; they are not included in Baymard’s public benchmark databases or shared with anyone else.

  • As Baymard does not offer any kind of web design service, programming, or sell e-commerce technology, the UX audit will always be a completely unbiased analysis of your site, and not an indirect “sales pitch” for other services. At Baymard our specialization is the UX auditing.


What Our Clients Say About the UX Audit

Baymard’s research is used by more than 17,500+ e-commerce companies, researchers, and UX designers, from 80+ countries, and includes 71% of all Fortune 500 companies within e-commerce, including:

Nike Inc. Logo
Intelligent, consumer-focused insights that are clear and actionable. The team in the room really loved the way the Baymard Institute highlighted the optimizations in the various user experience elements (copy, layout, design, calls-to-action…), from the perspective of consumer struggles. Baymard’s Usability research really complements our other existing research tools.
Will Close Director of A/B Testing at Nike.com
Etsy Logo
Thank you. This was an excellent piece of work: professional, thorough, and actionable for the team. We’re very happy with the work Baymard has done for us.
Alex Wright Director of Research at Etsy
Sears Logo
Baymard produces some of the most relevant and actionable user experience research available. They really understand the needs of UX and Product Management professionals, and their deep experience in the eCommerce field allows them to offer sophisticated, nuanced insights.
Kerry McAleer Former Director of UX Research at Sears
Sports Authority Logo
Thank you for all the value delivered ahead of our new fiscal years. Your insights not only provided a definitive foundation for our UX roadmap but completely sold our executive team on the value of expert usability insights. Your service paid for itself in a matter of days and ensured all critical gaps will be filled ahead of us running the audit again next year.
Matthew Gardner Director of UX at Sports Authority
Overstock Inc. Logo
Thanks again for the great work on our checkout project. Our whole group found it incredibly insightful. We’re applying the suggestions you provided to our new checkout design which launches at the end of the month! One of my colleagues was also interested in your group’s competitive expertise with regard to responsive web and native apps.
Jaime Wilson Sr. Director of Design & Development at Overstock.com
T-Mobile / Deutsche Telekom Logo
Thank you very much for the 7 usability audits of our country-specific sites. The audits have provided us with specific and actionable advice, allowed us to prioritize development resources, and enabled us to compare UX performance between the 7 different country-specific sites, and against State of the Art implementations. The audit itself is done really professionally, and the recommendations contain actionable and insightful information.
Mirko Sablic EU eTransformation at ​Deutsche Telekom / T-mobile
Columbia Sportswear Logo
This was indeed very helpful guidance and a very well-documented roadmap for us to fix, validate, organize, collectively understand and continually improve our ecommerce foundation.
Cat Brunson UX Manager at Columbia Sportswear
Harley-Davidson Logo
We found the audits extremely helpful and validated a number of changes we have been wanting to make or are in the process of making, so thank again for all the great insights.
Colleen Kersting eCommerce Marketing at Harley-Davidson
B&H Photo & Electronics Corp. Logo
I can confirm that the list was fully implemented. Every time we put up a change we either A/B test or we watch it very closely to determine that it’s doing better and not the opposite. So I can confirm that these fixes have improved our checkout. Thanks for everything.
Abraham Berkowitz B&H Photo
Bell Canada Logo
Thank you for the UX audit presentation, it was FANTASTIC. People here are quite pleased and amazed by the amount of work that was put into this.
Marc Ulrich Associate Director of Web Usability at Bell Canada
John Lewis Logo
The Baymard team has been a delight to work with on the JohnLewis digital platform audit. They responded to the brief very well, have been very accessible for ongoing clarification and queries and Rebecca was excellent in the recent team share, articulately presenting findings in an engaging walk-through with the wider team which will really support driving engagement and a robust response. Many thanks for all the effort and focus folks.
Greg Woods UX & UI Design and Research Manager at John Lewis
Shopify Logo
We’ve received some awesome feedback from our Merchant Success team as well as our merchants about all of the UX Audits we’ve had thus far with Baymard. Thank you so much to you and your team for all of your hard work. The pilot with Baymard has been going fantastic and I’m really excited with all that we’re learning! You have an amazing platform, team and super helpful data base for us to work with.
Nicole Papp Merchant Success Manager, Shopify
Avast Logo
We have recently tested some of your recommendations for the Avast checkout and got some great wins!
Tomas Janu E-Commerce Director at Avast
GE Healthcare Logo
I’m reviewing the report this morning and I am delighted. The recommendations are detailed and our resulting actions are clear. I’m excited to share this with the rest of the team!
Donal Phipps Digital Marketing Leader at GE Healthcare
Best Secret Logo
We are very excited to finally proceed with the UX improvements, and I truly believe your audit report will be super helpful to put us ahead of the wave. If you ever need a reference, please do not hesitate to share my contact.
Marian Gradl-Schikora Managing Director at Best Secret
Google Logo
I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the amazing work on this audit. You should know that this has been very well received internally and there’s a lot of excitement around adopting the ideas you have shared.
Sudeep Agarwal Growth Manager at Google Shopping
DSW Logo
This was…mind-blowing. We’ve been having conversations on the side as you’ve been presenting the audit findings. There’s so much to do!
Ethan Leonow UX Designer at DSW
Jarden Consumer Solutions Logo
Thanks for everything. The audit was extremely useful, I think we have gained valuable insight.
Tara Costa Senior Manager at Jarden Consumer Solutions (FoodSaver, Breville, etc.)
Hallmark Cards, Inc. Logo
The walkthrough today was great. The report was very, very well done and loaded with great opportunities for us to improve our business. I wanted to again express my appreciation for working with us on such a condensed time frame last month. You and your team have been amazing partners to us and we very much appreciate the work, expertise and partnership.
Wendy Bonnstetter UX Director at Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Office Depot Logo
Baymard has been a great resource in helping us improve the customer experience. We are continually applying these best practices to our sites.
Bryan Trogdon Director of User Experience at Office Depot
Bosch Thermotechnology Logo
Thank you very much for your time and the presentation. It was super useful, comprehensive and most importantly very concrete, so that we know exactly what to do next. We will definitely recommend you to other divisions within Bosch.
Dominik Weber Digital Marketing Manager at Bosch Thermotechnology
Carnival Cruise Lines Logo
We like what we are reviewing from the audit - great analysis and feedback.
David Polanco UX Lead at Carnival Cruise Lines
Ace Hardware Logo
I’m an avid user of your reports and recommendations. I have leveraged your articles and findings throughout my career in B2B, B2C, and hospitality.
Jenny Urban User Experience Director at Ace Hardware
Fast Growing Trees Logo
We implemented this [1 of the 15 audit suggestions] and since then we’ve had a 20% increase in warranties added and a pretty healthy average order increase because of that. That was a great suggestion, it hit our bottom line immediately.
Justin French Director of E-commerce at Fast Growing Trees
Altitude Sports Logo
Let me say that it was exceptionally well done, and we are super excited to implement every one of the recommendations there. Everything you said has usually been a case of discussion in the past, but having them recommended in a deck like this will allow us to move forward.
Louis Parizeau VP of Marketing at Altitude Sports
Purch Logo
Really good rundown on all these thing. I definitely think we got a lot of value out of it, and we’re excited to get it all in and do some A/B testing on this.
Greg Dalby Director of E-Commerce at Purch
RepairClinic.com Logo
Within a very short time Baymard Institute provided 15 clear, useful improvement suggestions for our checkout process. We intend to implement all of them. It’s easy to find companies that offer website improvement suggestions. But, most companies don’t do their homework and don’t provide specific examples of how best to make the improvements. With Baymard Institute, the checkout process suggestions they made were intuitive, specific, and actionable. I highly recommend their audit service.
Chris Hall President of RepairClinic.com
Nutrisystem Logo
The recommendations in our audit were awesome - well prioritized, actionable and helped us focus on what to optimize. This audit, along with the e-Commerce Reports & Benchmark Databases, are my go-to resources for thorough, insightful information. Thank you!
Erin Straub UX Design Manager at Nutrisystem
StickerMule.com Logo
Wow, this is great! Just reviewed it with the team. It’s a huge help and we’re excited to fix these issues.
Anthony Thomas UX responsible at StickerMule.com
n11.com Logo
We have worked with a number of third party companies before on various projects/audits, and I can certainly say that working with Baymard was not only a pleasure; but you delivered on time; to the level of depth we wanted; addressing important issues; and answering all our questions; and you did all this for a great price. A big THANK YOU on behalf of N11.
Efe Yaman Program Manager at n11.com
prAna Logo
Wanted to thank you again for the checkout audit and walking us through the process. It was super helpful and we can’t wait to apply the changes to our checkout for a better user experience.
Ramona Rejali Senior UX Designer at prAna
Microchip Logo
A great presentation, and the results were very eye-opening. It’s really helpful.
Tiziana Collova e-Commerce Marketing Specialist at Microchip
Epicenter Consulting Logo
Given the tricky science of conversion rate optimization, it is great to know that you are dealing with professionals whose advice is based on solid research. It was a pleasure collaborating with the Baymard team.
Aaron Henig Operations Manager at Epicenter Consulting, New York
SiteOne Landscape Supply Logo
Baymard recently did a UX audit of our new e-commerce Website. We were very pleased with the results. The report and live review of the findings validated our approach to user experience, and also, we learned a lot about best practices for e-commerce UX. We believe Baymard’s work will help us increase revenue and user satisfaction.
Colleen Romero Digital Marketing Director at SiteOne Landscape Supply
Zenbooth Logo
I just wanted to thank you guys for all of the time that you’ve put into this, and for a great presentation. We don’t have anyone at the company that has formal UX/UI experience, so being able to tap into Baymard’s resources/expertise is an immediate win for us. Some of the things you pointed out, we’ve already identified as areas for improvement (which was validating), but a lot of the recommendations are things that we hadn’t identified and are for the most part immediately actionable.
Mischa Szymanski Marketing Coordinator at Zenbooth
Anodyne Logo
I’m very impressed! Not about our site’s performance, quite the opposite, but about your work. Very detailed and packed with great and tangible advice. This was exactly what I dreamt about, but sometimes you just have to be careful dreaming.
Kenneth Avnsted CEO at Anodyne
Ace Hardware Logo
A big thanks to you and the Baymard team for such an informative and valuable session. The Ace Hardware team truly appreciated the Baymard teams feedback, diligence and the overall presentation. We are looking forward to using the excellent information provided to improve the acehardware.com user journey.
Lexy Cascone Marketing Manager UX/UI at Ace Hardware
V-ZUG Logo
Thanks for this audit and your good work. This was exactly what I was aiming for. Also thanks for the very, very professional presentation, and answering all our countless questions. Very good work.
Andreas Blank Head of E-Commerce at V-ZUG
Ōura Ring Logo
First off, thank you. This was the most engrossed I’ve ever been in a 2-hour meeting. This [audit presentation] was incredibly insightful and very helpful. Many, many thanks.
Yvonne Kim Head of E-Commerce at Ōura Ring